1.31.09

Daily Scripture: Hebrews 11:1-6

1 Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. 2 This is what the ancients were commended for.

3 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

4 By faith Abel brought God a better offering than Cain did. By faith he was commended as righteous, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith Abel still speaks, even though he is dead.

5 By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death: “He could not be found, because God had taken him away.” For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God. 6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

Read additional translations at Biblegateway.com or youversion.com

Reflection Questions:

Science writing today contains extensive discussions of “dark energy” and “dark matter”—unseen forces that nevertheless leave signs of their existence. Faith and science are not enemies—faith deals with other unseen forces, like love, trust and steadfastness. These also leave signs of their existence in our lives.

• How does this teaching about faith affect your attitude toward common sayings like “Seeing is believing”? How can you value all that science can teach us about our world and our universe without limiting the scope of your knowledge only to that which scientific methods can observe?
• No one alive today ever saw Abraham Lincoln, William Shakespeare or Socrates—yet we confidently accept the testimony of those who did. Are you equally willing to take seriously the testimonies of those who knew Jesus and who have had personal encounters with God?

Read insights and reflections from today’s passage by our pastors at gpsinsights.wordpress.com

Weekly Prayer:

Lord God, you created me with a mind that asks questions and has the analytical ability to pursue answers. You also gave me the capacity to gaze in wonder at fall colors, be inwardly stirred by music playing through my iPod headphones and gasp in awe as a baby’s tiny fingers grasp mine. Teach me how science and faith can be allies in helping me live my life effectively for you. Amen.

Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, TODAY’S NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 2001, 2005 by International Bible Society®. Used by permission of International Bible Society®. All rights reserved worldwide.

1.30.09

Daily Scripture: 1 Timothy 6:13-16

13 In the sight of God, who gives life to everything, and of Christ Jesus, who while testifying before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you 14 to keep this command without spot or blame until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 which God will bring about in his own time—God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16 who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. Amen.

Read additional translations at Biblegateway.com or youversion.com

Reflection Questions:

At the beginning of 1 Timothy, Paul described God with a string of astonishing adjectives—eternal, immortal, invisible (1 Timothy 1:17). At the end, he returns to the theme, not seeking to “prove” God through observation or argument, but rejoicing in the wonder and mystery of God’s greatness.

• If God in fact possesses the characteristics these verses say God does, would you expect such a God to be “provable” or “discoverable” through the application of the scientific method? What reasons would you give for your answer?
• This text, like John’s words yesterday, says we know God through the person of Jesus. Have you examined the four gospels, the primary source documents we have about Jesus, for yourself? If not, join us starting Feb. 22 for a series titled “The Final Week,” which will study key gospel passages.

Read insights and reflections from today’s passage by our pastors at gpsinsights.wordpress.com

Weekly Prayer:

Lord God, you created me with a mind that asks questions and has the analytical ability to pursue answers. You also gave me the capacity to gaze in wonder at fall colors, be inwardly stirred by music playing through my iPod headphones and gasp in awe as a baby’s tiny fingers grasp mine. Teach me how science and faith can be allies in helping me live my life effectively for you. Amen.

Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, TODAY’S NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 2001, 2005 by International Bible Society®. Used by permission of International Bible Society®. All rights reserved worldwide.

1.29.09

Daily Scripture: John 1:1-18

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all people. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.

9 The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only [Son], who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

15 (John testified concerning him. He cried out, saying, “This is he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’ “) 16 Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God, but the one and only [Son], who is himself God and  is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.

Read additional translations at Biblegateway.com or youversion.com

Reflection Questions:

“In the beginning,” light and darkness, life and God—John clearly wants us to recall Genesis when we read his gospel. It’s as though he says, “Remember the creation story? I’ve got an update—the creator God didn’t forget us. He came into our darkness and lived with us, bringing light that can’t be put out.”

• The Gospel of John begins with the very same words as Genesis: “In the beginning. . . .” How, if at all, does John’s “creation story” enlarge your understanding of God? Of how we come to know who God is? Of how we can become more authentically human?
• Which is more “true”: a geologist’s technical description of the Grand Canyon’s rocks and sediments or a poet’s imagery evoking the Canyon’s grandeur and majesty? When John says “No one has seen God,” is he devaluing science or recognizing the coexisting value of poetry and faith?

Read insights and reflections from today’s passage by our pastors at gpsinsights.wordpress.com

Weekly Prayer:

Lord God, you created me with a mind that asks questions and has the analytical ability to pursue answers. You also gave me the capacity to gaze in wonder at fall colors, be inwardly stirred by music playing through my iPod headphones and gasp in awe as a baby’s tiny fingers grasp mine. Teach me how science and faith can be allies in helping me live my life effectively for you. Amen.

Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, TODAY’S NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 2001, 2005 by International Bible Society®. Used by permission of International Bible Society®. All rights reserved worldwide.

1.28.09

Daily Scripture:Genesis 2:4-31

4 This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, when the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.

5 Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no plant had yet sprung up, for the LORD God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground, 6 but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground. 7 Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

8 Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. 9 The LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

10 A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. 11 The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12 (The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin and onyx are also there.) 13 The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush. 14 The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Ashur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will certainly die.”

18 The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

19 Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.

But for Adam no suitable helper was found. 21 So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

23 The man said,
“This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman,’
for she was taken out of man.”

24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

25 The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

Read additional translations at Biblegateway.com or youversion.com

Reflection Questions:

As you read this creation account, notice how it differs from the story you read yesterday and what aspects of it are similar. One difference is hard for English translations to convey clearly—yesterday’s story always uses the Hebrew name YHWH for God, while today’s uses a different Hebrew term, Elohim.

• What important ideas does this creation story include that were absent from the first one? What significant ideas from the first one does this one omit? If God had put you in charge of collecting the materials for the Bible, would you have included both of these stories? Explain your reasons.
• What vivid image does this story use to tell us that God gave human beings the opportunity (and therefore the freedom and responsibility) to make moral choices between good and evil? Is there any area of your life where you face such a choice now? If so, ask God to help you choose the good.

Read insights and reflections from today’s passage by our pastors at gpsinsights.wordpress.com

Weekly Prayer:

Lord God, you created me with a mind that asks questions and has the analytical ability to pursue answers. You also gave me the capacity to gaze in wonder at fall colors, be inwardly stirred by music playing through my iPod headphones and gasp in awe as a baby’s tiny fingers grasp mine. Teach me how science and faith can be allies in helping me live my life effectively for you. Amen.

Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, TODAY’S NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 2001, 2005 by International Bible Society®. Used by permission of International Bible Society®. All rights reserved worldwide.

1.27.09

Daily Scripture: Genesis 1:1 – 2:3

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

6 And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” 7 So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.

9 And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.

11 Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. 12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.

14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. 16 God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.

20 And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” 21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” 23 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.

24 And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

26 Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

27 So God created human beings in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.

28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.

31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

1 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.

2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

Read additional translations at Biblegateway.com or youversion.com

Reflection Questions:

Today we are reading the first story in Genesis about the creation of the world; tomorrow we will read the second one, so that we can compare them. In this story, notice the order of events and the assumptions about the structure of the world (e.g. waters above and below the vault of the sky).

• In a world where many people worshipped the sun, moon, stars and the forces of nature as the ultimate realities, what revolutionary religious claim does this passage put forth? What is the story’s central focus: the details of “how” Earth was created or God as the creative agent behind it all?
• This creation story makes some sweeping assertions, such as that humans are created in the image of God and that God made certain portions of time holy. Can statements like these be proved or disproved scientifically (i.e. tested by observation)? What spiritual truth(s) do they convey to you?

Read insights and reflections from today’s passage by our pastors at gpsinsights.wordpress.com

Weekly Prayer:

Lord God, you created me with a mind that asks questions and has the analytical ability to pursue answers. You also gave me the capacity to gaze in wonder at fall colors, be inwardly stirred by music playing through my iPod headphones and gasp in awe as a baby’s tiny fingers grasp mine. Teach me how science and faith can be allies in helping me live my life effectively for you. Amen.

Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, TODAY’S NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 2001, 2005 by International Bible Society®. Used by permission of International Bible Society®. All rights reserved worldwide.

1.26.09

Daily Scripture: Luke 17:20-21

20 Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, 21 nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is in your midst.”

Read additional translations at Biblegateway.com or youversion.com

Reflection Questions:

The Pharisees, who were powerful religious leaders in Jesus’ day, looked for a tangible, “real” Kingdom of God. They wanted to know when and where God’s power would show itself in visible, clear-cut ways. Jesus said his Kingdom operated in another dimension, one not subject to direct observation.

• The scientific method “involves observation and theory to test scientific hypotheses.” Does Jesus’ statement oppose science, or just suggest that some things are beyond observation?
• Depending on what Bible translation you use, Jesus says God’s Kingdom is “within” you or “among” you. (The Greek word can be translated either way.) How would the two meanings differ? Which makes more sense to you in your experience with God? Or, might Jesus have intended both meanings?

Read insights and reflections from today’s passage by our pastors at gpsinsights.wordpress.com

Weekly Prayer:

Lord God, you created me with a mind that asks questions and has the analytical ability to pursue answers. You also gave me the capacity to gaze in wonder at fall colors, be inwardly stirred by music playing through my iPod headphones and gasp in awe as a baby’s tiny fingers grasp mine. Teach me how science and faith can be allies in helping me live my life effectively for you. Amen.

Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, TODAY’S NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 2001, 2005 by International Bible Society®. Used by permission of International Bible Society®. All rights reserved worldwide.

1.25.09

Weekly Prayer:

Lord God, you created me with a mind that asks questions and has the analytical ability to pursue answers. You also gave me the capacity to gaze in wonder at fall colors, be inwardly stirred by music playing through my iPod headphones and gasp in awe as a baby’s tiny fingers grasp mine. Teach me how science and faith can be allies in helping me live my life effectively for you. Amen.

Download a printable version of this week’s GPS.

1.24.09

Daily Scripture: Acts 11:2-18

2 So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him 3 and said, “You went into the house of the uncircumcised and ate with them.”

4 Starting from the beginning, Peter told them the whole story: 5 “I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision. I saw something like a large sheet being let down from heaven by its four corners, and it came down to where I was. 6 I looked into it and saw four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, reptiles and birds. 7 Then I heard a voice telling me, ‘Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.’

8 “I replied, ‘Surely not, Lord! Nothing impure or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’

9 “The voice spoke from heaven a second time, ‘Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.’ 10 This happened three times, and then it was all pulled up to heaven again.

11 “Right then three men who had been sent to me from Caesarea stopped at the house where I was staying. 12 The Spirit told me to have no hesitation about going with them. These six brothers also went with me, and we entered the man’s house. 13 He told us how he had seen an angel appear in his house and say, ‘Send to Joppa for Simon who is called Peter. 14 He will bring you a message through which you and all your household will be saved.’

15 “As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit came on them as he had come on us at the beginning. 16 Then I remembered what the Lord had said: ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ 17 So if God gave them the same gift he gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could stand in God’s way?”

18 When they heard this, they had no further objections and praised God, saying, “So then, even to Gentiles God has granted repentance that leads to life.”

Read additional translations at Biblegateway.com or youversion.com

Reflection Questions:

Directed by God, Peter ministered to a Roman soldier—and some other Christians were upset that he had mixed with “them.” (If you have time, go back to Acts 10:1 and read the whole intriguing story.) But God cared about “them”—“do not call unclean what God has called clean,” said Peter’s vision.

• A tendency to divide the world into “us” and “them” seems, ironically, to be a common human trait. As you see the world, which persons or groups of people fall into the category of “them”? Does Peter’s vision (which reversed his view of the Roman troops in his land) speak to your view of “them”?
• Peter was sure he knew what was clean and unclean—even a bit proud that he had strictly avoided the unclean (verse 8). Then he learned that God’s definitions were different from his. Has God ever led you to rethink any of your definitions? Are there any God is nudging you about right now?

Read insights and reflections from today’s passage by our pastors at gpsinsights.wordpress.com

Weekly Prayer:

Dear God, I’m thankful I can wrestle with questions about myself, life’s purpose, and your call to service. I’m thankful I can learn some of your truth. Please keep me from the hurtful arrogance that says I’ve figured it all out and have the right to condemn and condescend to others. Teach my heart the ultimate truth—that you are love. Amen.

Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, TODAY’S NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 2001, 2005 by International Bible Society®. Used by permission of International Bible Society®. All rights reserved worldwide.

1.23.09

Daily Scripture: John 4:4-24

4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.

7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)

10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?”

13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but those who drink the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”

17 “I have no husband,” she replied.

Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”

19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

Read additional translations at Biblegateway.com or youversion.com

Reflection Questions:

In Jesus’ day, Jewish rabbis rarely had contact with Samaritan women, as this woman’s shock shows. Notice verse 19 and on where she tries to avoid a personal exchange by raising a theological dispute. Jesus refuses the bait—what matters, he says, is worshipping God in spirit and truth.

• It’s clear that for many Samaritans and Jews, “truth” meant having a correct intellectual belief about the right place to worship. Do you think Jesus was using the word mainly to describe correct ideas and language? What aspects of our humanity besides intellect might be included in “spirit and truth”?
• What risks of misunderstanding or damage to reputation existed for Jesus when he chose to have this conversation with the Samaritan woman? What made him willing to take those risks in order to offer her the living water she needed?

Read insights and reflections from today’s passage by our pastors at gpsinsights.wordpress.com

Weekly Prayer:

Dear God, I’m thankful I can wrestle with questions about myself, life’s purpose, and your call to service. I’m thankful I can learn some of your truth. Please keep me from the hurtful arrogance that says I’ve figured it all out and have the right to condemn and condescend to others. Teach my heart the ultimate truth—that you are love. Amen.

Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, TODAY’S NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 2001, 2005 by International Bible Society®. Used by permission of International Bible Society®. All rights reserved worldwide.

1.22.09

Daily Scripture: Acts 17:16-34

16 While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. 17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with both Jews and God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. 18 A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to debate with him. Some of them asked, “What is this babbler trying to say?” Others remarked, “He seems to be advocating foreign gods.” They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. 19 Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we would like to know what they mean.” 21 (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)

22 Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.

24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’

29 “Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill. 30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31 For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”

32 When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, “We want to hear you again on this subject.” 33 At that, Paul left the Council. 34 Some of the people became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others.

Read additional translations at Biblegateway.com or youversion.com

Reflection Questions:

In Athens, the “other religions” capital of his world, the apostle Paul gave us a model for dealing respectfully and lovingly with people of different faith traditions while still declaring his own faith clearly. In verse 28, he even quotes a Cretan philosopher named Epimenides and the Stoic poet Aratus.

• A common stereotype of the apostle Paul (and all Christians after him) would picture him denouncing the Athenians as pagans, idolaters and libertines, destined for hell. Compare Paul’s actual speech with that stereotype. What can you learn from him about how to share your convictions with others?
• When Paul shows enough familiarity with Greek and Roman writers to quote them spontaneously, is he “selling out” his own faith? How can openness to ideas and cultures other than your own allow you to move toward conversation rather than condemnation?

Read insights and reflections from today’s passage by our pastors at gpsinsights.wordpress.com

Weekly Prayer:

Dear God, I’m thankful I can wrestle with questions about myself, life’s purpose, and your call to service. I’m thankful I can learn some of your truth. Please keep me from the hurtful arrogance that says I’ve figured it all out and have the right to condemn and condescend to others. Teach my heart the ultimate truth—that you are love. Amen.

Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, TODAY’S NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 2001, 2005 by International Bible Society®. Used by permission of International Bible Society®. All rights reserved worldwide.