Bible Study

I am enjoying this Bible Study; I used to lead Bible Studies but it is much more interesting to be part of the group being lead. I do have some strong ideas on how the Church should go just as the book we are studying does. I still firmly believe in some continuity; I do not worship continuity but it is the ideas that were given to us as children by our parents/grandparents on how they see Church in their lives. I come from a strong Service family. Helping out in Church activities is in my blood so that these last twenty years that I have not attended Church that regularly I have felt this disconnect in my life. I reconnected myself with the service that I did in Transcription of early Church records. I was still supplying a service and serving my Church in a very different way. I still feel that way although my transcription level has for the moment plummeted. It takes a lot of time to do transcription. I need to prepare the time so that I have no interruptions for several hours as concentration on the task at hand is of paramount importance. At the moment a myriad of details that need to be managed occupy my day and I do not get to transcription. I would like to return to a set number of hours per day on my transcriptions. I still have about one thousand microfiche that I have never worked on. 

But what do I really mean by continuity; I mean the ability of people to learn from their elders how best to serve the Church. I think the fundamental error that we have these days is the idea that the Church serves us. We are the Church of Jesus Christ on earth; just as he was the servant to many so are we called to service in the Church. I do tithe but that is different from service; that is simply returning to God 10% of what he has given to me. Jesus explained it well I think when the discussion came up about taxes. He didn't mention tithing in that story but he did mention that one renders unto the government what belongs to the government (our income tax; other taxes) and onto God what belongs to God. The idea of tithing is older than Jesus in that Israel's tithing to take care of the Levites (the historical rabbis of the Jewish faith) was 22% and that the Levites than tithed on the behalf of all their people by bringing 10% of the tithe into the in this case synagogue (this is the biblical tithe).  That is how I understand tithing. 

To me service is how we demonstrate our love towards mankind (I am old so I feel quite free to use the expression mankind to recognize everyone - I grew up thinking how unkind the English language was to use the word man as a general term so that males were deprived of their own word and of course female pertains to my sex and is ours exclusively although I do not want to get into all of that as these days the lines have become somewhat blurred). Loving our neighbours as ourselves was the second commandment that Jesus gave to us. We need to look carefully at what Jesus was saying to us. He was saying, I believe, that respect for our neighbours is paramount just as we respect ourselves. To me Respect means love. Love is a very broad term really I believe and a lot of words can be included under its umbrella. 

Enough for now of my thoughts as I really must get some work done. Although today I have already steam cleaned the oven and blanched cauliflower to freeze which was in excess (i.e. no one was eating it). Since cauliflower is not one of my favourites I wasn't helping either! There is however washing to do and then maybe I can settle into a few hours on phasing.