Today’s Lectionary Readings: Psalm 63; 2 Kings 4:42-44; John 6:35-42; Ephesians 4:1-16; Psalm 1
One of the things I most loved about my time in seminary was having the opportunity to make connections between things that were previously disconnected for me. This was particularly true around issues pertaining to Christian history and Scripture. One of the things I found most fascinating in my biblical studies classes, for instance, were the strong parallels between the miracle stories associated with Elisha and the miracle stories associated with Jesus. Today’s readings from 2 Kings provides a great example of this as we are given a story that instantly reminds us of Jesus’ feeding of the 5,000 in the Gospels. The moral of the story from 2 Kings 4 is pretty clear; it’s a valuable one for us as we start the New Year. Don’t underestimate God’s ability to work with things we faithfully offer – no matter how meager our offerings might seem by the world’s standards! In today’s story, for instance, the servant’s first instinct is to withhold the 20 loaves of barley from the crowd simply because he thought it was insufficient to meet the needs of the hungry crowd. Elisha did what Jesus did, however; he encouraged his follower to take a huge leap of faith and make his meager offering available to all. Of course, what was initially perceived as an insufficient offering proved to be more than enough. How many times does something like that happen to us in our lives? How many times do we feel called to offer something of ourselves, but we hold back thinking it’s not good enough? We say things to ourselves like, “I’d love to be a mentor for an at-risk child, but what do I really have to offer him/her?” or “I’d love to serve as a volunteer with Hospice, but I wouldn’t know what to say to the patients or their families?” In this new year, make we heed the example of Elisha and faithfully make our offerings to God no matter how big or small they may at first seem. Then step back and watch God accomplish miraculous things through those offerings! Til next time…
One of the things I most loved about my time in seminary was having the opportunity to make connections between things that were previously disconnected for me. This was particularly true around issues pertaining to Christian history and Scripture. One of the things I found most fascinating in my biblical studies classes, for instance, were the strong parallels between the miracle stories associated with Elisha and the miracle stories associated with Jesus. Today’s readings from 2 Kings provides a great example of this as we are given a story that instantly reminds us of Jesus’ feeding of the 5,000 in the Gospels. The moral of the story from 2 Kings 4 is pretty clear; it’s a valuable one for us as we start the New Year. Don’t underestimate God’s ability to work with things we faithfully offer – no matter how meager our offerings might seem by the world’s standards! In today’s story, for instance, the servant’s first instinct is to withhold the 20 loaves of barley from the crowd simply because he thought it was insufficient to meet the needs of the hungry crowd. Elisha did what Jesus did, however; he encouraged his follower to take a huge leap of faith and make his meager offering available to all. Of course, what was initially perceived as an insufficient offering proved to be more than enough. How many times does something like that happen to us in our lives? How many times do we feel called to offer something of ourselves, but we hold back thinking it’s not good enough? We say things to ourselves like, “I’d love to be a mentor for an at-risk child, but what do I really have to offer him/her?” or “I’d love to serve as a volunteer with Hospice, but I wouldn’t know what to say to the patients or their families?” In this new year, make we heed the example of Elisha and faithfully make our offerings to God no matter how big or small they may at first seem. Then step back and watch God accomplish miraculous things through those offerings! Til next time…
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