NULL
Illustration
Object:
1 Samuel 16:1-13
"Expect the unexpected!" How often have you gone to a job interview or meeting having built up a particular image of someone in your head... only to walk in and find someone who completely contradicts your expectations? Perhaps you are supposed to meet with the highly educated CEO of a well-established company -- and although you are expecting an older gentleman in a suit and horn-rimmed glasses, the person who sits across from you at the desk is a young woman in her mid-twenties. Or perhaps you go to talk to an accountant, and instead of finding someone with a bad toupee and a tweed suit, you find yourself in an office decorated with football paraphernalia, talking to someone who looks like Paul Bunyan.
Leah T.
1 Samuel 16:1-13
David Livingston was placed gently on his bed. Ill, few believed he could live until morning. A young boy was told to sit on the steps of the good physician's hut. If anything should be needed for the care and comfort of the man beloved by all, the youth should run and get the elders of the village. Hours into the night the lad heard a stirring from within. As instructed, he immediately went for help. When the elders arrived at the hut they found Livingston dead, kneeling in prayer beside his bed.
This missionary devoted his life to the African people and had gained their esteem and respect. They knew his body should be returned to his London home, where it would be entombed in Westminster Abbey. But his heart they removed and buried in the African soil, for it was with them that Livingston had shared his life.
God said to Samuel, "for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart." The people of Africa saw the heart of Livingston, and they knew it was righteous and pure. The Lord looked upon the heart of Samuel, and he knew it was faithful and holy. When the Lord looks upon our hearts, what will he see?
Ron L.
Ephesians 5:8-14
I never experienced complete darkness until I was a teenager. I took part in a tour of a potash mine near my home. After we descended several hundred feet into the ground, the tour guide showed us the machinery used in mining the potash as well as the layout of the mine. Then, at one point, he stopped the vehicle we were in and shut all the lights off. There, at that moment, I experienced total darkness. There was absolutely no light. Someone could hold their hand an inch away from my face and I wouldn't know it.
When Paul talks about the Ephesians at one time being "darkness" (v. 8), I think back to that experience in the potash mine. Before Christ, I was blind, not seeing that I was leading myself to destruction. In that mine, if I had started walking, I could have walked right into a wall or fell into a hole and I wouldn't have known it until it happened. I wouldn't have seen any dangers around me. Yet, when the lights returned, I could see the road ahead of me, and I could have seen any potential dangers around me. When the light of Christ comes into our lives, his light shines in our lives, and as Paul said, "When anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light" (vv. 13-14).
Craig K.
John 9:1-41
We learn cause and effect at an early stage. Elementary school children are carefully taught: If you touch fire, then you will get burned. If you don't do your homework, you will get in trouble. People of Jesus' time also understood their world through cause and effect -- although some of their cause-and-effect reasoning seems a little extreme to us today. Today, we explore the cause-and-effect of chronic health issues, such as blindness or deafness, to biological events that occur while a child is still in the womb. People in Jesus' time, however, saw serious health problems like this as the effects of something much less objective. Instead of biology causing blindness, they saw its cause as sin -- the sin of a child's parents, the yet-to-be-committed sins of the blind infant. Regardless, this ingrained understanding of cause-and-effect led the disciples to ask, when they met a blind man, "For what sins is this man being punished?"
Leah T.
John 9:1-41
In order to foster congeniality and cooperation among various Christian denominations, the World Council of Churches established a week of Christian unity called the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. In 1980 liturgies and material were written that all denominations could use to foster unity. Rev. Dr. Michael Kinnamon, the General Secretary of the National Council of Churches, referred to the resources as "the kindergarten of ecumenism." It was the beginning.
When Jesus healed the blind youth, the Pharisees kept challenging the youth as to who it was that performed this miracle on the sabbath, in violation of the Law. So intent were the Pharisees that they even summoned the parents of the youth for questioning. The parents, out of fear, differed to their son. The boy, once again challenged, responded, "I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see." This could be a "kindergarten" moment, as it was the beginning of understanding of who Jesus was as the Son of God.
As Christians it is important part of our witness to create "kindergarten moments" in the lives of others. Ron L.
"Expect the unexpected!" How often have you gone to a job interview or meeting having built up a particular image of someone in your head... only to walk in and find someone who completely contradicts your expectations? Perhaps you are supposed to meet with the highly educated CEO of a well-established company -- and although you are expecting an older gentleman in a suit and horn-rimmed glasses, the person who sits across from you at the desk is a young woman in her mid-twenties. Or perhaps you go to talk to an accountant, and instead of finding someone with a bad toupee and a tweed suit, you find yourself in an office decorated with football paraphernalia, talking to someone who looks like Paul Bunyan.
Leah T.
1 Samuel 16:1-13
David Livingston was placed gently on his bed. Ill, few believed he could live until morning. A young boy was told to sit on the steps of the good physician's hut. If anything should be needed for the care and comfort of the man beloved by all, the youth should run and get the elders of the village. Hours into the night the lad heard a stirring from within. As instructed, he immediately went for help. When the elders arrived at the hut they found Livingston dead, kneeling in prayer beside his bed.
This missionary devoted his life to the African people and had gained their esteem and respect. They knew his body should be returned to his London home, where it would be entombed in Westminster Abbey. But his heart they removed and buried in the African soil, for it was with them that Livingston had shared his life.
God said to Samuel, "for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart." The people of Africa saw the heart of Livingston, and they knew it was righteous and pure. The Lord looked upon the heart of Samuel, and he knew it was faithful and holy. When the Lord looks upon our hearts, what will he see?
Ron L.
Ephesians 5:8-14
I never experienced complete darkness until I was a teenager. I took part in a tour of a potash mine near my home. After we descended several hundred feet into the ground, the tour guide showed us the machinery used in mining the potash as well as the layout of the mine. Then, at one point, he stopped the vehicle we were in and shut all the lights off. There, at that moment, I experienced total darkness. There was absolutely no light. Someone could hold their hand an inch away from my face and I wouldn't know it.
When Paul talks about the Ephesians at one time being "darkness" (v. 8), I think back to that experience in the potash mine. Before Christ, I was blind, not seeing that I was leading myself to destruction. In that mine, if I had started walking, I could have walked right into a wall or fell into a hole and I wouldn't have known it until it happened. I wouldn't have seen any dangers around me. Yet, when the lights returned, I could see the road ahead of me, and I could have seen any potential dangers around me. When the light of Christ comes into our lives, his light shines in our lives, and as Paul said, "When anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light" (vv. 13-14).
Craig K.
John 9:1-41
We learn cause and effect at an early stage. Elementary school children are carefully taught: If you touch fire, then you will get burned. If you don't do your homework, you will get in trouble. People of Jesus' time also understood their world through cause and effect -- although some of their cause-and-effect reasoning seems a little extreme to us today. Today, we explore the cause-and-effect of chronic health issues, such as blindness or deafness, to biological events that occur while a child is still in the womb. People in Jesus' time, however, saw serious health problems like this as the effects of something much less objective. Instead of biology causing blindness, they saw its cause as sin -- the sin of a child's parents, the yet-to-be-committed sins of the blind infant. Regardless, this ingrained understanding of cause-and-effect led the disciples to ask, when they met a blind man, "For what sins is this man being punished?"
Leah T.
John 9:1-41
In order to foster congeniality and cooperation among various Christian denominations, the World Council of Churches established a week of Christian unity called the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. In 1980 liturgies and material were written that all denominations could use to foster unity. Rev. Dr. Michael Kinnamon, the General Secretary of the National Council of Churches, referred to the resources as "the kindergarten of ecumenism." It was the beginning.
When Jesus healed the blind youth, the Pharisees kept challenging the youth as to who it was that performed this miracle on the sabbath, in violation of the Law. So intent were the Pharisees that they even summoned the parents of the youth for questioning. The parents, out of fear, differed to their son. The boy, once again challenged, responded, "I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see." This could be a "kindergarten" moment, as it was the beginning of understanding of who Jesus was as the Son of God.
As Christians it is important part of our witness to create "kindergarten moments" in the lives of others. Ron L.
