Window Woman and the Scripture

WINDOW WOMAN and SCRIPTURE.
Last Thursday, on my cross-country flight from Newport Beach, California, to New York, on one leg of the trip I had the aisle seat, and wonder of wonders, the middle seat was open, and then the window seat was filled by a jolly woman. She no sooner sat down than she began prattling about first one thing and then another. So I put my studying away, got out my knitting, and decided to make a new friend of my fellow traveler.

It wasn’t long until Window-woman said, ‘So, what do you do?’ ‘Oh, I write Bible studies and act as a corporate pastor…and you?’ ‘I work at a Jewish preschool.’ Always interested in all-things Jewish, I asked her whether she was Conservative or Reformed, or possibly even Orthodox. ‘Well, I guess I would be Conservative, but I only go to temple on high, holy days.’ ‘But, why?’ ‘Because on those days, the services are free; otherwise, it costs too much.’ ‘So you just don’t go??’ ‘Well, actually, I sometimes go to non-denominational churches, and those are always free.’

She continued reading to me from her magazine and told me the details about the bat-mitzvah she would be attending in Brooklyn. Finally, I could take it no longer and turned to her-- ‘Wendy, I just gotta’ ask you something—when you go to church, what do you do with Jesus?’ ‘Oh, the funny thing is, they don’t talk about Him too much.’ (Ugh . . . and I sunk a little lower in my airplane seat.)

What do to with Jesus ~ In our Morning Briefings, we got to know Jesus through a verse-by-verse study of Luke’s gospel in the Fall of ’08. After all, Jesus is central to our lives, faith, and reason for becoming students of the Word. In Jesus, we meet love incarnate, teaching beyond compare, and the miraculous amongst us. In Jesus, we meet love divine . . . consummated on the rugged cross.

At the close of Luke’s gospel, we marched right into Jerusalem, following our author Luke in his writing of the Acts of the Apostles. Jesus ascended, and the Holy Spirit descended. The disciples became beacons of the Christian message and the early church was formed. Saul, the Hebrew who hated what the believers of Jesus Christ were peddling and doing, set out to wipe them out . . . but God had another plan. He stepped right into his path as he traveled to Damascus, and got his attention. Paul, (the Greek form of his name), believed Jesus was his Messiah, and turned the Mediterranean world upside down with his missionary journeys.

So, our studying has followed Paul’s footsteps, as he wrote to the young believers; first to the church in the province of Galatia, and then to the church of Thessalonica.
**if you would like to read the Morning Briefings on Luke,
Acts, James, Galatians, or 1 Thessalonians, they are all
available and downloadable (free) at www.pastorwoman.com.

So, why should you want to read God’s Word, (as we next study Paul’s follow-up letter to the church at Thessalonica)? Reading the Word of God changes us.

“Your Word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my path,” the psalmist said, 119.05, and
“I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.” Psalm 119.11
“Your word, O Lord, is eternal; it stands firm in the heavens.” 119.89
“. . . so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire
and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” Isaiah 55.11
Besides all of the above reasons, the Bible is valuable for inspiration, correction, instruction in righteousness, and direction. So, we will move next to 2 Thessalonians!

The teachings of Paul are the principles of Christianity – of love, life in the Spirit, the doctrine of salvation, community life, and conduct. And, as always, Paul points back to Jesus, to grace, mercy, and redemption.

Well, back to Window-woman . . . after all, we had two and a half hours together, from Minneapolis to New York. ‘So, Wendy-- since you said you feel good when you go to the non-denominational church and all, I’ve heard of Messianic Jews—you too, right?’ She nodded. ‘Wouldn’t Jesus be worth looking into?’ ‘Oh, no, I was raised with the understanding and belief that Jesus was not the Messiah—I’m 33, and I’m certainly not going to start questioning that now!’ And then, ‘but I would like to read your stuff, could I?’ So, of course, I gave her a card, and told her to check out the web-site, where she would find a lot of ‘my stuff’.

Why do I devote myself to writing about the meaning and message of God’s Word? Not because I am a student, though I am; not because I have come to love Scripture, though I do! But for me, really, it is all about the Jesus ‘stuff’. Two thousand-plus years later, I still believe what he said of himself, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’* So, though we can and ought get to know God and his plans through Scripture; it all points to Jesus. Window-woman, in an odd way, helped to clarify that for me yet again.

Making friends with fellow travelers,
Christine

*John 14.6
p.s. – I repeated the actual comments of Window-woman, but it is my understanding that it is membership that involves fees, not attendance at temple. No disrespect is/was intended in any way.

PODCAST: pastorwoman.com