I have occasionally still been picking up Mark Scandrette's 'Practicing The Way of Jesus'. The other day I finally got through the last chapter. In this 11th frame he lists, "What Jesus Instructs Us to Be and Do in Order to Achieve Freedom and Peace."
Quite honestly, I'm just not sure what to think about this. So I'm going to write it down here...
WHAT JESUS INSTRUCTS US TO BE AND DO IN ORDER TO ACHIEVE FREEDOM AND PEACE:
- Practice self-denial and embrace suffering: "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it" (Mark 8:34-36).
- Deal seriously and discreetly with destructive habits: "If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire" (Matthew 18:6-9).
- Abstain discreetly: "When you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting" (Matthew 6:16-18).
- Perceive the difference between heart renovation and fruitless asceticism: "Don't you see that nothing that enters you from the outside can defile you? For it doesn't go into your heart but into your stomach, and then out of your body... What comes out of you is what defiles you. For from within, out of your hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile you" (Mark 7:18-23).
- Avoid hypocrisy by putting the teaching into practice: "Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy" (Luke 12:1).
- Pray for deliverance from temptations and suffering: "This, then, is how you should pray:... 'lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one" (Matthew 6:9, 13). "Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation" (Mark 14:38).
- Pay careful attention to how you see and perceive: "Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are healthy, your whole body is full of light... See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness" (Luke 11:34-35).
- Be watchful, prepared and alert: "Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness and the anxieties of life" (Luke 21:34).
- Choose the lonely way to life: "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction" (Matthew 7:13). "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matthew 5:48).
The remainder of the chapter is a case study of the "experiment" the group used to go about doing this.
I guess I'm torn because, it makes good sense to me - there is nothing here I can argue with - but at the same time, something seem amiss. So... I don't know.
Ultimately, I guess I wanted to place this here so I can look at it now and then. Tomorrow I hope to share some more from this chapter...
2 comments:
Joy and other people seem to be missing.
Good point. Although, to be fair, it may have been me overlooking it more than that it's not there. This was a brief part of the chapter.
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