As I have told you many times, I am a ‘Church Kid’ from the earliest of times. My father was a Baptist Pastor in Texas and that is the home and environment I grew up in. I have absolutely NO complaints about this; I was NOT scared by this; and I have positive memories from this kind of background. (I only say this because sometimes we hear those kinds of background stories in negative ways — and mine was very positive). But with a background like mine, there were certainly some religious protocol issues that were just the way they were — because —- that’s the way it was! Here’s a few fun examples:
- WEAR A SUIT TO CHURCH! In my world, there were for sure some things we would NEVER have done in church. As a little kid, you ALWAYS wore a suit in order to show God your best at a worship service. (Somewhere about the 5th grade for me the suit went away — but still absolutely no jeans! — the jeans came when I went to college!).
- NO GUITARS OR DRUMS! In my early world, you would NEVER have a band play music. It was piano and organ ONLY! The guitar became a thing in youth group, and was finally OK to use in youth group but NEVER in ‘big church!’ Until when I was a young adult then the guitar was OK — (not the drums yet!) — until both the guitar and the drums was not only OK but was expected! (do you see the evolution of music?)
- NO PLAYING CARDS! This is really in my mom’s growing up world at church; you would NEVER play cards of any kind. A deck of cards was associated with gambling, and this was a vice and a sin. So… stay away from cards! Now by the time I came along somehow card games became OK and not a problem. As a side note to this story I will never forget the first trip we made as a mission team to Russia in the year 2000. We came to the city of Bryansk and as a group were staying in the homes of some very conservative Russian Baptist families. Unaware of this, my son who brought a deck of cards with him, he was teaching other Russian teens how to play a game called Fort Worth Gin. The Pastor came in the room and you would have thought my son was the devil teaching his young people this sinful game. In the proceeding years I became amazed at how that same group over time adopted the card game “UNO” as the game of choice in their youth group.
These series of examples might be humorous, but they do give a bit of background to the story we are studying this coming Sunday with these stories as a backdrop. Read ahead for this Sunday Mark 7:1-23. Jesus confronts the traditions of the Elders in the Jewish religious world. They were appalled at how Jesus did not always follow many of the traditions of diet and washing. Jesus’ responses to this is the core of our teaching this week. You can find it in Mark 7:6-7 (which is a quote from Isaiah 29); Mark 7:10 (which is a quote from Exodus 20) and then the finishing touches to this is found in Mark 6:17-23.
We’ve been studying in prior weeks many of the miracles that Jesus performed. Now we are spending a couple of weeks on what Jesus taught and how He applied God’s Word. We must pay careful attention.
See you Sunday.
By the way… we will NOT be playing cards (unless you want to play UNO at the end of worship!
