This week we will be discussing chapters 2 and 3 of Bishop Curry’s book Crazy Christian: A Call to Follow Jesus. As you read through these two chapters, please have your Bible beside you in order to reference the verses and their context when cited by Curry. Also, please keep in mind that Curry’s audience is a Diocesan Convention. He is not laying out a theology of salvation (since we are not saved by works) but is preaching to the proverbial choir and is therefore setting forth what the contemporary Christian life should look like.
As part of being a crazy Christian in the world today, these two chapters lay out that our support lies in the reciprocal nature of the two-fold commandment of love. Jesus teaches that all of the requirements of Scripture are met in the commandments to love God and to love your neighbor. Mark 12:28-31. But when we go out into the world to be disciples of Jesus, it is God (chapter 2) and our neighbor (chapter 3) who return that love and support us in our walk. We see this in Jesus’s sending out of the twelve – he gives them his divine authority and he sends them in pairs, not alone. Mark 6:7-13. More particularly, we see this support system in Acts 2. It is here that Luke tells us of the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost which remains with the disciples as they go forth to fulfill the Great Commission, and it is here that we see the first gathering of the church – devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to the prayers. v.42. In following Jesus, we are not alone.
Dinner is at 6. Discussion about 6:45. Compline a little before 8. Hope to see you here.
*** This Sunday is the second Beer and Hymns at Liberty Brewery at Broadway-at-the-Beach from 7-8:30. Please join us for drinks, song, and fellowship. ***
How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, “Your God reigns!”
Isaiah 52:7