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Judges 4:1-7
Oral Roberts University is a charismatic Christian university in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Its namesake and founder traveled the country with an evangelism and healing ministry for most of the twentieth century. In 1963, Roberts began this university on what he said was a mandate from God. According to http://www.oralroberts.com/oralroberts/, God told Roberts: "Raise up your students to hear My voice, to go where My light is dim, where My voice is heard small, and My healing power is not known, even to the uttermost bounds of the earth. Their work will exceed yours, and in this I am well pleased."
Whether you agree with Roberts' theology or not, the fact remains that many people still believe God can give us detailed directives even today. This lesson helps support that belief. Look at the instructions given to Barak by God: "Go, gather your men at Mount Tabor, taking 10,000 from the people of Naphtali and the people of Zebulun. And I will draw out Sisera, the general of Jabin's army, to meet you by the river Kishon with his chariots and his troops, and I will give him into your hand" (vv. 6-7).
Craig K.
Judges 4:1-7
Jane Addams, a social worker in the slums of Chicago -- like Deborah the Hebrew prophetess and only female judge listed among the judges in the Old Testament -- was a strong woman. Jane also had a knack for resolving disputes at her Hull House, the first settlement house in America that ministered to a working-class neighborhood consisting mostly of immigrants in the city of Chicago.
Eventually, like Deborah, Jane became active in the political life of her nation, advocating women's suffrage, fighting child labor abuse, and leading peacemaking efforts that eventually led to a Nobel Prize for Peace in 1931. She advised every president from William McKinley to Franklin Delano Roosevelt and she co-founded both the NAACP and the ACLU.
Jane's style of non-violence, however, differed sharply with the more militant style of Deborah, the ancient Hebrew judge. Both were powerful women who made an unmistakable impact on their day.
Richard H.
1 Thessalonians 5:1-11
In the late 1800s there were three African-American leaders who wanted to integrate blacks into white society in three very distinct ways. Marcus Garvey actually did not want to integrate blacks into white society but instead remove them altogether. Garvey started the Back-to-Africa movement, to have all blacks in the United States return to Africa and resettle in their homeland. W.E.B. DuBois, the second prominent leader, advocated a more radical approach. He was the founder of the NAACP. DuBois promoted that the Talented Tenth, or the "exceptional men," would be the ones to lead the race out of segregation. This Talented Tenth, or the most educated 10% of the African-American population, was to be forcibly infused into white leadership positions. The third approach, promoted by Booker T. Washington, was one that stressed accommodation. Washington desired African Americans to be assimilated into white society as communities became dependent upon the skills African Americans had to offer. It was an assimilation process based on trust.
Booker T. Washington is best known for articulating his position in 1895 at the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta. The speech was titled, "Cast Down Your Bucket Where You Are," but later became known as the Atlanta Compromise speech. Washington said that the Negro race began with "ignorance and inexperience" in wanting to assume leadership positions at the top. He realized that it was more efficient for African Americans to be integrated into white society from their present position of being exceptional farmers and skilled artisans.
In the speech he used the analogy of a ship's crew in need of water. In sending forth a distress message they received the reply, "Cast down your bucket where you are." The reply was offered three times before the crew obliged its message. In doing so they discovered they were no longer sailing in the salt water of the ocean but in the fresh water at the mouth of the Amazon River.
He then used this analogy to say for integration we need to cast down our buckets where we reside this day. To the blacks he spoke: " 'Cast down your bucket where you are.' Cast it down, making friends in every manly way of the people of all races, by whom you are surrounded." To the whites he spoke: "To those of the white race who look to the incoming of those of foreign birth and strange tongue and habits for the prosperity of the South, were I permitted, I would repeat what I have said to my own race: 'Cast down your bucket where you are.' Cast it down among the eight millions of Negroes whose habits you know, whose fidelity and love you have tested in days when to have proved treacherous meant the ruin of your fireside."
Washington was an advocate of building up the community with mutual trust, affection, and service. This echoes the teaching of Paul and his desire to build a church that is supportive and encouraging of all members. Paul wrote, "Therefore encourage one another and build up each other." If Christians are to work together within individual congregations and in ecumenical enterprises, then we must be supportive and encouraging of one another.
Ron L.
1 Thessalonians 5:1-11
Thieves come in the night. Drunkenness comes in the night. Sleep comes in the night. Night is when we wrap ourselves in as much safety as we can -- locked doors, darkened lights, warm quilts -- and rest in utter vulnerability until the lock is broken, until the lights are turned on, and until the quilts are snatched away from our bodies...
Paul exhorts us to live in the daytime. He calls us to a life that is not safely locked and tucked and hidden away but to a life that is lived brazenly, fully, right beside the daily dangers that confront us. We cannot lock ourselves, our hearts, and our actions away in order to live a blissful, ignorant, pain-free life. Instead, we must live with our doors wide open, the light streaming in, the blankets thrown away -- an open, honest, well-lived, world-embracing life.
Leah T.
1 Thessalonians 5:1-11
In Michal Ajvaz's The Other City, the protagonist discovers a hidden side of Prague when the sun sets. His eyes are opened to another world hiding in the mist of the one he's always known and every secret passageway, hidden doors in statues, and an underground temple are illuminated. Exploring this other city, he finds talking birds, strange creatures, and eccentric citizens with elaborate mythologies. While in the borders of his native Prague, he is at night very much in another, surreal city, and the more he understands of the Prague of the shadows, the less he understands the life he had before.
There is similarly a split between the two people Paul talks about, children of the day and children of the night. It is more than a time when people are up and vigilant because children of the light live a different life than those of the darkness.
Brian H.
Matthew 25:14-30
Why did the man with only one talent hide it and not invest it like the others did? We get a few clues from the parable. Apparently he was fearful that his master would judge him harshly. Maybe he thought the master would expect as much from him as the others even though he did not have as many talents as they had. But note the master calls this servant "lazy" and that might be a clue in itself.
Scott Peck in his provocative book The Road Less Traveled writes about discipline and love and he has the intriguing insight that the reason many people do not live disciplined lives and do not love others is because they are lazy. The roadblock to discipline is the laziness of attempting to avoid necessary suffering or taking the easy way out. The roadblock to love is the laziness of not being willing to extend yourself for someone else. To become healthy, to grow spiritually requires work, and if we are lazy we are not going to realize these desires.
Richard H.
Matthew 25:14-30
It's interesting to see how people deal with great wealth. Take, for example, John D. Rockefeller. He became one of the richest men of his generation in the oil business but he did not sit on all that money. His astute business sense was matched by his reputation as a philanthropist. He gave great amounts of money to help further education, health care, and the arts. To this day, his name graces multiple colleges and hospital wings, as well as Rockefeller Plaza in New York City. Contrast that with Bernard Madoff, the financial advisor who cheated his clients out of millions only to see that greed rewarded with a life sentence in prison.
The more we try to hold onto things, whether it is money, talent, skill, time, or whatever, the less we gain from them. The more we give, the more we use what we have for the good of others, the more we gain, especially when we use those gifts for God's glory.
Craig K.
Oral Roberts University is a charismatic Christian university in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Its namesake and founder traveled the country with an evangelism and healing ministry for most of the twentieth century. In 1963, Roberts began this university on what he said was a mandate from God. According to http://www.oralroberts.com/oralroberts/, God told Roberts: "Raise up your students to hear My voice, to go where My light is dim, where My voice is heard small, and My healing power is not known, even to the uttermost bounds of the earth. Their work will exceed yours, and in this I am well pleased."
Whether you agree with Roberts' theology or not, the fact remains that many people still believe God can give us detailed directives even today. This lesson helps support that belief. Look at the instructions given to Barak by God: "Go, gather your men at Mount Tabor, taking 10,000 from the people of Naphtali and the people of Zebulun. And I will draw out Sisera, the general of Jabin's army, to meet you by the river Kishon with his chariots and his troops, and I will give him into your hand" (vv. 6-7).
Craig K.
Judges 4:1-7
Jane Addams, a social worker in the slums of Chicago -- like Deborah the Hebrew prophetess and only female judge listed among the judges in the Old Testament -- was a strong woman. Jane also had a knack for resolving disputes at her Hull House, the first settlement house in America that ministered to a working-class neighborhood consisting mostly of immigrants in the city of Chicago.
Eventually, like Deborah, Jane became active in the political life of her nation, advocating women's suffrage, fighting child labor abuse, and leading peacemaking efforts that eventually led to a Nobel Prize for Peace in 1931. She advised every president from William McKinley to Franklin Delano Roosevelt and she co-founded both the NAACP and the ACLU.
Jane's style of non-violence, however, differed sharply with the more militant style of Deborah, the ancient Hebrew judge. Both were powerful women who made an unmistakable impact on their day.
Richard H.
1 Thessalonians 5:1-11
In the late 1800s there were three African-American leaders who wanted to integrate blacks into white society in three very distinct ways. Marcus Garvey actually did not want to integrate blacks into white society but instead remove them altogether. Garvey started the Back-to-Africa movement, to have all blacks in the United States return to Africa and resettle in their homeland. W.E.B. DuBois, the second prominent leader, advocated a more radical approach. He was the founder of the NAACP. DuBois promoted that the Talented Tenth, or the "exceptional men," would be the ones to lead the race out of segregation. This Talented Tenth, or the most educated 10% of the African-American population, was to be forcibly infused into white leadership positions. The third approach, promoted by Booker T. Washington, was one that stressed accommodation. Washington desired African Americans to be assimilated into white society as communities became dependent upon the skills African Americans had to offer. It was an assimilation process based on trust.
Booker T. Washington is best known for articulating his position in 1895 at the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta. The speech was titled, "Cast Down Your Bucket Where You Are," but later became known as the Atlanta Compromise speech. Washington said that the Negro race began with "ignorance and inexperience" in wanting to assume leadership positions at the top. He realized that it was more efficient for African Americans to be integrated into white society from their present position of being exceptional farmers and skilled artisans.
In the speech he used the analogy of a ship's crew in need of water. In sending forth a distress message they received the reply, "Cast down your bucket where you are." The reply was offered three times before the crew obliged its message. In doing so they discovered they were no longer sailing in the salt water of the ocean but in the fresh water at the mouth of the Amazon River.
He then used this analogy to say for integration we need to cast down our buckets where we reside this day. To the blacks he spoke: " 'Cast down your bucket where you are.' Cast it down, making friends in every manly way of the people of all races, by whom you are surrounded." To the whites he spoke: "To those of the white race who look to the incoming of those of foreign birth and strange tongue and habits for the prosperity of the South, were I permitted, I would repeat what I have said to my own race: 'Cast down your bucket where you are.' Cast it down among the eight millions of Negroes whose habits you know, whose fidelity and love you have tested in days when to have proved treacherous meant the ruin of your fireside."
Washington was an advocate of building up the community with mutual trust, affection, and service. This echoes the teaching of Paul and his desire to build a church that is supportive and encouraging of all members. Paul wrote, "Therefore encourage one another and build up each other." If Christians are to work together within individual congregations and in ecumenical enterprises, then we must be supportive and encouraging of one another.
Ron L.
1 Thessalonians 5:1-11
Thieves come in the night. Drunkenness comes in the night. Sleep comes in the night. Night is when we wrap ourselves in as much safety as we can -- locked doors, darkened lights, warm quilts -- and rest in utter vulnerability until the lock is broken, until the lights are turned on, and until the quilts are snatched away from our bodies...
Paul exhorts us to live in the daytime. He calls us to a life that is not safely locked and tucked and hidden away but to a life that is lived brazenly, fully, right beside the daily dangers that confront us. We cannot lock ourselves, our hearts, and our actions away in order to live a blissful, ignorant, pain-free life. Instead, we must live with our doors wide open, the light streaming in, the blankets thrown away -- an open, honest, well-lived, world-embracing life.
Leah T.
1 Thessalonians 5:1-11
In Michal Ajvaz's The Other City, the protagonist discovers a hidden side of Prague when the sun sets. His eyes are opened to another world hiding in the mist of the one he's always known and every secret passageway, hidden doors in statues, and an underground temple are illuminated. Exploring this other city, he finds talking birds, strange creatures, and eccentric citizens with elaborate mythologies. While in the borders of his native Prague, he is at night very much in another, surreal city, and the more he understands of the Prague of the shadows, the less he understands the life he had before.
There is similarly a split between the two people Paul talks about, children of the day and children of the night. It is more than a time when people are up and vigilant because children of the light live a different life than those of the darkness.
Brian H.
Matthew 25:14-30
Why did the man with only one talent hide it and not invest it like the others did? We get a few clues from the parable. Apparently he was fearful that his master would judge him harshly. Maybe he thought the master would expect as much from him as the others even though he did not have as many talents as they had. But note the master calls this servant "lazy" and that might be a clue in itself.
Scott Peck in his provocative book The Road Less Traveled writes about discipline and love and he has the intriguing insight that the reason many people do not live disciplined lives and do not love others is because they are lazy. The roadblock to discipline is the laziness of attempting to avoid necessary suffering or taking the easy way out. The roadblock to love is the laziness of not being willing to extend yourself for someone else. To become healthy, to grow spiritually requires work, and if we are lazy we are not going to realize these desires.
Richard H.
Matthew 25:14-30
It's interesting to see how people deal with great wealth. Take, for example, John D. Rockefeller. He became one of the richest men of his generation in the oil business but he did not sit on all that money. His astute business sense was matched by his reputation as a philanthropist. He gave great amounts of money to help further education, health care, and the arts. To this day, his name graces multiple colleges and hospital wings, as well as Rockefeller Plaza in New York City. Contrast that with Bernard Madoff, the financial advisor who cheated his clients out of millions only to see that greed rewarded with a life sentence in prison.
The more we try to hold onto things, whether it is money, talent, skill, time, or whatever, the less we gain from them. The more we give, the more we use what we have for the good of others, the more we gain, especially when we use those gifts for God's glory.
Craig K.
