Long Island Abundant Life Church 長島豐盛生命教會
  • Home
  • About Us 關於教會
    • Mission Statement - 使命宣言
    • Statement of Faith - 信仰立場
    • Biblical Marriage - 合乎聖經的婚姻
    • Church Leadership - 教會同工
    • Directions - 路線圖
    • Documents - 表格與文件下載
    • Contact Us - 聯絡我們
    • Ministry openings
  • Chinese Ministry 華語事工
    • 崇拜
    • 講道集 >
      • 主日信息
      • 特會 / 講座
    • 主日學
    • 門訓小組 >
      • 門訓小組介紹
    • 團契
    • 讀經
  • English Ministry 英文事工
  • Youth 少年事工
    • Worship
    • Sunday School
    • Youth Fellowship
    • Events
    • Our Vision
    • Connect with Us
    • Parent Resources
    • Youth Prayer Requests
  • Children's Ministry 兒童事工
    • Children's Worship - 兒童崇拜 >
      • Children's Songs - 歌曲
      • Junior Worship, Archive - 學習內容
      • Junior Worship, Current - 學習內容
      • Preschool Worship, Archive - 幼兒崇拜
    • Sunday School - 主日學 >
      • Preschool - 低年級
      • Middlers, Current - 高年級
      • Elementary, Archive - 高年級
    • VBS-特别暑期聖經班 >
      • EVENTS- 特別活動
    • Nursery - 幼兒照顧
    • Resources - 資源
  • Missions/Evangelism 宣教/佈道
    • Global Mission 全球宣教
    • Missions Ministry 宣教事工
  • Chinese School 中文學校
  • Church Activities / News / Calendar 教會活動 / 消息 / 行事曆
    • Special/urgent 特別/緊急
    • Calendar 教會行事曆
    • Bulletin 週報
    • Archive 檔案 >
      • Pray for Hindus 2018 為印度人禱告
      • Seek God 2019 尋求神
      • Misc. 其他
  • Chinese Student Ministry 学生事工
    • Campus Ministry 校园事工
    • CSF 衣
    • CSF 食
    • CSF 住
    • CSF 行
  • Links 资源鏈接
  Long Island Abundant Life Church 長島豐盛生命教會

Luke 9:18-36

4/10/2012

 
Click here to read today's passage on Bible Gateway.

Take Up Your Cross
I've always thought that this statement by Jesus is very interesting.  It doesn't really seem that strange to us (despite big cultural differences) because Jesus died on a cross, making that image very familiar to us.  Because the cross has become the symbol of our salvation, I think it makes it more difficult to really understand how the disciples probably reacted to what Jesus was saying here.  The cross had no connotation of salvation for them at this point:  it was merely a cultural image of shame, punishment, and gore that only the worst people were subjected to.  And here Jesus says to "take up your cross"!  "Walk to your execution!  Go! Die to follow me!"  This must have been very shocking to them.

Also, I want to take a minute to be a little pastor-nerdy here and talk about what's going on in the Greek in this passage.  Please understand:  you can definitely understand completely clearly what the Bible and this passage says without knowing the original languages, but sometimes knowing them reveals things that are easier to miss in English or get lost in translation.  The point of interest here is in the three verbs: ἀρνησάσθω (deny oneself), ἀράτω (take up one's cross), and ἀκολουθείτω (follow [Jesus]).  The first two verbs are in the greek "aorist" tense (think in english past, present, future), which is basically a tense  that is general.  The author is making no statement about when or how the verb acts, only that it is in this case an imperative (command) to do something.  The final verb, however, to "follow Jesus" is in the PRESENT tense, a tense that often indicates CONTINUOUS action.  So what does that mean? "This means that discipleship involves the fundamental commitment of self-denial and bearing one’s cross, while the call to follow Jesus is constant, growing out of the base commitments." [1] (bolding mine)  I find in interesting the things that grammar can sometimes convey.  <End of Pastoral nerdiness>

Bock summarizes the rest of the passage nicely:

"Verse 24 summarizes the point nicely. If you try to save your life by preserving yourself from the opposition of the world and/or by accommodating yourself to the world, what results is loss of real life. On the other hand, if you are willing to lose your life for the sake of the things of God, then what you save is real life. In the ancient world, choosing for Jesus meant certain opposition from people in the world. That opposition might express itself in the type of scorn Jesus saw, the type of ridicule the early church faced, beatings such as Paul experienced, or even death such as Stephen faced. The Christian faith was new and, in its Jewish context, was a threat to well-established traditions. If someone desired popularity and acceptance, he or she did not accept Christ. But the cost of popular acclaim was great, since the choice meant forfeiting the opportunity of salvation. Only those willing to line up with God and face popular rejection would respond to the gospel and enter into life. Thus, from the beginning, the choice of Jesus had built into it a sense of going a different way." [2]

This concept was absolutely life changing for me when I was in High School.  Though it's simple, one of the most spiritually-forming books I read in my early Christian years was "Jesus Freaks: Stories of Those Who Stood for Jesus".  If anyone wants to borrow it, let me know!

[1] Darrell L. Bock, The NIV Application Commentary: Luke (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1996), 265.
[2] Ibid, 266.
Andrei
4/10/2012 06:29:47 pm

Reflecting on the message of 'let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me' ....

I think about some of these topics from the perspective of an unbeliever; a lot of Christian terms and taken-for-granted concepts can seem foreign to them.

If an unbeliever asked you why self-denial was important to Christians, how would you answer them? Do you think it's possible to answer in a way that makes sense to them?

Greg
4/11/2012 06:10:08 am

I think that first of all you'd need to define what it's NOT. In this case, it would be important to emphasize that it's NOT talking about asceticism - giving up food, etc. just for the sake of doing it/discipline. What it IS talking about is denying yourself to make JESUS great. As John said, "He must become I greater. I must become less. We deny ourselves because our hearts lead us astray. We deny ourselves to both be lead by Jesus and to make the name of Jesus great. I THINK that would make sense at least conceptually, but a lot of things don't make sense practically to those the would see following Jesus as a waste.


Comments are closed.

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.