Title forthcoming.

Monday night we had another OYBG meeting at la Madeleine on Westheimer, and as usual it was refreshing, interesting and inexpensive decent coffee. One of the aspects I love about the group is that for some it is the first time reading through the Bible. I can't get enough of that. It's refreshing get a different perspective on the Bible, one that doesn't have years of church cluttering and skewing the words on the page. To be honest reading the Bible lately has been a struggle. I read it searching, looking, waiting for something in the passage to jump off of a page, each time enduring until the end of the allotted reading. 

This afternoon an interesting experience occurred. Usually I think I read the Bible a lot as the protagonist. I mean if your going to read something why not be the hero? Whether it's David, or Joseph in the Old Testament, or one of the disciples in the New Testament, or a Paul writing a letter to a church that I recently visited. Back to this afternoon. Reading today in Romans 14, I read the letter differently as if Paul wrote it to me. 

Romans 14.1-23 is not the greatest letter you probably would want to receive. It's not a letter praising you for all you have done, or support for your causes. It's a section of a letter that, well, is humbling. It points to my self-righteousness. It makes loving people the way God loves them real and important. 

I really haven't a lot of thoughts on our passage in Romans, beyond encouragement to FOMers and OYBGers to read differently. To posture in a receiving end of scripture, a position as if scripture was written to you specifically. How would you read a letter or a card or an email written to you? Looking forward to the conversations.

peace!

Fear of God

Okay, as I keep on reading in the OYB I keep coming across "fear of God." This is a puzzling concept because we spend so much time talking about how God is kind and merciful. We ask for his blessing and grace daily. We thank him for his generosity and mercy, yet the bible speaks of the need for fear. This fear cannot mean the same thing in the bible that it means to us today. If that's the case, then what does it mean?