Marbaniang, Domenic

"If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple." (Luke 14:26) ~The chasm between what is of Adam and what is of Christ is abysmal. It is only through hating them apart from Christ that we can truly love them through Christ. Isn't it obvious that no matter how much we love our own present Adamic life, we can't protect it from death when it comes? The same extends to all human relationships. The grave shuts the door on all. There is no hope apart from the Resurrected Christ. He who seeks to save this life will lose it, but he who loses it for Christ's sake will gain it. Thus, anyone who loves anything above Christ is going to lose both self and all, and so is unfit for discipleship, is unfit for the new life. Anyone who prefers to keep the Adamic against the riches of Christ has no part with Christ. He is like the rich young man who became sad because his h...

Luke 15:4 - I would ask, "What human shepherd would leave his 99 sheep all alone in the wilderness, where ravenous wolves were ready to devour, to go after one sheep that has wandered away? What man would risk the 99 for one and determine not to come back till he had found his lost one? I don't know if any human shepherd would, but God did. The lost state of a sinner absorbs more the attention of God than the state of 9999 un-lost righteous ones. I asked myself, where shall I find my God and I understood He's where the lost are to be found; for, He's gone out after them. A person who doesn't have a heart for the lost is far away from the heart of God. He is a stranger to the Shepherd. There cannot be mission without vision and passion. A man after God's own heart goes after the heart of God; and God's heart goes after the lost, seeking till it is found. The pharisees were not happy to find Jesus with the sinners, the lost; but, one cannot expect to find Him...

© October 1998 Many scholars think that Luke is most untrustworthy in the speeches of Acts. They point out that the speeches are all in the same general styple, a style that is found in the narrative portions of Acts. And they claim that the theology of the speeches is distinctively Lukan, rather than Petrine, Pauline, or whatever. It is therefore concluded that Luke has followed the Thucydidean model 1 and put on the lips of his speakers the sentiments that he felt were appropriate for the occasion. Several responses to this accusation are necessary. First , as we noted above, Thucydides claims that only when he did not have information available did he not report what was actually said. Some other ancient historians were far more free in inventing speeches, but there is no a priori reason to compare Luke with them instead of with those who did seek accuracy in recording speeches (e.g., Polybius; see 12:25b.1,4). Second , uniformity of style in the speeches means only that Luke has n...