So long as the child lived, David entreated the Lord for the
possibility He would change His mind but ultimately the Lord's will was
done. That which He had announced was
actual. It seems a horrible thing to
inflict such a thing on a child but as David stated, "I shall go to him,
but he will not return to me.” We don't
know exactly what it was David believed about the afterlife but clearly he
believed there was a place where the soul would be and that soul would be an
"I." David mourned for the
child prior to his death but afterwards there was nothing left to do. The Lord was good to David and Bathsheba in
giving them another child, Solomon so soon after this horrible punishment for
their sin. Joab shows loyalty to David
in bringing him out of his grief to come and be at the head of the army when
Rabbah was captured lest Joab be the one to receive the glory for its
conquest.
So the lesson Jesus taught the disciples about greatness is
that children's ministry leaders are the greatest! Since my wife is a kid's minister I agree. Why do we worry about greatness when He
defines it and no one else is a close second?
Now that we understand true greatness and that His standard is
inapproachable it seems we could get on with pursuing greatness as He defined
it for us, serving one another rather than seeking position. The final piece of the lesson, where the
disciples tried to stop someone casting out demons in the name of Jesus because
he wasn't following them should also give us some humility regarding other
people's ministry. Jesus' advice is
quite practical, if they are successful at casting out demons in His Name today
they won't really be able to speak ill of Him in the future, they are learning
something about the power of the Name. That
doesn't mean we should allow false teaching in the church by the way, just
because someone uses the name of Jesus.
In the final lesson we get a lesson about preaching too
long. Paul extended his remarks until
midnight and Eutychus fell asleep and fell out of the window in which he was
seated and died. Paul, however, took up
the youth and his life was restored. Did
you notice the "we" that started to appear in this reading? Luke joins the mission team here so the next
phase of the account is first-hand. Paul
couldn't bear to leave these folks, there was so much to teach, so much to say
about Jesus and it was painful to leave without saying everything
possible. We should have that same
passion to share and to know all we can about Jesus. There is never enough time, and as John wrote
in his Gospel, "Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were
every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not
contain the books that would be written."
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