Today's Reading: Matthew 13: 44-53
**For a simple and good way of Daily Devotion method please click this link: Subject Shifting Devotion.pdf.
Please click this link to read Matthew 13: 44-53
Bible Study
Jesus asked the people whether they understood what He said about the kingdom of heaven and they replied that they understood. Jesus then said,
"Therefore every teacher of the law who has been instructed about the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old."
What did Jesus mean?
N.T. Wright gives us some wonderful teaching about what Jesus means. He says:
Jesus' saying about the householder who produces from his storeroom some new things are the extraordinary, brand new visions that the kingdom of heaven is bringing. The old things are the wisdom of the centuries, particularly the ancient stories and hopes of Israel. The gospel he brings - and the gospel that Matthew is concerned to tell us about - consists in bringing the two together, rooting the new deep within the old, and allowing the old to come to fresh and exciting expression in the new.
As we ponder Jesus' stories and think about what they meant then and mean now, we should always be asking ourselves: what might it mean today to be 'a scribe trained for the kingdom of heaven? How can we be sure, in our thinking, our speaking and our living, that we are both rooted in the old and also bearing the new, fresh fruit of the kingdom of heaven?
For the past two thousands years, the 'old' things people and the 'new' things people of God have been fighting each others not helping the kingdom of God to grow but to hinder its development. How can we be more teachable to accept the new and the old?
Let's have a time to be still and give the Holy Spirit space to speak through the passage of scripture we have just read. Offer this time up to Jesus as you listen to him, while listening to "Gabriel's Oboe"
Spiritual Journal
What I heard from Jesus today is: Are we teachable to accept the new and the old?
What I received from Jesus today is an invitation to be more teachable in Jesus way. Lots of Christians are not teachable because we either insist on the new way or the old way. As an Anglican bishop, I always say that I am "high", "medium" and "low". Which means I would like to brand in the good Anglican tradition to those churches I oversee. It's so difficult to make people to understand it is good to have both tradition hymns and modern praise songs, to have high liturgy using incense and also to have low liturgy to the point of not vesting, to have new simple church planting model and more traditional church planting model and many more. Sometimes I feel that I have been pressed by both sides and going nowhere.
How can we be more teachable to accept both the new and old things as both treasures is our challenge today!
We don't need to kill each others as those teachers of the law wanted to kill Jesus. Why can't we be more humble and teachable believing that both ways are treasures? Why?
Dear Lord Jesus,
Help us to be more teachable that we can accept both the new and the old so that your Kingdom will be extended in a wonderful way. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
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