Bible Study - 8:00 AM PDT 10/04/2025

Hello All,

We have returned home bodily! But parts of us are still living the experiences of our Honor Flight. We have abbreviated study notes for 10/04/2025. We will open with prayer, set the stage and dialogue about what we take away from these notes. We will essentially be discussing what it means to be 'hearers' and 'doers' of the word. Please have your Bibles handy. 

We continue to pray for our world leaders, including Charlie Kirk. Please pray for his family: his wife Erika and their two young children. Pray for the legacy that Charlie left us. It was refreshing to watch the way that Charlie dialogued with young men and women on college campuses. He met them in their environment, where he talked with them as equals. He brought to those students, their campus, and their professors a clear discussion of Christian truths. His challenge to all who approached his microphone was, "Prove me wrong." He was not an academic, he was a college drop-out. Pray continuously - Stop the killing.

Please join us, our Zoom Link is below for this Saturday's session at 8:00 AM PDT 10/04/2025. 

Please remember that you bless us with your presence, and may the Holy Spirit bring you His comfort and His peace. Join us!!!

Zoom Link:
For Study, Prayer and Fellowship - 8:00 AM PDT 10/04/2025:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82968961343?pwd=LzcwVjJKcWVESDRURlhDcXlNV0JUdz09
Meeting ID: 829 6896 1343
Passcode: 77299ere:

Love, hank

   A Brief Side Excursion into Matthew

 

To be very candid Susan and I are slowly returning to normal after our Honor Flight. I am going to bed earlier, but I lack the focus to really crank on a Bible study in the manner to which I have become accustomed. Thus, I am creating an interim study with a slightly different format.

 

Currently, I am reading Richard Rohr, OFM. For many years, he has been a go to author when I find myself scattered. He preaches an alternative orthodoxy which the Franciscans apply to themselves. (I have been influenced by Franciscan teachings for 82 years.) It is an orthodoxy of lifestyle and preaching rather than merely preaching. He calls the Catholic Church to task for being too focused on the latter. He also teaches that following Jesus is the way to salvation. He advises people to go deep in one place. Susan and I were taught that by all the folks we met in Kyrgyzstan.

 

Hearing the word is not enough. We can not overstate the importance of hearing God’s word. It is that which opens us up to a deeper relationship with our Creator. Sequentially, we must hear, understand, and be guided in our actions. “Be doers of the word and not hearers only …!

[James 1:22] “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” [John 10:27]

 

Rohr also teaches that Jesus’ death and resurrection is a historical event that perfectly illustrates the pattern of movement from “false self” to “true self” in our spiritual development. One can restate that to read: “from who you think you are” to “who you are in God”. He calls for a return to a pre-Emperor Constantine church – a return to a “bottom up” church. There is only one Christ: He is everything, in everything and transcends everything. [Col. 3:11]

 

I think if we bumped into Jesus, He might ask, “Are you eating with sinners?” [Mark 2:13-15] You must think through His question in the setting of 30 A.D. Every one knew who the sinners were and often they were certain classes of people. Matthew was a sinner. He was a tax collector. The shepherd who ‘tended their flocks’ were sinners, because of their poverty. 

 

When we were in Kyrgyzstan,  we saw firsthand how people drew certain conclusions about people due to their profession. It was easy while there to be transported back 2,000 years. But often whom we eat with, is predicated on how we respond to Jesus when He commands, “Follow me.” [Matt. 9:9]

 

For today’s study please compare [Matt. 4:19]; [Mark 1:17] with [Matt 8:22]; [Luke 9:59] with [Matt 9:9]; [Mark 2:14]; [Luke 5:27]. And [Matt. 16:24]; [Mark 8:34]; [Luke 9:23] with [Matt 19:21]; [Mark 10:21]; [ Luke 18:22] We will discuss the message in each. And if you have a favorite scripture on this topic, by all means share it.      AMEN

 

Hank Hohenstein, OFS

Land Steward

161 Osprey Vista

Shady Cove, OR 97539
Cell: 541-973-5442

hankhohenstein@gmail.com