What your Father didn't know and your mother wouldn't tell you

The Gospel

Gentle Readers,

As you know it is a difficult thing to go back to school even if you have not completed even primary school. For Christians they receive much in terms of "education" but many times they are sadly lacking in what we would call the basics.

What my job is in these next blogs is to bring you along a wee bit so that you may speak with a little more assurance about your Christian faith.

We hope to dig a wee bit deeper into what the Bible says and teaches. Now you need to know that I have no ax to grind, no denomination to hold up as the "only place you can receive truth"

Since I am no longer in the paid ministry as many of my brethren are. I do not answer to a board, or a deacon (with deep pockets) who decides what I can speak about and how much teaching is allowed ("He doesn’t share our values") I need not hold back because of someone’s hurt feelings. "I don’t like the way our pastor combs his hair and do you know that he was seen (fill in the blank)

Do you remember the wee song that you sang in Sunday school as a child?

"Jesus love me this I know

For the Bible tells me so"

Learning something new or at least different is rather like that. You have to open your mind to the possibility that some things may be different or the only song you will ever know is that wee song.

Now I am going to teach you some things you may have never thought of before Gentle reader, but don’t be afraid it won’t hurt and I’ll be with you every step of the way!

Let’s start with what you know. The word "Gospel" what does it mean? Everyone that I ask in the sound of my laptop would say " Gospel? It means good news" Why just the other day My pastor preached about how he was called (by God) to preach the Gospel!"

So I ask you gentle Reader, which Gospel? And what Good News was he preaching about? Hold tight we about to enter some thoughts you perhaps have never given and thought to. (I know there is a pun there somewhere) .

Now you need a proper definition of What is a Gospel? A Gospel is a meditation on the meaning of Jesus Christ in the light of Sacred History as recorded in the Sacred writings.

The Gospels are not biographies or history books, or treatises. Their shape is determined by their uses, by their place in the lives and memories and prayers of early believers. They are themselves a form of prayer. It was once said that Jesus began as a biography and ended as a creed. We know now that the reverse is true.

The meditation is a communal act, incorporating the preaching and prayers of many Christians partly born out of and partly intended for the early liturgies.

The Gospels are an application of the continuing Sacred History to the the particular situations of the gospel writers. The books represent and reflect not only the past events from the life of Christ but His experienced life in the members of the community.

And you Gentle Reader are living out the life of Christ in your life. Col 1:27 "To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:"

Well, little ones, I see the coffee pot is empty and the last of the Irish cream cheeses muffins are gone so that must mean that our time is up for today. So go home dust off your bible and look up the word gospel in your concordance. Your in for a treat next time.

Love,

Denis

A Still, Small Voice

There’s a quiet spot in the depths of my being where God in silence dwells,

The holy, infinite presence of God where awareness slowly wells,

Away from the noisy outer world, enclosed where it’s calm and still,

Breathing in deep tranquility as mind and spirit fill.

It’s a silence that speaks without words, and doesn’t sound to the ear,

But listening to it with my heart can calm every doubt and fear.

The unconditional love I feel makes each anxiety cease,

As the overwhelming essence of God fills my soul with the sweetest peace.