2 Samuel 9:1-13; Acts 19:1-10; Mark 8:34-9:1

Today in Acts we get an extraordinary vision of the church in action.  It speaks volumes about the character of the early church—and the DNA of its leaders.

Paul is passing through the region, and comes to Ephesus (which you will get to see if you come on my Mediterranean Cruise Journeys of Paul Tour through Italy, Greece, and Turkey!).  He finds there some disciples, and asks them if they have received the Holy Spirit.  They answer no, stating they were baptized into John’s baptism—a baptism of repentance and believing in the Messiah, the one to come, Jesus.

So Paul baptizes them in the name of the Lord Jesus, lays hands on them, and the Holy Spirit came upon them.  Then they spoke in tongues, prophesied, and spent years preaching and arguing daily about the good news.  “This continued for two years, so that all the residents of Asia, both Jews and Greeks, heard the word of the Lord.”

Despite this obvious exaggeration that all the residents of Asia heard the good news, this testifies to the importance of the Ephesian mission.  Paul is the single greatest shaper of our religion, with only one exception – Jesus Christ.  That’s how important he is to Christianity!

They move on, and he goes to the “lecture hall of Tyrannus”.  Most certainly this is a place of trade or philosophical instruction.  It is certainly not a religious institution.  God’s word is spilling out into places almost unthinkable, and Paul and the disciples at Ephesus are key to this.

How extraordinary!  How different we think of “church” in these days, with all our Sunday-only castles.  Back then it was on the move, elusive.  How do we recapture the vigor of Acts 19?  Where is the fire for the gospel?  Where is our bold speech?

I am not arguing that we should all cash in our chips, leave our families, and venture out into the streets of Asia, but what I am challenging us to consider is to take God’s Word out of our churches and transport them to our daily lives—to our work—to our rest—on our vacations.  We are called by God to share the good news of the gospel, not just come hear it on Sunday mornings, but to make it portable and accessible for 21^st Century ears.

How will we spread the good news in this day and age?

My first recommendation is for you to get energized!!!  Have the Bible come alive!

I would seriously encourage you to join me on the Oct 2018 Cruise.  That is the easiest way to make the Bible come alive!  Journeying where Paul journeyed is truly a life changing experience.

And aboard a luxury cruise ship.  How can you beat that!?  I will be joined by Dr. Jaime Clark-Soles, NT professor from Southern Methodist University, who will be the guest lecturer while we are at sea.

Think about it.  See more at: mattmeinke.com/trips

If you are interested in giving yourself the gift of one of my biblical tours, let’s talk.

-Matt

2 Samuel 7:18-29; Acts 18:12-28; Mark 8:22-33

I have often wondered what it must have been like to stand in Jesus’ presence and see the miracles he performed.  Or can you imagine being this blind man of our passage today in Mark, and seeing for the first time, after Jesus rubbed my eyes?

Have you ever thought about what would happen if Jesus showed up these days?  How much healing would need to be done?  Sometimes we are so blind—as a people, as a church, as individuals.  I look into our healthcare system and see a lack of compassion.  There are a lot of tests and procedures, but not a whole lot of face to face time with the doctor anymore.

I also see much of the Church that by and large has become silent or complacent to politicians who lie, who lack empathy, and who disrupt safety and security, trading in the nation’s security for their own self-interests.  When will we have the courage to see the truth and speak against the hypocrisy and stand up for principals of truth, justice, and freedom once again?

It all reminds me that we are a broken people, desperately in need of Jesus’ touch.

I sense that so many of us need Jesus’ touch in this time, not just to cure us from shadow governments and the Russian mafia, but we need him to come and heal our broken lives, broken relationships.  And like this blind man at Bethsaida, we need to muster the faith and courage to move forward, knowing that Christ will be there to continue the healing.

Part of this is having the courage to know we need healing.  We are a fractured people, who either don’t know the truth, or don’t even care what the truth is anymore.

The world looks so hazy.   “Can you see anything?” Jesus is asking us.

“Yes, we can see, but things are still fuzzy.”  I know we need that second touch, to be fully restored.

Are you one needing that second healing touch of Jesus?  Are you feeling broken?  Know that you are in the hands of the One who is in all and through all and for all.

He alone has the power to touch us and heal us.

-Matt

2 Samuel 7:1-17; Acts 18:1-11; Mark 8:11-21

In the gospel of Mark, Jesus warns of the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod.  He reflects back on the feeding of the five thousand, which many of us heard read yesterday in our churches.  Jesus appears to be reminding the disciples that faith and trust are key components to miraculous deeds.

We are not told what these “hardened hearts” of the disciples are all about.  But the Pharisees were demanding a sign and not getting it.  The disciples too were not seeing the sign for what it is.  It is clear that many do not understand what is going on.

The sign wrapped up in the Feeding of the Five Thousand is one of abundance irrespective of who you are.  It is simply abundance.  Period.

We see this at the Table as well – the miracle of the Lord’s Table – where our unequal world becomes a world of equality – all are fed and all are welcome.

We reside in a kingdom where there is no Temple in Jerusalem with some who have exclusive rights.  The Temple is Christ himself, and each time we gather, and break bread, and share of the kingdom feast which he has provided, we declare that building a new Temple is not the goal, but the feeding and care of God’s people.

This is the radical nature of the miracle.  There is only peace, welcome, and a hand out.  No application to fill out.  No litmus test.  No qualification for Medicaid or drug test to pass.  No abuse of power, where if you take the bread you owe allegiance to a new master.  No strings attached.  None.

This radical table welcomes all – women and men, young and old, gay and straight, rich and poor, and is filled with the wondrous variety of every ethnicity imaginable.  This is not diversity for diversity’s sake.  This is God welcoming all his children to come home.

God’s kingdom is a place where all are fed and all are cared for.  All.

And friends, that changes the equation.  Then and now.

-Matt

2 Samuel 4:1-12; Acts 16:25-40; Mark 7:1-23

This morning, our passage in Acts is about a jailbreak.  Paul and Silas are behind bars, praying and singing hymns.  There is an earthquake.  (OK, this is starting to sound familiar.) The foundations shake.  The doors fling open wide.  The jailer panics, only to find all the prisoners still there.  He falls before them asking, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”

“Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.”  (So much for those who see “believers’ baptisms” as the only way to salvation – “You and your household.”) That night, he and his entire family were baptized without delay.

In Acts, God’s grace is on the loose.  Literally.  There are many Jews that are feeling threatened by the lessening importance of the law.  The good news cannot be contained, and is spreading even to those who know very little about God.

This has been continued tension in the church for millennia.  As new believers come into the fold, there is a tendency for those of us who have been around for a long time to kick back on our heels and not give an inch.  We become defensive and territory-oriented.

We fight about the way things used to be done.  We fight about who should have power, when God is the one with all the power anyway.

None of these fights are healthy for the church.  The fact is we are called to a new life, a life in Christ.  That earthquake was to do more than shake things up, but to set us all free, that the prison doors of our lives be flung open, and that we are ready and willing to accept God’s new creation, which is never-ending.

The church is changing.  It is on the move.  Our foundations are shaking and a new world order is upon us.

Our only call?  To believe on the Lord Jesus, and follow wherever the Spirit leads.

So let’s shake things up.

-Matt

2 Samuel 3:22-39; Acts 16:16-24; Mark 6:47-56

Today’s reading in Mark is Jesus walking on the water.  Immediately I pictured the Sea of Galilee in my mind, and the meek and mild fishermen who still clutter the small docks.  I also flashed back to early 2017 when as I gazed out my hotel window in Tiberias and witnessed the most spectacular sunrise over the Sea of Galilee.  (And yes, the above pic is me Snapchatting the experience and being a goofball.  But it was pretty!)

Going to the Holy Land and walking where Jesus walked (minus the water part!) literally changed my life.  It made the Bible come alive.  It is like the difference between watching something in black and white, and then seeing it in color.  If you have not been to Israel, I strongly encourage you to go.  I lead a trip every other year or so, and half of those trips are to the Holy Land.  Every Christian should experience the Sea of Galilee, the River Jordan, Masada, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Capernaum, Petra – at least once in their lives.

If you are interested in turning the Bible into 3D vivid HD color, my next trip is a Mediterranean Cruise through Italy, Greece, and Turkey – The Journeys of Paul.  www.mattmeinke.com/trips

At the end of the walking on the water story, after the disciples cry out in fear, after he gets in the boat and the wind ceases, then Mark states, “And they were utterly astounded, for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.”  For me, being there in Israel helped give me a measure of understanding I did not have previously.

Scholars over there speak of the Fifth Gospel.  At first I was confused, thinking they had canonized some text in the Eastern Church that I didn’t know about.  Finally a professor at the Hebrew University pulled some of us non-natives aside and said, “The fifth gospel is the land itself.  The land tells a story!  You cannot possibly understand the first four gospels until you understand the Fifth Gospel.”  He was right.

Maybe I still do not know the Messiah.  Perhaps, like the disciples, I still do not truly understand where his power was from.  But because of Israel, God’s presence has become all the more real to me.

It has also helped me to trust the text – and to trust in God.  Trust is the key to many of these miracles.  In a similar story, where Jesus calms the storm, he is asleep in the boat amidst a huge storm raging around them.  I don’t know how many of you have been in a small boat during a storm, but this is nearly impossible.

His being asleep is a theological sign for us, not a nautical one: Jesus trusted God.  In the story of Job we see a similar thing.  The one who is asleep trusts God.  The world’s chaos is of no consequence.

Here the disciples thought he was a ghost.  They were afraid.  They did not trust that their lives were in God’s hand – or worse yet, they didn’t even know that.  No matter.  Either way, they are not putting their eggs in the right basket.  To trust in the Lord is the most essential quality for the miracles.  As it turns out, to trust in the Lord is the most essential quality for our very lives.

Think about giving yourself the gift of visiting the Holy Land.  I promise it will radically change your walk of faith.   It is the power of seeing Jesus, and the text, come alive.

-Matt

2 Samuel 3:6-21; Acts 16:6-15; Mark 6:30-46

The Bible is full of power shifts and amazing conversion experiences.  Today those two combine in conversion of Lydia, the dealer in purple cloth, in Acts.

Now on the surface we may miss the profound and radical nature of this passage.  Paul and Timothy are moving through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, preaching the good news to many, which some in Jerusalem thought impossible.  Already God’s dream of a nation of believers beyond Israel is a dream too big for some.

Paul and Timothy make it to Philippi, a leading city of that time, a place of trade and commerce.  It would be like us saying, “They made it to Seattle or Hong Kong, or Tokyo!”  This is big, in and of itself.

It is also the Sabbath day, and they go down to the river to pray.  There they encounter a woman who had also gathered there.  Already the story is extraordinary.  In a culture when it was a scandal to even speak to a woman who was not of your family, these two guys buddy up and talk “faith” with her.  (Do you see God’s dream spilling out past the boundaries again?  Be on the look out in the NT.  It is always happening!)

Lydia is a dealer of purple cloth, in a region known for its purple cloth.  And she is not in her home town.  As the story unfolds, it becomes clear she owns her own home, is unmarried, and comes from relatively high social and economic status.  Selling purple, the color of royalty, she encounters many of influence. Most likely, she owned one of the largest companies in this region of the world, employing many.   And she is her own boss.  What luck that Paul and Timothy have found her!  She can greatly influence this region!

Already being a worshiper of the God of Israel, she hears the story of Jesus – a story of turning power on its head – and she was deeply moved, and opened up her heart and her home to it all. 

Lydia’s story is more than a story of conversion, or simply breaking gender barriers.  This is a story about power and influence.  We are seeing how the early church operated – much like a virus – a good virus – infecting people’s hearts in a good way and spreading like wild fire.  The good news became an unstoppable force as it spread from a centralized core to a multi-faceted and complex machine.  In its wake, it left people like Lydia entrusted with the good news of Christ’s salvation.

Now we are a part of this radical and virus-like instrument of God’s goodness.  We are entrusted with the news that Christ has died for us and saved the world, breaking apart the power and influence that others have on our lives, and opening a way of freedom from sin and the power of death.   Thanks be to God.

-Matt