When I was studying this morning, my heart was really heavy and I couldn’t pin down why, then I remembered, “Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” So, I thought I’d ask him to let me in on what it was that He thought I needed. Along the way, I ended up looking up a few references for “ask” and I stumbled on good ole Luke 11:9. Well, I’ve always heard that the asking was to be done with the thought of “in God’s will” and this verse then was pretty wide as to what you could ask for under those conditions. But I thought of what you said about making Jesus the “point” of it all and I backed up a bit to the beginning of the little section and you could have bowled me over. It’s been right there under my nose all these years.

Jesus was teaching his guys how to pray and started talking about a fellow needing bread. (Now, I always thought this was an example of a little story that I never wanted to follow. Who wants to reap the conquences of pestering their neighbor in the middle of the night?) Then his explanation of the point he’s trying to make concerning how to pray, goes right into the asking for things, and then down to snakes and eggs. I began looking for Jesus being the point of all of this and wondered, what is Jesus REALLY telling us to ask for in v9? Well, the answer was in v13″…give the Holy Spirit to those who ASK him.” So, in v9 Jesus would be saying “Ask [for the Holy Spirit] and it [the Holy Spirit] will be given to you…”

I just had to continue with this…so what was the seek part? What do we seek? Well, the guy needing bread in v5 was seeking bread, Jn 6:35 “I am the bread of life” …that was easy.
And the “…knock and the door will be opened to you” part had to refer back to the guy telling his friend not to bother him by his continual knocking because his door was already locked. Jesus is the door/gate, Jn 10:9, Rev 3:20.

So, you were right. In “…God’s Kitchen” you said, “The Bible shows me Jesus. The reason I believe the Bible is inspired is that it shows me who Jesus is and what Jesus means.” I read through this section again (Luke11:1-13) and can now see what Jesus was trying to tell his disciples. He told them to ask for the Holy Spirit (which Jesus would send to them on Pentacost), to seek Jesus who is the bread that gives eternal life, and to come to the door of Jesus (the cross) which is the only place we can enter into real life. God’s purpose in pursuing us is to ultimately give us one thing – eternal life. And it is found in only one place – through the gate of the cross of the Christ which he has opened for us.

WOW….thanks, Michael. That’s a whole lot better than “this is the way to get everything you want…just ask God for it and He’ll give it to you.”

stkatheryne

Judges is eggs. Jesus is the cake.

The eggs are the eggs. It says what it says. I’m not preaching Judges to my people. I am preaching the Final word that judges Judges

But aren’t you sidestepping the question? I’d be happy to take this offline if you’d prefer, but I’m still not getting it.

If Judges says YHWH said to do it, and this is unworthy of the NT God as revealed in Jesus, where does that leave us?

If Judges is wrong, that opens a Pandora’s Box for a lot of uncomfortable passages in the OT. I’m not trying to argue with you, I’m just trying to understand exactly what you’re saying here. Forgive me if I’m being dense.

1) The text of Judges says what it says. I accept that without revision.

2) What I do with that text is non-Christian if Jesus isn’t the Final Word on any text in Judges.

3) so Judges is of little interest to me…apart from getting the story of Israel to Jesus.

I have a question about Judges. Are you saying that YHWH did not command the extermination of Canaan? That the Israelites heard wrongly?