hey everybody
so It's been a long time since i posted anything on here.
Since I last posted, I finished my last 4 classes and graduated University! I have a Bachelor of Commerce in Operations Management now. A bunch of my family came up for my convocation (grad ceremony) and we had a big bbq and gathering at my house in June, once the rain managed to let up! it was awesome, and we also celebrated my sisters graduation (she is finishing her social work degree this fall!) and my cousin's graduation this year, as well as my neice Abigail's birthday.
Later in the month I turned 23 on the 23rd, and celebrated my birthday with my small group as well as 4 other birthday parties that week!
I have been looking for a full-time job in my field since April, which has not been fun. I have had some interviews, and even a recruitment day, but no job as of yet.
I have also had football start again for the summer, and its over halfway over now (sadly). Our team is 5-4 now after losing our last 3, but it has been fun and we should be able to turn it around and get into the playoffs.
I also attended 2 weddings so far this summer. two of my friends from Capernwray (Colton and Stacia) got married in Seattle, and since I am unemployed, I drove out there. It turned into a great reunion, as there were 20 of us from Capernwray at the wedding, and Mark and I hung out a fair bit which was great.
later in the summer I attended the wedding of Jason and Kristen, driving to a small town, and hanging out with a few of my friends from Bonavista that went too.
Also I have been attending young adult events, one got cancelled so Jake, Holly and I went anyways (to Banff), we are doing the actual Banff trip this month!
I have also continued to go to my small group (well, they now come to my house!) and we finished up the truth project. It was was an interesting series to go through and discuss as a group. since it has finished, we decided to do a manuscript study of Acts. So last week we discussed the first chapter. It was great discussion. here is a recap I gave to a few of the guys from our group that missed out (the guys thought this pretty much summed up our discussion last week):
Greg went through the details of a manuscript study, things we can look for, basically its indepth as you make it. you can pull many things out of it. so f
or next week, print out the section we will be doing without verse numbers or titles and just read it first. then grab some pencils/colours etc and go nuts! (look for things such as numbers, repetitive ideas/words, themes, who is speaking, mood...and on and on - the idea is to print it out so you can draw lines, boxes, pictures, whatever)oh and when reading through, come up with your own titles for the sections.
hope that makes sense, Greg said alot more than that but thats the gist.
also, bring one observation and one question with you, this is our homework.
So, we looked at Acts chapter 1, which had much more than we expected.
we started discussing vs 4-8. we discussed the back and forth with Jesus, the people possibly getting impatient and wanting answers and Jesus redirecting them to not needing to know the future. Jesus said to wait also, then gave them a promise of recieving power. the disciples were showing their confusion as Jesus was talking about the kingdom of God while they were thinking kingdom of Israel.
another thing we discussed was the men looking into the sky(vs 10) when 2 men dressed in white. some of our versions said heaven, basically they were looking up. we were wondering if heaven and sky were the same word in Greek. also interesting that Luke points out there were 2 men. repetitive about heaven in vs 11.
in vs 13 it mentions all the disciples, but not luke, who wrote Acts. we assume he was there for it, but he didn't name himself, maybe cultural, or he was passed the story on.
in vs 14 - constantly in prayer, joining together, it was good having several versions as we were able to figure that it was as one, one accord etc.
in vs 15, Peter stood up among the believers, we don't know how long after Jesus went to heaven, but it must have been some gap in time as they numbered around 120.
one question was Judas info in vs 18-19, everything in scripture is there for a reason, we questioned the need for it. we crossreferenced and figured it is likely just discussing that he got a reward for his wicked deeds, interesting that he chose to turn jesus in, then chose a nasty death
we discussed for awhile how they chose Matthias. in vs 20 it discusses leadership, in another version, it said role position, sort of like a job. still leadership though, as the disciples were the leaders. it was necessary to choose someone who had been with Jesus, maybe the first prerequisites for being in a position of leadership within the believers. we discussed 'witness' and the differences between it in vs 8 and vs 22 and what this word was supposed to mean. would be interesting to do more research on the word. it seemed witness was someone who was there with Jesus, but also someone who was able to share or lead. we can't be witnesses in once sense because we weren't actually there with Jesus, but we can be witnesses of what we believe and of Jesus' story. really we should be witnesses and that means to know what happened and have no doubts, easier said than done.
still on Matthias, they wanted God to show them, but how. they engaged in a game of chance, trusting that God would influence it correctly. this was how they had to decide. it is important to note that this is the last time casting lots was recorded in the bible, and it happened in the passage immediately prior to the pentecost! this led to some talk in our group about decision making and asking God for direction, sometimes he might speak to us or give us guidance in some way, but like the disciples, we shouldn't just sit around waiting for an answer. the disciples prayed then took action. it doesn't mean we should just do whatever, because we should still go to God and ask him to guide us, but we should trust that he will nudge us in the direction he wants us to go, and if we still go in the wrong direction, he won't turn his back. it just might take a little longer to get where he wants us.
I hope that sparks some thoughts
Adam
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