Since I've been participating in this Facebook Bible Study the past three weeks I can't seem to get two thoughts out of my mind:

1) The importance of Matthew 4:17, "From that time, Jesus began to preach, 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near."

I was reflecting on this earlier today, and I find that my entire understanding of Jesus and God's redemptive work builds around this one passage. God, through Jesus, broke into our fallen world and began to take back what was His. This leads to the second thought...

2) One of the many facets of this Kingdom would be repentance, turning your life in a new direction, one in line with the message Jesus would preach for His remaining days. And He goes on to say that it's important, in fact it's so important that if your eye or your right hand or any other part of you causes you to lose focus, get rid of it, throw it away, you can't afford to mess around with this. It's that important! A new way had come, it was time to get on board, to repent, for the Kingdom was at hand!

As an aside, I got scared the other day when a student came up to me and starting talking about their church and their faith and such, not because I don't think those conversations are inappropriate in school, rather because I thought they were going to ask where I went to church. What do I respond, I don't? What kind of Christian am I if I don't go to church? I must be a sinner, what so I believe, I reflected on? What if they were to ask me what I believed, what would I say. A thought hit me, and maybe this is what makes me a little crazy, but I believe what Jesus said...when He said that it was better to gouge out the eye or cut off the hand, I believe what He said was true and that He meant it. Did He want everyone walking around without eyes or arms, no...but if it meant that they were ridding themselves of what was distracting them from the Kingdom or causing them to sin, then yes, He meant that very thing.

Finally, on this same topic, in reading Wright's "Surprised by Hope" (which I will comment on in the next post) I am also reminded of Paul's message in 1 Corinthians 15:29-32 where he addresses the resurrection of the dead. I love what he has to say here, namely that if there is no resurrection, then "why do we endanger ourselves every hour" and "If I found wild beasts in Ephesus for merely human reasons, what have I gained"? Love that!