Sweet little Ava Lauren turned 2 this Saturday. She is my little princess. I get so much joy just looking at her. She is so fun too. She loves to sing songs and is quite advanced in verbal skills for a 2 year old. Here she is singing happy birthday while eating her chocolate birthday cake.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Monday, March 8, 2010
Prayer of Jesus: "Dad"
We are nearly half way through with the Prayer of Jesus study. Dr. Hemphill outlines the Model Prayer into 4 parts: The Address, The Committment, The Petition, The Benediction. Last week we focused on the Address. He emphasized that the "Father" part of the prayer and made the statement it is similar to our modern expression of "Dad" to our earthly father. In fact, Hemphill often referred to God as "Dad" through out the video.
Needless to say, a majority of the group participants struggled with this phrasing. For most in the group, I would categorize it as at best uncomfortable and at worst disrespectful and wrong. I definitely understood their point, and I don't think I would be comfortable using that term in prayer. "Father" is much more natural for me. Once a word or phrase establishes a contextual meaning in our minds, it is hard to change that meaning. In this sense, tradition matters.
I definitely don't think Dr. Hemphill was trying to be disrespectful or "cute" in using this term. He was just trying to convey the intimacy we are to have in our prayer life. The fact is that Jesus use of "Father" was a radical concept in His day. The Jews considered this phase disrespectful as well. We certainly must not be caught throwing stones here.
But as I said, I do understood the concern. The best advice here it to follow Jesus' response to John who questioned what they should do about the man who was driving out demons in the name of Jesus but was not part of Jesus' disciples. "Do not stop him," Jesus said, "for whoever is not against you is for you."
Needless to say, a majority of the group participants struggled with this phrasing. For most in the group, I would categorize it as at best uncomfortable and at worst disrespectful and wrong. I definitely understood their point, and I don't think I would be comfortable using that term in prayer. "Father" is much more natural for me. Once a word or phrase establishes a contextual meaning in our minds, it is hard to change that meaning. In this sense, tradition matters.
I definitely don't think Dr. Hemphill was trying to be disrespectful or "cute" in using this term. He was just trying to convey the intimacy we are to have in our prayer life. The fact is that Jesus use of "Father" was a radical concept in His day. The Jews considered this phase disrespectful as well. We certainly must not be caught throwing stones here.
But as I said, I do understood the concern. The best advice here it to follow Jesus' response to John who questioned what they should do about the man who was driving out demons in the name of Jesus but was not part of Jesus' disciples. "Do not stop him," Jesus said, "for whoever is not against you is for you."
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