The Adulterous Woman From Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power

Thanks for joining me for a little break at Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power. Grab your coffee and let’s get back to this detour from long ago that is ever so relevant in our lives today.

For those of you joining us for the first time, we are in the midst of the Feast of the Tabernacles; Jesus has just spoken in the Temple about the exceptions that the religious leaders allowed as it related to circumcision on the Sabbath – which was a breach of the Law because it was considered work and His own mercy in healing on the Sabbath.

That caused a major ruckus and there were all kinds of murmurings going on while in the background the religious leaders were plotting His arrest, unbeknownst to the people who were in groups whispering their opinions about this Christ. Those who found Him to be who He said He was could not or would not speak up for Him because of fear of excommunication, which was considered to be one of the most devastating things that could happen to a Jew. To go against every religious law they had been spoon-fed since they were old enough to eat of wisdom would be like swimming up river 24/7; eventually the new way of thinking would be overtaken, drowned out by the old. The pressure was just too much.

The point of this detour is this: Sometimes it feels like that today, at least to me. It’s becoming more and more apparent that we are being surrounded by a host of things that are working 24/7 to rip us away from the One in Whom we put our hope, our trust, our First Love and get us to flow down the stream, spiraling farther from truth, the safety of His grace, mercy, farther away from the new law.

Are we standing in our groups, clicks, and whispering our belief in Him, fearful of what others may think or say, fearful of standing out like a sore thumb? Or are we going against the current, standing in our hope and faith in the One whom we will spend eternity with after it’s all said and done, no matter what the circumstance?

Join me tomorrow as we get back on track and closer to the adulterous woman!

Pondering,

Evinda

The Adulterous Woman From Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power

Thanks for joining me at Coffee Hour for a little break and the continuation of The Adulterous Woman, which we still haven’t met, but we are getting close! Grab your coffee and come on in.

We left off with the answer to why everyone was whispering in their little groups at this party: Because if these so-called leaders heard them, their worst nightmare would begin: excommunication from the synagogue.

So this explains why no one would speak up for Jesus -- STOP! We have to take this detour; it’s too relevant in our lives today not to. So let’s look up the definition of excommunicate in the Merriam Webster’s Dictionary: excommunication – 1: an ecclesiastical censure depriving a person of the rights of church membership. 2: exclusion from fellowship in a group or community.

Oh, I just saw something else, another interesting fact from the World Encyclopedia: Excommunication – Formal expulsion from the communion of the faithful from sacraments and from rites of a religious body. Largely abandoned by Protestants, excommunication has been retained by Jewish congregations and by the Roman Catholic Church.

Remember, we’re in the New Testament with two major bodies of religion, if you will, Jew and Gentile, sort of like our two governmental bodies, Republican and Democrat, and just as we see the unnecessary fighting between those bodies, imagine that kind of constant rift all because of Jesus and His Father who desired then, and desires still, fellowship and relationship with His chosen people, the Israelites/Jews, and the Gentiles, you and me! I’m trying to paint a verbal picture of constant tension, a major power struggle, if you will, that caused these Jews to whisper their true desire to know more about The Christ that they’d been hearing about for as long as they had been walking.

Religious Leader

Imagine the fascination they must have experienced. Who was this Guy who was said to be abolishing The Law that they had been spoon fed from the time they could eat of spiritual food? Was there really a possibility that they didn’t have to obey the Law down to the letter? If He wasn’t The Christ, how could He know that they didn’t keep the Law Moses had given down to all of them? And what about that guy He healed on the Sabbath?

Oh, yes, there was much conversation going on about Jesus, and I can only imagine the confusion that overwhelmed the hope of those who were searching for The Christ. This type of conversion that believing He to be Who He said He was would be like you and me converting from Christianity (New Testament) to Judaism (Old Testament) theology. Do you feel the jump? It’s almost insurmountable, too much to wrap up on one blog….

Join me for more on this detour Wednesday.

Thoughtfully,

Evinda
P.S. Join me today at 1:00 Pacific time for our Blog Talk Radio show, Breaking Free from Co-Dependency at www.blogtalkradio.com/Chicklit-Power