"To the angel of the church in Pergamum write:
These are the words of him who has the sharp, double-edged sword. I know where you live—where Satan has his throne. Yet you remain true to my name. You did not renounce your faith in me, even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness, who was put to death in your city—where Satan lives.
Nevertheless, I have a few things against you: You have people there who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to entice the Israelites to sin by eating food sacrificed to idols and by committing sexual immorality. Likewise you also have those who hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans. Repent therefore! Otherwise, I will soon come to you and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth.
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give him a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it."
How does Jesus describe himself?
For what does Jesus commend this church?
What does Jesus have against this church? [Numbers 22-24 provide background information on Balaam and Balack.]
What promise does he provide?
How do you think this letter applies to our church?
About Me
- Allen
- Mitchell, Indiana, United States
- I love my family, and I enjoy what I do. I am in my 18th year with the Mitchell Church of Christ. I am an endurance athlete. The parallels between endurance athletics and ministry are remarkable. They are mutually beneficial.
The Holy Trinity
My favorite Icon (see link below for more information)
16 comments:
How's it going? Did you have a good weekend?
How do you like these letters that Jesus wrote to the churches of Revelation? I find them interesting. The call to suffer and the call to NOT compromise put us in a position of tension with the culture. Yet this is where we live. We continually work out the statement of Jesus: Be in the world but not of the world.
My sense is that we are too "of the world." The continuing ecomonic mess, along with the rapidly leftward move of the culture, are going to be real tests for a lot of people.
Have we as Christians placed too much trust in money and possessions to provide our security? See 1 Timothy 6 for Paul's challenge.
Do we allow the prevailing thoughts of culture dictate what we as a church believe? I think a really good example of this is how some churches are now embracing practicing homosexuals as leaders in their bodies.
What other things do we allow/compromise in churches that are a result of cultural influences?
This kind of thing seems to be an issue in Pergamum.
You know I smoke, right?
Yesterday I smoked a chicken and 2 pork shoulders. Hmmmm
While all the smoking was going on I managed to work around the yard. I never get far from the smoker, however. I check the fire about every 10 minutes. Maintaining the right temp. is the key to smoking success, along with not having a fire that is too smokey. That's right, you want to the smoke to almost be clear; otherwise you are inviting bitterness.
In between "fire checks" I worked with the millions of leaves around the yard, and Ben and I split quite a bit of wood. It was a good day.
--The Holy Smoker
I really enjoyed today. I felt like we had another God-honoring worship assembly.
LIFE Group was also good.
Our discussion was good and helpful. We concluded that in the absence of active, forced persecution it is important for us to practice discipline (See Hebrews 12). If we are not careful, then an “Ease in Zion” mindset will lead to sloppy non-sacrificial living.
I don't know about you but I find the idea of being baptized for the dead, which is a Mormon practice, to be fairly strange.
HERE is an article about some Jews being upset by the practice.
Jewish group wants Mormons to stop proxy baptisms
NEW YORK (AP) — Holocaust survivors said Monday they are through trying to negotiate with the Mormon church over posthumous baptisms of Jews killed in Nazi concentration camps, saying the church has repeatedly violated a 13-year-old agreement barring the practice.
Well, I got a huge wake-up call last week regarding my health. As part of the preparation for running the Indy Mini Marathon, the group receives free blood tests--the good kind where they draw a vile of it.
My results came back and showed that I have (very?) high cholesterol and am slightly pre-diabetic. That's just what I wanted to hear a couple weeks before I hit the half-century mark. While I didn't want to hear it, I needed to hear it, I suppose.
So now I am getting more focused on running and eating; trying to do both better.
I plan to lose 10 pounds before the year is over, and then I hope to lose another 10 before the race in May.
I've gained 15 pounds since I came back from Turkey. I lost 5 pounds while over there, so I am really about 10 pounds heavier than I was at this time last year.
Discipline!
I am presently reading N.T. Wright's Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church.
He challenges some of our traditional views about the Afterlife. I'll probably talk quite a bit about this during our December LIFE Group corporate meetings at the building. I am going to teach on the Afterlife for 3 Sunday evenings in December.
What most interests you about the afterlife? What questions do you have? What would you like to explore?
Of course all this is related to the 7 letters in Revelation, because they all end with threats and promises that will be realized later on. Right?
I completed my first wave of leaf management this evening. Since I essentially live in the woods I have lots and lots of leaves, millions of them.
I used a new leaf blower and Ben this evening, along with the lawn mower. We are in pretty good shape; just waiting on the rest of them to fall. Some of the oak trees won't give their leaves us for a long time.
I wanted to get phase one done before the rainy period of the next few days arrives. I am looking forward to the rain. Really.
Oh, that reminds me of the song I just love: MercyMe's "Bring the Rain." It seems pretty relevant to our discussion of suffering and not suffering and the problems associated with both.
I can count a million times
People asking me how I
Can praise You with all that
I've gone through
The question just amazes me
Can circumstances possibly
Change who I forever am in You
Maybe since my life was changed
Long before these rainy days
It's never really ever crossed my mind
To turn my back on you, oh Lord
My only shelter from the storm
But instead I draw closer through these times
So I pray
Bring me joy, bring me peace
Bring the chance to be free
Bring me anything that brings
You glory And I know there'll
be days When this life brings me pain
But if that's what it takes to
praise You Jesus, bring the rain
I am yours regardless of the clouds that may
loom above because you are much greater than
my pain you who made a way for me suffering
your destiny so tell me whats a little rain
Holy, holy, holy
Holy, holy, holy
is the lord God almighty
is the lord God almighty
I'm forever singing
WOW!
A F T E R L I F E
That has been on my mind a lot lately.
1. I guess it is universally accepted that we will not have a "body" in the sense that we have now.
True?
2. I have heard the comment that we will not know our loved ones in the afterlife.
True?
Good questions. And to those of us in blogville who won't be able to attend the classes, will we be able to see the answers to these questions?
Hey, we'll do what we can to keep information flowing into this blogspot.
To start the journey to answering the two questions, I would suggest two passages which may be helpful.
1 Corinthians 15:35-58
Luke 16:19-31
You can look up these passages by clicking HERE (and if you hold down your control key while clicking you can open it in a new window).
What do you think?
We attended the Mitchell High School volleyball awards dinner this evening. It was in our Family Life Center. It was a very enjoyable evening. Coach Tirey's wife put together a very nice video of all the girls, which included baby pictures.
I really enjoy volleyball and respect Coach Tirey. He treats the girls with respect and encourages them.
Rebecca is looking forward to playing next year.
Have you read the story of Balaam in Numbers 22-24? You really should.
Then notice 25:1 and 31:16a:
While Israel was staying in Shittim, the men began to indulge in sexual immorality with Moabite women, who invited them to the sacrifices to their gods. The people ate and bowed down before these gods.
“They were the ones who followed Balaam’s advice and were the means of turning the Israelites away from the LORD...”
Evidently, Balaam, the prophet for hire, who couldn’t curse the Israelites, advised Balak to use the sin of fornication to bring the nation down.
Jesus makes reference to this in the letter to the church in Pergamum.
Israel soldier gets 21 days in prison ... for yawning
Wow, I wonder what the people who sleep in church should get??
Attention snow lovers!!
Check out the latest post on Belski's Blog.
Probably won't happen, but at least there is hope.
I have Sunday's sermon finished; not quite satisfied with it. I'll let it rest for a day and work on it again tomorrow.
Today we are going to Nashville to see Luke at Lipscomb. This evening we will watch the Lipscomb volleyball team play. Rebeccas is really looking forward to that. We're also going to talk to the coaches about a friend we know who is interested in playing at Lipscomb.
We'll spend the night with our friends, the Lavendars. It should be a lot of fun. We'll be back tomorrow.
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