March 16

At that day an apartment connected with the temple was devoted to a sacred school, after the manner of the schools of the prophets. Here leading rabbis with their pupils assembled, and hither the child Jesus came. Seating Himself at the feet of these grave, learned men, He listened to their instruction. As one seeking for wisdom, He questioned these teachers in regard to the prophecies, and to events then taking place that pointed to the advent of the Messiah.

         Desire of Ages, page 78 from the chapter, 'The Passover visit'

     Please ignore the slightly awkward English in the extract we are reading. We note that the Rabbis got some things right. They set out to educate their young people. We would call this discipleship. Jesus joined the class with a view to learn. Ignore what might come in the following paragraphs. It might be that Jesus was feigning interest. I doubt it. It might be that Jesus was showing interest by laying a trap. I guess that is possible, but if He were there would be no malice in the intent. Of course Jesus really could be there to learn.

     There is a point to this blog. There are several points to this blog. I ask you to ignore a couple of points and I tell you that the Rabbis got some things right. You are placing great trust in me. While I appreciate that, you should know me better before you trust me that far without checking me out. I’m human, not wicked.

     Who says the English is awkward? Did the Rabbis truly get their teaching and training right? Can we actually say that we can ignore words in one paragraph at the expense of the sense and facts of another paragraph?

     You are a Christian who is serious about your faith. You have a prayer partner, you pray for the Holy Spirit to enter into your life every day. Being a Christian is important to you.

     Being serious about your faith means that it is important to make sure that the information you receive is accurate. You can’t just rely on the advice of friends and family – or your Pastor. You can’t rely on having a good feeling about something you read. You do need to check things out, and you do need to read properly.

     Housekeeping details for you

     The point of this short blog will become clear if you decide to use this reading in the way we intend it. Netherfield Seventh-day Adventist Church believes in healthy churches. You can see what that means if you head to the relevant Healthy Churches page of the website. We also want other churches to be healthy. That means you can join in our campaign to create healthy churches, with healthy people serving the people in those churches.

     A healthy church is one where Jesus comes first. A healthy church is one where the people work together to put Jesus first. One thing we are doing is to join people together to spread that news. I would like you to look at our prayer partners page. This will explain how we want you to use this short devotional. Very basically we want you to find a like-minded Christian friend who you will join with to : choose to pray together every day, decide together on a way to serve other people together, to help them grow as Christians - and to invite the Holy Spirit into your life every day. This blog that you will receive every day simply gives a common spiritual purpose. If you are a newcomer and want to join the blog with this object in mind click here