Some more quotes and sermon prep...

     Yesterday I gave the points from Tim Keller's book "The Meaning Of Marriage" on the section called "Some Practical Counsel for Marriage Seekers."  I want to give you a quote or two under a couple of the points from this section.  Under...

"Don't let things get too passionate too quickly."

"I have come to realize that many turn to cohabitation because they have no other way

to get into the other person's everyday life enough to access their character.

When two Christians participate together in the same Christian community, however,

there are plenty of opportunities to enter the worlds of one another in the older way.

By serving the poor, or going to Bible study and fellowship groups, or attending worship

you can come into each other's 'front porches' and 'parlors' in a way that is difficult

outside a community of faith."

     Under...

"Get and submit to lots of community input."

"Marriage should not be a strictly individual, unilateral decision.

It is too important, and our personal perspective is too easily skewed.

The community has many married people in it who have much wisdom for single people to hear.

Singles should get community input at every step of the way when seeking marriage."

     For sermon prep we are looking at the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1.  There are actually two genealogies of Jesus.  The other is in Luke 3.  Matthew is a Jew recording his.  Luke is a Gentile recording his.  Matthew's follows the line of Joseph, the husband of Mary, the mother of Jesus.  Luke's follows the line of Mary, the mother of Jesus.  Matthew's starts from the beginning and works forward to Jesus.  Luke's starts from the present and works back to the beginning.  Jesus was prophesied to come from the line of David and also called "the Son of David" on many occasions and both Mary and Joseph's lines are the same up to David and then Joseph's goes the way of Solomon and Mary's goes the way of Nathan.  Matthew's includes women which is very un-Jewish to do and Luke's has no women mentioned.  Matthew's goes back to Abraham who was considered the father of the Jews.  Luke's goes back to Adam as the son of God.  So the study of the genealogies goes on.

     Back to work today cleaning the shop that Stephanie and I took on to help pay for the kids' college expenses.  We remind each other of why we are there and the work gets done faster.  It is great to be doing it together and we really feel it when either one of us has to do it alone.  The work is also a great outlet for us to meet a whole different group of people and we know many of them by name.  Many of them were there for Stephanie when she was doing this alone when I was recovering right after the surgery.  So another bit of knowledge about us, we are cleaners on the side.

Adam