Saturday, January 05, 2008

Hey Guys,

Welcome to the Breakfast Club blog!  I look forward to having fun with this throughout the week.  This is a great place to post your questions, no mater how silly you may think they are.  The great thing about blogs is you can't get too embarrassed for asking questions that you feel like you should have the answer to for some reason.  Whatever it may be, throw then up there.

shalom!

5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I wanted to mention a couple of books (because that's what I do): If you are curious about Roman society and politics int eh time of Jesus and Paul but don't want to be bored to death, read a series by Colleen McCullough called The First Man in Rome. They are interesting and somewhat accurate. McCullough does not shy from the debauchery in rome, but she does not revel in it, either.
The other book is a little different. Adventures in Missing the Point is by Brian D. McLaren and Tony Campolo. It covers several issues, but the chapter on women in the church talks about the difficulties of translating Pauline passages on women.

Happy reading,

Jennifer French

10:37 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Brad:

Thanks for your lesson on Paul. I am looking forward to continue to learn more about him in the weeks ahead.

Another great resource that I found is Paul on Wikipedia.

Peace out my brotha.

- Ricky

12:31 PM  
Blogger Brandon said...

First off, I feel like I am leaping into the 21st century right now because this is my very first "blog". Frankly, I only learned what a podcast was a couple of months ago too. Now I will probably be texting my bff l8tr while cruising on my wheelees.

Now, to the topic.

I love Paul because he provides more material than anyone else (my opinion) that we can actually sink our teeth into about how we progress in our struggle each day to be more "alive in Christ" and "dead to sin". As we read his letters, we can see his own progression from a Jew's Jew to to a proponent of who he once opposed to the point of stoning. He grew up a Roman citizen in a major trading city. He must have already been exposed to a multitude of people and cultures. He grew up in a "pure" Jewish household and received the best Jewish education (not just for his town). He became a student of Gamaliel and probably was a member of the Sanhedrin by the time of the persecution of the Way including Stephen. Contrast all of this with the way he ended up in a Roman prison. He gave up everything the world around him valued and everything he had grown up learning to value. Do you know anyone who has made this kind of scrifice in life? I don't.

This morning I was also struck with the comparison to Jesus calling his first disciples. When a Rabbi called you, he was essentially saying, "I think you are good enough to be like me and carry on for me." All the more significant to consider Gamaliel calling of Paul. Jesus, however, calls two men/boys who were fishing. This means that they did not make the cut to go on learning the the way Paul did and were sent to learn their family's trade. Jesus called the NOT GOOD ENOUGH.


-Brandon

8:16 PM  
Blogger brad said...

Great comments all...Jennifer French has now made my personal list of people I adore because she reads my boy Tony C!!!!!!!! Tony has shaped me about as much as anyone as far as speaking and writing on evangelism is concerned.

5:21 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I am very excited about this blog and our current topic in class. I actually am starting a Letters to Paul class for my school studies this Thursday and am looking forward to being inundated with information about Paul!

3:54 PM  

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