Not-so-Trivial Pursuits

Ate: Chicken teriyaki with pineapple chunks, rice, sauted veggies, salad, cupcakes!
Questions: don't remember, but they were probably juicy because Annie was there.
Studied: nothing! We took a break to party like it was 1999 or 1984. We played Trivial Pursuit-Genius Edition which had a copyright date of 1984. It was before some of the players were born...sweet. Teams went a little something like this: Dave, Mark, Hanna, Laura, Patrick, and Will versus Karen, me (Jenna), Amanda, Jordan, Parks, and Annie. It was a close race, but my team eventually won thanks to Amanda's prowess with this question, "Who beats the belles of Tennessee?" It was the Yellow Rose of Texas for the uninformed.

This week we have members of the LGB coming with Beth, Marcus, Julia, and Glenn coming. Fun times! Please bring your questions and uniquely young adult-like insights.

Titus 3

The part of Titus we really enjoyed comes from Titus 3:-8. It sums up the whole Bible really. As sinful beings completely undeserving of righteousness, we were enslaved in sin until God's love and mercy were poured out on us through Jesus so that now we have the hope of eternal life.

This section reminds me of the Newsboys song, "When we get what we don't deserve, it's a real good thing. When don't get what we deserve, it's a real good thing." If you want to check out the song, here's a video from YouTube.

Ta-ta Titus

Ate: Sunday Dinner Comfort Food- homemade fried chicken, creamy macaroni and cheese, bean salad, biscuits, and fruit salad.
Questions:
1) If you were to have created the world, how would you have done it?
and
2) If you were the devil, how would you be attired?
A few people responded "me, but hotter" and I responded "pretty normal." My pretty normal was not normal pop culture portrayal of the devil...but like normal, as in unnoticeable.

Read: The rest of Titus. We read, it was good. I was tired so my memory is not. Maybe my memories need re-encoded. I'll consult a Bible tomorrow and try to remember.

The i in Titus

Ate: Yummy Indian food...chicken two ways with rice, flatbread, salad, and spicy lentil soup.
Questions: 1) At what point in a relationship is it okay to co-mingle money? The average respondent indicated no sooner than marriage. Some may opt never to co-mingle money and others indicated that co-mingling money did not exclude an additional separate account. 2) If a couple were to divorce due in part to the infidelity of one partner, should the faithful partner receive a share greater than 50% of the assets? We found it hard to find a legal, logical reason to grant more to the faithful partner, but it sounded like some of us kind of wanted to find one.
Read: Titus Chapter 1
We talked for a bit about what to read and opted to check out one of the Pastoral Letters. Paul put Titus in a position of authority and this was a letter about the care of the church. The requirements for an elder were stated: be able to be looked up to, committed to his family, self-controlled (not-pushy, short-tempered, a drunk, a bully, greedy), be hospitable, holy, disciplined, and "have a good grip on the Message." (Titus 1:9 The Message.) We noticed that Paul didn't write, "A thorough knowledge of the Jewish law." We discussed the reality that we ask pastors to be executives and theologians and is that what Paul would have looked for.

"To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted. ¹⁶They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good." These verses also caught our eyes and ears. Especially 16, they claim to know God, but fail to show it. Not only do they not show knowledge, they go so far as to deny him by their actions.

Topic-hopping after our energized side discussion: we will be inviting members of the LGB to come visit us. They indicated at the Voter's Meeting that they wanted to know more from our age group so we will be following up on that in mid-July.

James Over

Question: What would you do if you were only 6 inches tall for a day?
Read: James 3-5.
Ate: Sloppy Joe's, grilled veggies, salad, potato salad, vanilla ice cream, Moose Tracks ice cream

Some friends were away like Katie (Disneyland), Karen (visiting Mom), Newman (visiting family), and Will. Some new friends joined us, the uber-cute B-brothers Michael and Aaaron. Dinner was not convected (surprisingly), but was prepared by Dave.
Part of our (4:13-17) led us to discussing tomorrow. Not Thursday, but is this section telling us not to plan for tomorrow? Is it like an excuse? "I don't have to plan for tomorrow, God will take care of it." This passage connects to other parts of the Bible. Nehemiah asked God to bless his plans to rebuild the wall. Also, the early Christians truly believed it would be a short time before Jesus returned again. This means that the passage in Matthew about not knowing the time or place and this passage really had a sense of urgency to them about watching, waiting, and preparing for the Lord.
The last chapter was wacky. Parks read for us (never happened before that I know of!) and it warned rich people of the dangers of focusing on wealth, being patient while suffering knowing that God is merciful (holla at Job), and the power of prayer. We were perplexed by the last verse, "remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death and cover over a multitude of sins." Cover whose sins? Instead of answering, we ate ice cream. Maybe not the best method of understanding, but it was tasty!

Next week: who knows?

Micah and Prophecies of Jesus

This Sunday evening we did the entire book of Micah. It was written about 700 BC or so. It has a couple of very famous verses:

5:2 But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
though you are small among the clans of Judah,
out of you will come for me
one who will be ruler over Israel,
whose origins are from of old,
from ancient times.

This turns out to be the only place in the Old Testament where the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem is prophesied. For some reason, I was under the impression that it appeared several places. It is quoted in multiple Gospels. I confess to being a little disappointed that the prophecy of Bethlehem is not repeated elsewhere in the Old Testament.

6:8 And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.

What a wonderfully concise statement about what God really wants from His people. Micah was rejecting the law-based route to pleasing God, and re-stating what God has so many times told His people.

We had an interesting discussion about how the Jewish culture and religion has lasted over 3000 years despite many invasions, exiles, and other hardships. What other great cultures have a similar record? The Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Persians, Vikings, Ottomans, and many other empires have come and gone, but the Jewish identity has survived.

Ugh...

So I finally find myself wth the time to actually update this a little. So it pretty much plays out like this...I was gone most weekends in March traveling so I didn't attend young adults so I couldn't actually write anything and no one stepped up in my absense and posted anything on here...so the shame isn't really mine but belongs to those of you who did nothing...for shame...for shame...

Last week I was gone to a wedding in Ne but Steve Christopher and Tim Potoff graced us with their presence to help us to better understand their roles in the church, in particular T-Pots aswe have previously heard from Steve. I guess it was a rather informative night and I am slightly sad I missed it but I was pretty beat from catching red eye flights all weekend.

This week was a whole new ball game and I actually made it. We finished Ecclisiastes a few weeks ago now and were looking to delve into the stories of the Bible that we read as children. We started the evening off with custom made grilled cheese sandwhiches as well as home-made tomato soup with Basil. We had less than the required 7 but we were going to do Bible study anyways...just never really materialized. We did the question of the day which was what is the most jealous you have been or something along those lines and after that we got side tracked onto the Bible verse that should be associated with Connections...which we found and unilaterally decided to use. We also threw out some ideas of stories that we wanted to read like Samson and Delila and Caina & Abel. If you have ideas/stories either post them here or bring them along when you come next time as I'm sure we can read and discuss them...

That pretty much sums up the night. we got distracted and on what exactly, I don't know but I was compared to the snake/devil in the garden of Eden; thanks Laura...interesting side note...the most read book in the world is the Bible and the most shoplifted book in the World is...you guessed it, the Bible...something to think about...