Luke 7:1 After he had finished all his sayings in the hearing of the people, he entered Capernaum.
Jesus has just taught the crowds who were amazed at His teaching (probably under the watchful Roman eyes of their area squad of the Legion).
Jesus taught His own people with such sayings as:
Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you.
Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.
The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good.
“Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?
The multitudes followed Jesus from place to place (under watchful Roman eyes, along with ears to hear the true motives of this Jewish teacher who taught in the synagogues of the towns and on the distant hillsides) … waiting to see what their promised Messiah would do. (The Roman authorities and Jewish authorities wanted to know that as well.)
Jesus has told the crowds, “For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, 44 for each tree is known by its own fruit.”
What is the fruit of Jesus’ ministry? For most of the crowds just watch. Many bear no good fruit.
Jesus returns to his new home, followed by the crowds of onlookers.
2 Now a centurion had a servant who was sick and at the point of death, who was highly valued by him. 3 When the centurion heard about Jesus, he sent to him elders of the Jews, asking him to come and heal his servant.
This Roman soldier had a servant, possibly a captured slave from their many battles of the Roman campaign and rule of the region (perhaps even a zealous Jew). We know that the culture of the City of Rome required many slaves (25% of the population). This person (slave or servant) was valuable to the Roman Centurion (a General in charge of many men, in addition to his own servants).
Propriety and protocol require communication at the proper levels of leadership to approach a common Jew like Jesus; therefore the centurion sends another servant to communicate with the servant of a Jewish elder about dealing with this common Rabbi of the hillsides about possibly helping him in a personal matter of his gentile (Roman) household.
The Elders themselves (highly esteemed and with the authority of Jewish leadership of their fellow Jews like Jesus) come to the Rabbi Jesus and ask Him a favor. No faithful Jew would refuse such a request directly from an Elder.
4 And when they came to Jesus, they pleaded with him earnestly, saying, “He (this gentile, Roman centurion) is worthy to have you do this for him, 5 for he loves our nation, and he is the one who built us our synagogue.”
So the Jews then begin a short journey toward the Roman encampment nearby, but not in Capernaum.
6 And Jesus went with them. When he was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends, saying to him, “Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof. 7 Therefore I did not presume to come to you. But say the word, and let my servant be healed.
Fruit of His teaching! AND from a Roman gentile.
8 For I too am a man set under authority, with soldiers under me: and I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”
And Jesus had just asked on the hillsides:
“Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?”
Beloved believer, you who this day claim Christ by calling yourself a christian; do you hear now Jesus’ teaching to faithful followers of God?
It is a further lesson for the ears of skeptical Jews and their local Elders:
9 When Jesus heard these things, he marveled at him, and turning to the crowd that followed him, said, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.”
And later report would come back to Capernaum from the gentile Roman camp of this miracle that did not even require the touch or near presence of Jesus:
10 And when those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the servant well.
Adoption and mercy for gentiles like most of us. Jesus IS Lord of all.
2 “Son of man, there were two women, the daughters of one mother. 3 They played the whore… in their youth; there their breasts were pressed and their virgin nipples handled. 4 Oholah was the name of the elder and Oholibah the name of her sister. They became mine, and they bore sons and daughters…
5 “Oholah played the whore while she was mine, and she lusted after her lovers… 6 clothed in purple, governors and commanders, all of them desirable young men, horsemen riding on horses. 7 She bestowed her whoring upon them, the choicest men … and she defiled herself with all the idols of everyone after whom she lusted. 8 She did not give up her whoring that she had begun in Egypt; for in her youth men had lain with her and handled her virgin nipples and poured out their whoring lust upon her. 9 Therefore I delivered her into the hands of her lovers, into the hands … after whom she lusted. 10 These uncovered her nakedness;they seized her sons and her daughters; and as for her, they killed her with the sword; and she became a byword among women, when judgment had been executed on her.
11 “Her sister Oholibah saw this, and she became more corrupt than her sister in her lust and in her whoring, which was worse than that of her sister. 12 She lusted after the Assyrians (the same kind of men as her sister), all of them desirable young men. 13 And I saw that she was defiled; they both took the same way. 14 But she carried her whoring further. She saw men portrayed on the wall, the images of (evil enemies of God)… 16 When she saw them, she lusted after them and sent messengers to them in Chaldea. 17 And they came to her into the bed of love, and they defiled her with their whoring lust. And after she was defiled by them, she turned from them in disgust. 18 When she carried on her whoring so openly and flaunted her nakedness, I turned in disgust from her, as I had turned in disgust from her sister. 19 Yet she increased her whoring, remembering the days of her youth, when she played the whore in the land of Egypt 20 and lusted after her lovers there, whose members were like those of donkeys, and whose issue was like that of horses. 21 Thus you longed for the lewdness of your youth, when the Egyptians handled your nipples and fondled your young breasts.”
22 Therefore, O Oholibah, thus says the Lord God: “Behold, I will stir up against you your lovers from whom you turned in disgust, and I will bring them against you from every side… 24 And they shall come against you… They shall set themselves against you on every side … and I will commit the judgment to them, and they shall judge you according to their judgments. 25 And I will direct my jealousy against you, that they may deal with you in fury. They shall cut off your nose and your ears, and your survivors shall fall by the sword. They shall seize your sons and your daughters, and your survivors shall be devoured by fire. 26 They shall also strip you of your clothes and take away your beautiful jewels. 27 Thus I will put an end to your lewdness and your whoring begun in the land of Egypt, so that you shall not lift up your eyes to them or remember Egypt anymore.
28 “For thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will deliver you into the hands of those whom you hate, into the hands of those from whom you turned in disgust, 29 and they shall deal with you in hatred and take away all the fruit of your labor and leave you naked and bare, and the nakedness of your whoring shall be uncovered. Your lewdness and your whoring 30 have brought this upon you, because you played the whore with the nations and defiled yourself with their idols. 31 You have gone the way of your sister; therefore I will give her cup into your hand. 32 Thus says the Lord God:
“You shall drink your sister’s cup
that is deep and large;
you shall be laughed at and held in derision,
for it contains much;
33 you will be filled with drunkenness and sorrow.
A cup of horror and desolation,
the cup of your sister Samaria;
34 you shall drink it and drain it out,
and gnaw its shards,
and tear your breasts;
for I have spoken, declares the Lord God. 35 Therefore thus says the Lord God: Because you have forgotten me and cast me behind your back, you yourself must bear the consequences of your lewdness and whoring.”
36 The Lord said to me: “Son of man, will you judge Oholah and Oholibah? Declare to them their abominations. 37 For they have committed adultery, and blood is on their hands. With their idols they have committed adultery, and they have even offered up to them for food the children whom they had borne to me. 38 Moreover, this they have done to me: they have defiled my sanctuary on the same day and profaned my Sabbaths. 39 For when they had slaughtered their children in sacrifice to their idols, on the same day they came into my sanctuary to profane it. And behold, this is what they did in my house. 40 They even sent for men to come from afar, to whom a messenger was sent; and behold, they came. For them you bathed yourself, painted your eyes, and adorned yourself with ornaments. 41 You sat on a stately couch, with a table spread before it on which you had placed my incense and my oil. 42 The sound of a carefree multitude was with her; and with men of the common sort, drunkards were brought from the wilderness; and they put bracelets on the hands of the women, and beautiful crowns on their heads.
43 “Then I said of her who was worn out by adultery, Now they will continue to use her for a whore, even her! 44 For they have gone in to her, as men go in to a prostitute. Thus they went in to Oholah and to Oholibah, lewd women! 45 But righteous men shall pass judgment on them with the sentence of adulteresses, and with the sentence of women who shed blood, because they are adulteresses, and blood is on their hands.”
46 For thus says the Lord God: “Bring up a vast host against them, and make them an object of terror and a plunder. 47 And the host shall stone them and cut them down with their swords. They shall kill their sons and their daughters, and burn up their houses. 48 Thus will I put an end to lewdness in the land, that all women may take warning and not commit lewdness as you have done. 49 And they shall return your lewdness upon you, and you shall bear the penalty for your sinful idolatry, and you shall know that I am the Lord God.”
A wife, holy and pure, a virgin undefiled, loyal and faithful: is that not the desire of a man? And is this not the highest and holiest desire of the Living God, in whose image we are made man? Is a faithful bride not the desire of Christ Jesus, the returning Bridegroom of His Church?
Hebrews 13:4 Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.
Jeremiah 3:8-10 She saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce. Yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but she too went and played the whore. Because she took her whoredom lightly, she polluted the land, committing adultery with stone and tree. Yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah did not return to me with her whole heart, but in pretense, declares the LORD.”
The LORD GOD has married you and made you His own! It is a most serious matter that a woman would play the whore and give herself to any other. This is the setting of the parable of the two degenerate sisters in Ezekiel 23. It is the history of God’s chosen ones of Israel and Judah.
Christ Jesus is born a Son of Man, conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin. The teachers of the Law come to him and ask about a man divorcing a woman. A woman had no such right of divorce or anything else separate of the rights of her husband as a matter of the Law.
Matthew 19:3 And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?”
4 He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two but one flesh.
What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
7 They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?”
8 He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. 9 And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”
“… “Because of your hardness of heart…”
Now the hardness of our hearts urges a wife to dismiss her husband!
To the parable of the two degenerate sisters, must we now add another who has called herself, ‘christian?’
Let Christ’s Church with ears to hear hear the distant trumpet announcing the returning Bridegroom of the Church, His Bride:
Revelation 19:6-10
English Standard Version (ESV)
The Marriage Supper of the Lamb
6 Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out,
“Hallelujah!
For the Lord our God
the Almighty reigns.
7 Let us rejoice and exult
and give him the glory,
for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
and his Bride has made herself ready;
8 it was granted her to clothe herself
with fine linen, bright and pure”—
for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.
9 And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.” 10 Then I fell down at his feet to worship him, but he said to me, “You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Worship God.” For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
Even so, come, Lord Jesus, to your beloved church, the faithful who have not put You away by a bill of divorce.
The following is an UPDATE of an early Talk of Jesus post about Roger, his Christian Social Witness & specifically being born again in the Lord Jesus Christ on a Good Friday ~30 years ago.
The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Isaiah 40:3 KJV
And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound…
Prepare to witness JESUS
You’ll recognize the Prophesy of Isaiah as an announcement fulfilled by John the Baptizer shouting a warning in his day: Prepare to meet Christ Jesus who IS God with us!
Those of you familiar with my writings and witness over the years know well that I have generally acknowledged the preparatory seasons of Christmas and Easter with appropriate writings during Advent and Lent. A brief glance at the 2014 calendar will reveal that the traditional 40 days of preparation for Easter liturgically known as Lent remain several wintry weeks away.
http://talkofJesus.com currently [A.D. 2014] posts daily 6 days/week & is searchable by topic or scripture
So as not to discourage any who might regularly read my exhortations of scripture without understanding the context, I thought to prepare your hearts by pointing even through the darkness of these days to the Light of Life in the resurrection of Jesus Christ and our certain assurance of hope in His coming again to resurrect a new and fresh life out of the grave of these present days.
Just a bit of background about my faith experience.
I was raised in the Methodist Church, which had several set ‘methods‘ of worship.
Later, for many years I was a member of the Episcopal Church which generally followed a very catholic liturgical calendar typical of the Anglican communion.
I continue to have many dear brothers and sisters of the Roman Catholic faith.
I became an active member of a Southern Baptist church and have remained a faithful worshiper in Presbyterian and other Protestant churches as moves to other towns necessitated.
[At the time of the launch of Talk of Jesus .com in 2014]
I am now a member of the Mennonite Church, which like all other denominations of Christ reflects many facets of Christianity.
As always, I am first and foremost a servant of Christ Jesus as Lord and obligated to the full command of God through all scripture of the Bible.
Roger’s condensed Vitae
I have a Bachelor of Music degree; have taught instrumental music of all types; directed bands, orchestras, small ensembles and choirs, as well as performed as in instrumentalist and sung in many church choirs; and I have mixed and recorded sound for contemporary worship.
The Lord has given me teaching, preaching and writing gifts.
I love the exegesis of scripture and can never get enough. Whatever I do for Christ is not so important as what He might do through me for you and for others. This is why I generally provide dynamic links in my writing to some of my favorite resources.
Why Talk of JESUS?
The Lord has given me a passion not so much for evangelism (to which every Christian is called) as for teaching my fellow dear believers the necessity to grow up in our faith.
Prepare yourself for SOLID FOOD.
In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.
Warning Against Apostasy 11 About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. 12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, 13 for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. 14 But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.
For this reason I have sought to make it easy for you to read your Bible daily, even through posts from Scripture on talkofJesus.com
-Do you read scripture every day?
-Do you read your Bible every day?
-Do you pray to God (at least once) every day?
This is the milk of my posting scripture to this easy to SHARE, easy to COMMENT, and easy to read site of Christian Social Witness.
Post content on TalkofJESUS.com as the Spirit leads may not always be as easy to digest as milk.
Roger@TalkofJesus.com
I invite you to COMMENT & offer YOUR thoughts about God and Christ, as well as your personal convictions, repentance, applications and witness of Jesus Christ to chew on long and hard with the seriousness of your own salvation.
The Lord has pointed me toward this witness as a result of an upcoming book [*] of importance also about growing up in our faith. It is a contemporary retelling of a Christian serial story with 149 brief episodes.
[*] note: not pubically available at this time + TalkofJesus.com has published several serial stories with brief post episodes.
I have also written a much shorter serial story based on Genesis, which I would have published on this site by now, except for the lack of current interest by lack of any comments of yours expressing any interest in following a serial story here for five or six days a week over a month. If you are interested, just add a comment to this post.
from a liturgical 2014 calendar
in order to prepare our hearts for Lent & Easter
Observe (if you like) that I had intended to begin and continue in Genesis in January 2014, however the Spirit led me to Psalm 119, which concluded just recently.
Recent & upcoming posts are an intense call to repentance of professing christians.
(You CALL yourself a christian or CLAIM you ‘go to church.’)
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
Matthew 7:21 ESV A caution of Jesus to believers who later cautioned [v.23] And then will Ideclare to them, ‘I never knew you
a traditional Repentance of Lent to prepare for Easter
These preparations from scripture, often from the Prophets of the Old Testament, are more typical to the liturgical requirements of repentance to dust and ashes from the time of Ash Wednesday (this year: March 5, A.D. 2014) through the Crucifixion of Lord celebrated on Good Friday in the year of our Lord 2014 on April 18.
about Roger receiving the Holy Spirit!
On a personal note:
I was born again in the Lord on a Good Friday during a contemporary ‘Stations of the Cross’ remembrance about twenty years ago [now ~30 years].
The little Episcopal church where we were members had a powerful moving of the Spirit for a time that could make a Pentecostal service look conservative!
(So much for tradition… for a brief unexpected time at that time.)
Roger’s ‘teaching’ style
I hesitate to say that the ‘easy grace’ message so attractive to bring in the crowds of marginal christians is all too prevalent and undeserving of the call of Christ Jesus to become like Him, obey Him, and be born again in Him.
You should find the Easter to Pentecost liturgy and probably my writing after Easter will reflect more of the importance of the love and grace and forgiveness that we have through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
If you need a nice encouragement of Jesus – the friendly, nice, lamb-holding, child-welcoming teacher; read the Gospel.
He IS the same Jesus who will return on the clouds (perhaps soon) with fire and vengeance and judgment.
NO, not everyone will be in heaven just because we mention Jesus or say we are christian or go to church once in a while or every week and don't let scripture convict and change us.
The upcoming months leading up to Easter, [A.D. 2014] for the most part are meant to convict each of us to:
a stronger faith, a weaker self, a humbler obedience, a truer witness
and a God-given, Christ-centered, Spirit-driven daily life
to do the Lord’s will on earth, as it is in heaven.
Please add your COMMENTS or questions to this or any post and share our Christian Social Witness liberally on your ‘other’ site where unbelievers watch what you do and say is important to you.
I pray for you, that the Lord may somehow use our witness through this. Pray also for me.
May our Lord, Christ Jesus, continue to grow you in your faith and knowledge of scripture in preparation for His return to reign as King of Glory and Lord of all over the earth and heavens and every soul of His creation.
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Jesus returns to his new home, followed by the crowds of onlookers.
4 And when they came to Jesus, they pleaded with him earnestly, saying, “He (this gentile, Roman centurion) is worthy to have you do this for him, 5 for he loves our nation, and he is the one who built us our synagogue.”
