SUNDAY SCRIPTURE (MATTHEW 19:30-20:16)

"But many who are first will be last, and the last first."

“For the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the marketplace,and to them he said, ‘You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.’ So they went. Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same. And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing. And he said to them, ‘Why do you stand here idle all day?’ They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’ And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.’ And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius. Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius. And on receiving it they grumbled at the master of the house, saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?’ So the last will be first, and the first last.”

Matthew 19:30-20:16 (ESV)

STRANGE FIRE AND THE REAL EMERGING THREAT TO THE CHURCH

With all the fuss over the recent Strange Fire Conference that was put on by John MacArthur and company, I have came across a lot of differing opinions on the part of many. Some people are very upset by the things that were said, claiming that these leaders are being unloving and divisive. Others are saying, that it's been long past due that someone spoke out about this issue. Then there is the third group of people trying to make peace between the other two. 

This piece however isn't about whether the Strange Fire Conference was the start of something good or just Christians putting a bad foot forward. There are others who have better insight on this and offer up some good critique. If you are interested, I recommend Tim Challies, who covered the entire conference fairly and offers some good advice for people on both sides. If you want a Charismatic perspective, you should listen to Dr. Michael Brown's interview with Phil Johnson on his radio program Line of Fire.

That being said, there was one comment I saw on facebook that was posted by a friend of mine that I thought was very interesting. When talking about the purpose of MacArthur's conference, he said, "Hahah!! He's about 100 years too late... That pony's bolted out the barn door, grown, multiplied and now fills the prarie."

SUNDAY SCRIPTURE (JAMES 4:13-17)

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.

James 4:13-17 (ESV)

The providence of God is a wonderful thing. Knowing God is control of all situations gives us confidence in two ways. First, we can trust in the promises of God. When we read a passages such as Ephesians 1, we can stand firm in the knowledge that God will never lose control and all that is written there is true. Second, when we pray, we don't pray to a God who is unable to do all that we ask. He is in control and if He wills it, nothing can stop it.

EMPTY TOMBS AND EMPTY TEMPLES

This is a guest post by Jomo Thompson, who is a lawyer from Seattle, WA. Jomo and I were college roommates at the University of Michigan and for a brief period were coworkers for a campus church.

Are we trying to show the world we are better? What should we be doing instead?

This past spring I visited Japan for three weeks. It was my third time, but was by far the longest I had ever spent there or the deepest I had ever delved into the culture. The purpose of the trip was part vacation and part scouting, as my family has been invited to join a church plant in Tokyo as ‘tent makers.’

Japan has two major religions, the mostly indigenous Shinto, characterized by a reverence for nature and pantheism; and the mostly imported Buddhism, which has taken on some Japanese aspects, but retains at its core the karmic cycle and pursuing release from that cycle.

Some devotees praying at Kitano Tenmangu in Kyoto

Religion in Japan is practiced publicly. Shrines and temples are mostly outdoors and prayer gatherings, festivals, and ceremonies are open for all to see and available for anyone to join.

SUNDAY SCRIPTURE (MATTHEW 13:24-30;36-43)

He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers,Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’”