On Line Bible Study - For the Week May 9-15, 2011
Lesson 492
If you arrive late for the movie you miss the beginning. If you leave early, you miss the ending. The kingdom of God requires an open heart in order to recognize its presence here and now. It requires loyalty and vigilance in order to anticipate the full expression of what God has in mind.
The Christian life has a certain quality of "not looking back" to it. To be faithful in this regard requires loyalty to Jesus' vision for what is to come. This is where spiritual discipline comes in to the picture. Wonderful memories sustain us, or keep us bound to what once was. Jesus is always forward-looking. So must we be.
The reference to Lot's wife - the one who looked back and was freeze-framed in a time gone by - is one that Jesus uses to caution us as to the cost of discipleship. As good as it once was before, Jesus points us toward an eternal "now" - the moment when all past moments melt into the One Moment of the Eternal Kingdom of God.
Luke 17: 22 Then he said to his disciples, “The time is coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, but you will not see it. 23 People will tell you, ‘There he is!’ or ‘Here he is!’ Do not go running off after them. 24 For the Son of Man in his day[d] will be like the lightning, which flashes and lights up the sky from one end to the other. 25 But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation....
28 “It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. 29 But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all.
30 “It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed. 31 On that day no one who is on the housetop, with possessions inside, should go down to get them. Likewise, no one in the field should go back for anything. 32 Remember Lot’s wife! 33 Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it.
In the previous lesson Jesus addressed the Pharisees. They were missing the reality of the kingdom in their midst. As we continue through Luke 17 Jesus now addresses the disciples. The emphasis here is not in what is currently happening; rather, Jesus turns his attention to the consummation of the kingdom - its fulfillment.
If you arrive late for the movie you miss the beginning. If you leave early, you miss the ending. The kingdom of God requires an open heart in order to recognize its presence here and now. It requires loyalty and vigilance in order to anticipate the full expression of what God has in mind.
The Christian life has a certain quality of "not looking back" to it. To be faithful in this regard requires loyalty to Jesus' vision for what is to come. This is where spiritual discipline comes in to the picture. Wonderful memories sustain us, or keep us bound to what once was. Jesus is always forward-looking. So must we be.
The reference to Lot's wife - the one who looked back and was freeze-framed in a time gone by - is one that Jesus uses to caution us as to the cost of discipleship. As good as it once was before, Jesus points us toward an eternal "now" - the moment when all past moments melt into the One Moment of the Eternal Kingdom of God.
posted by Mark D at 12:19 PM
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