FAITH CONNECTION – FARMERSVILLE UMC

Ministry Updates for Friday, September 25th, 2020

 Facebook Live Worship—Sunday, September 27th, at 9:30 a.m.

Please join us as we again worship through Facebook Live. Use this link to watch the service. And please consider passing it along.

https://facebook.com/events/s/farmersville-united-methodist-/603192110351310/?ti=icl

 Scripture – Matthew 7:12

In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.

 Reflection – A Shortcut

There are 66 books in the Protestant Bible, and 73 in the Catholic. The Eastern Orthodox Church never solidified their sacred canon, so depending on the locale, they might use even more than 73.

 After he directed ‘The Passion of Christ’, someone asked Mel Gibson if he might consider filming another story from the Bible. He answered, ‘The Maccabees’. This felt strange to my Protestant ears since this book is technically not part of our Bible.

 The Bible covers thousands of years of faith history and is comprised of many books. We take for granted one or more being close by. But in Jesus’ time, this would not be the case. Without a Bible nearby, the easily memorable preaching of Jesus and some of his simple statements would be of a great help.

 If we could simply ‘do to others as we would have them do to us’, how different would our world be? It is my experience that the better I get to know someone, the more I understand their imperfections and the ‘demons’ (however you understand that word) they wrestle with. For me, understanding makes it easier to be kind to people.

 I feel strongly Christians should know their Bible and read it daily, even if it is only for a minute or two. And if you don’t understand what you read, or you did not have time today, you can remember ‘the law and the prophets’, or the whole of scripture can be, according to Jesus, boiled down to ‘do to others as you would have them do to you.’ And if you have a hard time being kind to someone, maybe start by assuming if you knew them better, you might be more compassionate toward them.

 Our Prayer

God of compassion, God of a complex world, sometimes we need a little help to do right by you. We give you thanks for Jesus’ teaching, parables, and preaching, which help us keep things simple and good when life gets demanding and complex. Help me take time today to put myself in someone else’s shoes, and to do unto them as I would like done to me if I were in their place. Amen.