St. Mark’s Lutheran

Readings
Job 12:1-6,13-25
Acts 11:19-30
John 8:21-32

Meditation
How much do we care about what takes place in other congregations? And what do we care about? Do we have any obligation sister congregations? The reading in Acts today is descriptive, by that I mean it talks about how the early church approached major questions. It is not necessarily prescriptive, by that I mean that we are bound as a law to follow it. Even though it is not prescriptive, it does come from the inspired and apostolic example and is meant for our teaching, it is worth understanding. We have seen with Cornelius and the Ethiopian the Word reaching beyond just Jews, although both of those were ‘god-fearers’, a special class. Now we see the Gospel starting to go out to the ends of the earth. Some of those evangelizing spoke to the Greeks in Antioch, and a great number believed. Here is where those first questions come in. Did the Jerusalem church, undergoing persecution (remember Stephen), yawn or say not our problem? No, news came and they sent Barnabas. He main message was two-fold: 1) remain faithful to the Lord and 2) with steadfast purpose. He wanted to be sure the doctine was correct and that they were practicing it. He went beyond that though. These were greeks. They would not ‘know the scriptures’ which at the time were the OT. Barnabus goes to Tarsus and brings back Saul to Antioch. Barnabus not only checks on the teaching and practice of the church, but goes and finds a geat teacher to guide them in the future. The early church most definitely care about sister congregations. Specifically they cared about their teaching first and their practice. What are practices that congregations could follow today that might carry out this ministry? Does you congregation have any interesting ones? Is something like this possible in protestantism which mostly operates as individual congregations? Some questions to think about on a minister’s Monday off along with everyone else on Labor Day

May the Lord bless your day off and grace your labor and thought in visiting and in your chosen vocation.

Tags: Meditation //