(Post 4371)

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 16 February 2011 15:40:56

Moses has it hard.....leadership is not easy. His father in law came along and gave him some good advice about training up others to take some of the slack. He saw the physical and mental toll that the DIY approach to leadership was taking.

Interesting notes here on selecting the right people for the job and looking at their characters.

God asks if people will do what God says, the people say yes....but in reality it will be hard.

Rules are there to give healthy society. They are there to protect both individual and community.

Blooming hard to keep though.

This is what I've gotten from Exodus 17:1 - 20:26.

Moving into Mark it appears that the Jews were desperate for change and so flocked around leaders creating a celebrity culture around them. This must have made it hard for the leader who had a difficult message to deliver.

Mark ignores the geneology and gets straight in there. Thus we have no unmarried mum, asylum seeker or any of the rest....but we do have a Son of God. Interesting. This is looking form Mark 1: 1 - 2:17

Jesus called people to follow him and they had a choice how to respond.

Jesus gets caught up in the Judean celebrity culture thing. It gets mad and so Jesus trys to find quiet. He has to get up whist it's still dark to escape the crowds and go and pray. What demands do we find ourselves facing and how do we ensure we still fit God in?

Jesus was compasionate but tried to limit the growth of the celebrity thing...it was getting out of hand. He had to try and find lonely places to effectively hide. When he did go home it got well and truly crazy. But Jesus maintains compassion in the mist of it.

Jesus hung out with the wrong type of people....was this in part because they were more ready to accept him without wanting to court celebrity?

Psalm 22: 1 asks "My God my God why have you forsaken me." I am sure I've heard that somewhere before ;) Yup, turns out Jesus was screaming otut scripture on the cross.

It's a Psalm about wondering where God is and being mocked because God is not apparent to the scoffers, even though you hold onto faith that God even if it seems like he's not anywhere about really is still there.

Really interesting having read through and thinking about the stuff I read at the end of Matthew in this context.