Sunday, January 3, 2010
Share your experiences here...
Today we kicked off our church-wide campaign to listen through the New Testament in 40 days. Feel free to comment on your encounters with God and others as you let words or texts envelope you, meditate on them and pray them deep into the fabric of your life. Today we listened, or read, Matthew chapters 1 - 7. Anything jump out at you?
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4 comments:
I just finished listening to today's passages - Matthew 1-7. I found it to be well narrated. I liked how one reader was the narrator, another was the voice of Jesus, and yet another reader was the voice of Satan. Satan's voice was interesting because it was read in a hissing fashion. It seemed as if the 28 minutes just flew by.
Matthew 6: 16-18 brought up a topic that I would like to discuss - FASTING. Does any Christian group in today's time fast and if so, why? Does anyone have any thoughts or ideas on this topic?
It was Matt. 1 - 7 yesterday, and chapters 8 - 12 today. I love the Sermon on the Mount and how Jesus reshaped the way the church understood Scripture (You have heard it said, but I say...) Perhaps Jesus needs to do the same today?
Yes, Linda, I fast regularly, but only from certain foods and more frequently from certain activities that would interfere with my calling. I have fasted from the horror genre of movies because I cannot fathom that they have any redeeming value for my soul or life. There are other things as well. Perhaps many do this, and many more should.
Steve
I like the use of different voices, too. I find myself in anticipation of the next day, as "the story" continues to unfold. I have recall in my mind for what I have read previously, yet, in our age of so many mediums (like movies, CDs, etc.), it seems this is a different way for my senses and brain to grasp something different. Interesting how our minds work that way. It re-enforces the idea to read again and again, to learn something different or new each time.
On the fasting question: Catholics obviously fast from meat on Fridays -- some only during Lent and some year-round. Beyond that, I am not aware of any regular denominational fasting within the Christian tradition. I know that some churches will occasionally have congregational fasts, during which time members decide to fast for a specific length of time and/or for a specific cause. I also know that many Christians participate in individual fasts for any variety of reasons -- in petition for a certain cause before God, to show thankfulness to Him, to recenter their focus, and so on.
I remember studying the topic in college, and a friend pointed out something that I'd never considered before. When Jesus speaks about it, he does not say, "If you fast..." he says, "WHEN you fast..." To Jesus, fasting was a given, a certainty. True, he was speaking to a predominantly Jewish audience for whom fasting was part of their religious observances, but I still found that to be interesting and it certainly changed my perspective on the issue.
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