Week 3

• Quiz 
• Streets
• Confession and Houskeeping
• Dinner
• Timelines
• Review/Preview
• Greatness
• Matthew 18
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Where the Streets U2  2 Venned Versions: interpret these texts

This week';s "COMMUNITY"  topic is "Greatness, Leadership, Power."

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The symbol suggests that a biblical model/worldview often looks like the CEO/top-down model turned downside up..

Jesus came to serve.
             The last shall be first.
                         That's who is great in the Kingdom  economy:
                                    The one who serves
                                               The one who has splagchizomai..

Jesus said in it yet another chiasm:

But those who exalt            themselves will be               humbled, 

and those who humble     themselves will be                exalted

(Matt 23:12)
 
Tonight we meet a couple of great contemporary servant-leaders:

like this little sphepherdette/llamaherder I filmed in Peru.  She was leading a huge flock...just one tiny girl, with a sheepdog...and amazingly, leading effectively from _________________!" (See  from 1:30 to the end,   and freeze frame 2:05-2:09 if you didn't spot her).   If you didn't fill in the blank, see  Isaiah 30:21.  What a great leader!)

(rest of that story here)
  


Then of course, we'll look at = Jesus' approach to greatness, leadership,  and power .

Then we apply some "Three Worlds" theory to Matthew 18 and the topic of "Who is great?"

As we study, apply as many literary world symbols as you can

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A great person pictured here...North Fresno Campus.

He's a servant-leader and a saint.

Remember this name for the quiz.

He's a servant-leader and a saint.

It has been hugely productive, revelational and (even) fun to, as part of a class that several others and I teach, have students plot out (on the whiteboard) their timeline.

As Pastor/Trucker Franks suggests below, sometimes it's "more about the journey than the destination."  See also  "What if Torah/ מלכות השמים, is more 'journey  than 'doctrine'?"


We then take time to interweave/intertext our personal timelines with the timeline/trajectory of Jesus' life in Matthew's gospel (the thrust of the class).

Especially helpful is the suggestion by Donald Kraybill ("The Upside Down Kingdom") and Ray Van Der Laan (  video)  that throughout  his earthly life, Jesus was revisited by remixes of the original three temptations ("testations" ) of the devil"in chapter 4.
















Our timelines:

other classes

Timelines from other classes:

More:click here

VENN IT!  comparing/contrasting two texts: 

We did a "venn it" with
- a)Dave Matthews' "Bartender" (2 versions):

What numbers are sign-ificant in the Bible?

This is Casey, one of my  

 students at Fresno Pacific University Bakersfield Center, She just did something in Bible class I've been waiting years for someone to do. I asl What numbers are significant in the Bible? I don't remember anyone ever saying 5 (Pentateuch, 5 books of Moses/Torah, New Moses/ 5 teaching blocks in Matthew.).until Casey!!.. Way to go, love my students.

!.

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This week';s "COMMUNITY"  topic is Greatness

Jesus came to serve.
             The last shall be first.
                         That's who is great in the Kingdom  economy:
                                    

Jesus said in it yet another chiasm:

But those who exalt            themselves will be               humbled, 

and those who humble     themselves will be                exalted

(Matt 23:12)

ONE GREAT PERSON SURVEYS

My Dack Rambo story?  Click here  to read all about it, and for the sequel click:
" I Deny the Resurrection and I am not straight."
(uh, better click that title and get the context!) 

 we apply some "Three Worlds" theory to Matthew 18 and the topic of "Who is great?"

As we study, apply as many literary world symbols as you can

A video on that chapter featuring Keltic Ken: 

Related outtakes:

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Page 22 of Syllabus,Matthew 18 Outline

(by Greg Camp/Laura Roberts):

1 Question #1: Who is Greatest?

2-17 Responses (each are counter proposals):

2-10 Response #1: Children

2-4 Counter Proposal: Accept children

5-9 Threat: If cause scandal

10 Show of force: Angels protect

12-14 Response #2: Sheep

12-14 Counter Proposal: Search for the 1 of 100 who is lost

15-17 Response #3: Brother who sins (counter proposal)

15a Hypothetical situation: If sin

15-17 Answer: Attempt to get brother to be reconciled

17b If fail: Put him out and start over

18-20 Statement: What you bind or loose

21-22 Question #2: How far do we go in forgiveness?

23-35 Response #1: Parable of the forgiving king/unforgiving servant

----------------Read verses 15-17 and then ask yourself:
"What did it mean in their historical world to treat  people like
"tax collectors and sinners?"

Two answers

1)Don't allow them in your bounded set.

2)How did Jesus treat  tax collectors and sinners? In a centered set way. Tony Jones writes: 

but because anyone, including Trucker Frank, can speak freely in this  church, my seminary-trained eyes were opened to find a truth in the Bible that had previously eluded me.”...That truth emerged in a discussion of Matthew 18's "treat the unrepentant brother like a tax collector or sinner.":

"And how did Jesus treat tax collectors and pagans?" Frank asked aloud, pausing, "as of for a punchline he'd been waiting all his life to deliver,"....., "He welcomed them!""

-Tony Jones, The New Christians, p.92

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Homework:

Preparation Reading:

• Fee & Stuart ch 10 "The Prophets: Enforcing the Covenant in Israel" (entire)
• Amos (entire)<not required..skim would be good
• Fee & Stuart ch 12 "Wisdom: Then and Now" (entire)
• Proverbs 10 – 15
• Ecclesiastes 1-6Job 1-5, 38-42
• Fee & Stuart ch 4 "The Epistles: The Hermeneutical Questions" (entire)<read for quiz prep
• Galatians (entire)
• Esther (entire- with Historical World Worksheet)<FOCUS
• The Serving Leader, pp. ix-31 (review)delay till next week

Preparation Assignments:

1) Take Notes On Preparation Readings for in class reading Quiz <Fee and Stuart, ch 4

2) The Serving Leader (Stahl-Wert & Jennings) and In the Name of Jesus (Noewen) response questions(attached to this syllabus)<delay till next week

3) Esther- Complete the Historical World Worksheet