47°F WSW@3mph SR0644 SS1648
Morning Offering given
Jesus take me as I am
Summon out what I should be
Set your seal upon my heart
Holy Spirit dwell in me.
Village damp from rainy mist
Coffee good
With only 4 weeks left in the liturgical year, I decided to do Meditations & Readings from a devotional series published years ago by “The Word Among Us Press”. They have a compilation of several books that talk about each book of the New Testament. Leo Zanchettin is the General Editor, and we will be using the following books in this series. Mark (1998), Acts (2001), Romans & Galatians (2002), A Church in Transition…1 Tim-Hebrews (2005), and The Church Moves Out… James-Jude (2006)
•Mark 12:17 So Jesus said to them, “Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.” They were utterly amazed at him.f
•Acts 5:29 But Peter and the apostles said in reply, “We must obey God rather than men.i
•Romans 13:1-7 Let every person be subordinate to the higher authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been established by God.a 2 Therefore, whoever resists authority opposes what God has appointed, and those who oppose it will bring judgment upon themselves. 3 For rulers are not a cause of fear to good conduct, but to evil.b Do you wish to have no fear of authority? Then do what is good and you will receive approval from it, 4 for it is a servant of God for your good. But if you do evil, be afraid, for it does not bear the sword without purpose; it is the servant of God to inflict wrath on the evildoer.c 5 Therefore, it is necessary to be subject not only because of the wrath but also because of conscience.d 6 This is why you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, devoting themselves to this very thing. 7 Pay to all their dues, taxes to whom taxes are due, toll to whom toll is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due.e
•Titus 3:1 * Remind them to be under the control of magistrates and authorities,* to be obedient, to be open to every good enterprise.a
•1 Peter 2:13-17 Be subject to every human institution for the Lord’s sake, whether it be to the king as supremek 14 or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the approval of those who do good. 15 For it is the will of God that by doing good you may silence the ignorance of foolish people. 16 Be free, yet without using freedom as a pretext for evil, but as slaves of God.l 17 Give honor to all, love the community, fear God, honor the king.m
Above are the scripture readings we will look at. I have them listed in order here but may be using them in a different order. Please feel free to comment your thoughts and opinions.
The CCC is another source we will look at. https://www.vatican.va/content/catechism/en/part_three/section_two/chapter_two/article_4/v_the_authorities_in_civil_society.html
You may want to consider picking up a 4-book series by John Bartunek called “the better part”. It can be found at Thrift Book, ABE, etc. for an extremely reasonable price.
Know you are prayed for.
