The Seven Streams Method

Galatians 4:8-6:18 We are in the Church Stream reading from The Message. 7streamsmethod.com | @7StreamsMethod | @serenatravis | #7Stream | Donate

Commentary by Dr. Drake Travis

Lord Jesus, we are free in you and free because of you.  All  to not go therepraise and thanks to God. Amen

The issue today is two points on the opposite ends of a see-saw: 1] under the Law, you are in bondage; chains.  2] The freedom you seek is in Christ.  That sums up today's reading in seconds. This is the summation of pertinent theology too.

4:8-31 - The passage begins with Paul a trifle exasperated at the young Christians reverting back to add many old Jewish traditions to their Christian culture. They had not known of anything Jewish ever in this part of the world until the traveling trolls of circumcision (the Judaizers) came through and vandalized their liberty in Christ. Paul's words are more or less, "knock this off!" Paul expounds on how they were /or rather/ have been so gracious and free in Christ until they started listening to the religious hoodlums who merely target new Believers to bring them back to old rules.  Why are you acting like children of rejection or orphans when you are children of blessing? It's a golden question that they need to answer with behavior that is transformed back to "Christ alone" thinking. 5 - You are free in Christ Jesus. Don't lock yourselves up again. Don't walk backwards, and don't go backwards! Those who tell you to go back to Jewish Laws and quote me to back up their wrong teaching are lying about me as well as lying about God (so says Paul).  The old way never worked. Paul has a slightly gruesome wish for those who preach continued circumcision - but we read that already.  Paul wants them to continue in Christ, to grow in Christ, to walk in the Spirit and be free from struggles and sins and entanglements that once plagued them. They were to put the old life away permanently. Put away old religious rules. Put away legalism. Put away judging and comparing too. 6 -  Paul closes his letter to Galatians with a sage list of things that are altogether helpful and necessary for their growth.  They were to be gracious with each other, and brutally honest with themselves.  Fellowship was to be open, service was paramount, shun the phonies and false teachers and don't believe their trash-talk about Paul.  Paul's life and testimony and scars are proof that he was real; and all in it for Jesus. The thread that reoccurred this week can be said to be, "don't go there buddy - don't you dare go there!"  Leviticus opened the week with a list of lurid practices that anyone who wants to walk with God will "leave it alone!" The sexual sins of the world were prevalent and would reduce anyone who engaged in them to low-life animals.  So don't go there (it was in Lev. 18).  We see people coming against, questioning, denouncing Elisha in II Kings. NEVER back talk or question a prophet of God.  I'm telling you, "don't go there buddy!" We saw what happened to another basket of bruisers who came against Elisha.  Psalm 101 has the warning that keeps with our theme this week: steer clear of degrading things, Canaanite gods, dealings with evil people, gossip, smack talking the neighbors <--David says DON'T King Jehoiakim burned Jeremiah's writings! A Craaaaazy cray cray thing to do! He should have listened to Jeremiah as Baruch read it. But for what he did he was prophesied to die and rot in the sun. Sick. Amos sternly exhorted the Israelites who were trampling the poor while they nibbled on "steak and veal". Don't be like that, people. Listen to God. They ignored all advice and took their destiny into oblivion. Shouldn't have done it and it never should have happened.  Jesus encounters a man who had apparently been dabbling and immersing himself in demonic activity. Someone had to have warned him not to; to not go that path. He didn't listen and suffered horribly - until he met Jesus.  Paul tells the Galatians once again to not go back to what the Judaizers were dragging them back to. They had been warned to not go there...  

Luke 8:16-9:17 We are in the Christ Stream reading from The Message. 7streamsmethod.com | @7StreamsMethod | @serenatravis | #7Stream | Donate

Commentary by Dr. Drake Travis

God thank you for including us in your work, letting us join you, to feel valued and be employed by you in the great work of building the Kingdom.  Amen.

Jesus basically nails a list of priorities that he brings to us from heaven and we need to make them ours.

-share the truth, don't hide it -worship God & kingdom first, (yes, honor family - don't worship family) but Honor God to be in HIS Eternal Family. -Jesus calms any storm...He orders what He created. This miracle was a total stunner for them -Jesus healing the demonized man has many messages. The dark world is not to be fooled with - it will take you to hell even before you get there.  Jesus has complete authority over the demonic and he wants us to exercise this victory also.  Jesus turns even the worst madness back into sanity again. and regarding the pigs - Jesus is making some statement here. The kosher laws were near their end (Acts 10 was just a few years away) but there's a subtle statement about people's perceptions in casting the evil spirits into the pigs. [make whatever you want from it]  The Gentiles were very disturbed about the business loss of pork but Jesus is more concerned that people get well and saved v.s. any other priority. -the SEQUENCE of the Jairus daughter request / woman bleeding-touch-the garment / commence with Jairus daughter; the sequence is identical in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. This is a weighty memo that the writers want us all to catch.  Jairus is large and in charge but what is that when your little one is dying? He calls for Jesus to come heal his 12-yr-old.  Enroute, he is touched by a woman who's been ill for 12 years with an unkosher problem that forbids her to be among crowds.  Yet she presses through and gets healed after taking a terrifying risk.  This heals her and Jesus welcomes her back to 'the family'. He then resumes his journey to heal the 12-yr-old.  Kosher problems, illness/death, chronic problems - Jesus solves it all.  The number '12' links this story together.  But know this - Jesus is determined to reach the young for the kingdom. He'll stop to minister to anyone who needs Him, but his face is set like flint on reaching the young for God.  We must be and do the same. 9 - Jesus calls together and commissions the 12 to go and do the power ministry that He has been doing. He gives them authority to minister and lays out a few operating procedures.  The action and news of it has long since gone national - so much so that even Herod is jolted to sit up straight.    In the final story today, the 5,000 are fed.  The hook is when Jesus tells the disciples, "YOU feed them."  who? huh? me? us?  Jesus talks to his followers in this manner yet today.  " You feed them ... You heal them ... You go and preach to them ... You evangelize them  (don't fret - I'll be with you to the end of the age.) It's almost too marvelous to ponder that The God of Heaven is gracious enough to share His endearing work with us and even let us feel useful in seeing lives touched for eternity.

Amos 8-9 We are in the Exile Stream reading from The Message. 7streamsmethod.com | @7StreamsMethod | @serenatravis | #7Stream | Donate

Commentary by Dr. Drake Travis

Lord, we hear of your great and terrible deeds done in millennia' past. Do your work of cleansing us today and restoring us here [as it is to be] on earth as it is in heaven.  Amen. 8 - The symbolism is that Israel is a basket of fruit that is "ripe for destruction."  It reminds me of a neighbor we have in our town who prepared over 100 lbs of peaches for drying so they could chew on them all winter long.  They were washed, peeled, pitted and sliced and laid on racks to dry for two days and nights.  Well, a bear snuck on to the property when it smelled the fruit, broke through everything and made quick work of all the luscious provisions and devoured it all in mere moments.  Keeping this bear away or stopping him once he began to consume the fruit would have been a deathly assignment - best to let the peaches go, and let the bear have it.  Israel's fate was,... a bowl of ripe fruit left out and it wasn't going to last long in these conditions; they were quickly coming up on two centuries of aggressive sin. Israel was going to suffer severely.  They were smug to God, addicted to selfishness and darkness in all aspects of behavior, and they were utterly brutal and heartless to the poor and weak that were among them.  For this (and 200 years of it!) God was unleashing the Assyrians against Israel.  Dead bodies would be strewn far and wide.  Israel was arrogant as they come!  Judgment day was approaching and it would be swift. The party was near over and it wouldn't take God long to turn it all into a national funeral. Death of your children, national famine, and drought, life in ruins- this is all that's coming for all of you from Israel committed to false gods and pagan behavior; which is basically all of you in Israel. 9 - the first half of this chapter is the doom over Israel spelled out by Amos.  This was the final word to Israel that Amos gave on his visit to Bethel, and it all came true in 30 years or less.  God had scheduled the sifting out of Israel and no one's sinful life would go unpunished. No one. God was determined to cleanse the north of sinful apostate behavior.  It was over for them. Remember, Amos was from Tekoa, in the south near Bethlehem in Judah. The ten Tribes of the north would be lost to history.  But God was not finished with His people.  He never would be. As He sifted out the sin of Bethel and Dan and the falsity in the north, he was still God who would restore David's line to the greatness of their destiny.  With the swiftness that only God can execute, the sinners will be gone and the blessing would be restored to those committed to His Covenant. God prophesied a return to glory, of security, rebuilding, replanting, plenty, to be eternally established.  Remember that Christ our Savior is in the line of David...!

Jeremiah 36-37 We are in the Prophetic Stream reading from The Message. 7streamsmethod.com | @7StreamsMethod | @serenatravis | #7Stream | Donate

Commentary by Dr. Drake Travis 36 - It is 605 B.C.  The first onslaught of the Babylonians has taken place. Judah has less than 20 years left until Jerusalem is burned to ashes and the country is cleaned out. The inevitable is "in the air". The people of God; prophets and true lovers of God sense that "it's just not right in the world right now."  The king? His attitude is quite different.  We find this out after Jeremiah is told by God to write all this down. Jeremiah spends about a year writing down what God has said to him so far. To be exact, Jeremiah dictated and Baruch his assistant/scribe writes is all down. It is read by Baruch to the officials.  Some are in awe of the import of what they have just heard. Other officials took the scroll and eventually it gets read to Jehoiakim; the king of Judah.  He, with a cavalier attitude, cuts off a few paragraphs at a time and throws it piece by piece into the fire.  The King burns the "Book of Jeremiah"!!  He then attempts to fetch and arrest Baruch and Jeremiah but it's unsuccessful as God intervenes.  God will see to it that Jehoiakim and his descendants are "a family obliterated" for the burning of Jeremiah's work. Jeremiah and Baruch team up and write it all down again.  He's not the first saint in history who has had to start over from the top and repeat it all again so to complete his ministry. Were they exasperated or did they simply shrug and say, "can you say that again, God?"

37 - Babylon was attacking from the north. Egypt was moving up from the south to make war as they were being hired to assist Judah.  When the Babylonians heard that Egypt was coming, they retreated for a time to avoid being over loaded in their objective to take Judah.  Jeremiah knew that Babylon was NOT retreating but taking a rest.  They had full plans to resume the ransacking of Judah.  He later tried to convince the king that he should not be complacent for Babylon's army would return.  During a lull in the fighting Jeremiah returned to his former home in Anathoth of Benjamin perhaps to gather food since it was scarce. He is captured there on suspicion of defecting to go help Babylon as a traitor to Judah. He gets a beating and a jail term until the King Zedekiah comes to him looking for advice. Jeremiah's word to this king is pertinent and empassioned.  Zedekiah then keeps Jeremiah with the palace guard and gives him a daily bread ration.  Things could be worse.  They do get worse ... later.  [as in next chapter that we read next week]

Psalms 96-102 We are in the Wisdom Stream reading from The Message. 7streamsmethod.com | @7StreamsMethod | @serenatravis | #7Stream | Donate

Commentary by Dr. Drake Travis

Lord of All, you are good and you have our good in mind.  We will remain in Your Covenant and Praise Your Name.  Amen.

96 - This is another theocratic Psalm that lauds the rule of God and sings about the wonderful fanfare --> so we best all join in the parade of worship and praise.  This is rhapsody.  It is beautiful. It is evangelistic. This praise, this Godand this life shows and proves the ragged emptiness of false gods. Even nature and the animals are praising God.  He is coming to judge the earth.  That is terrifying for those who are against God - a great relief for those who love Him; for they are on His side.

97 - This is further chorus about God and His great rule that is coming to earth. It is a crowning anthem that could well be referring to Christ arriving in Bethlehem as well as His second arrival that we are yet eagerly awaiting in our day.  The heavens themselves are part of the chorus praising God as He comes to aright the ship-of earth [pardon the random nautical theme]. God loves and does right, he rescues the righteous, He hates evil, God loves hating evil, and He also loves those who love being loving and hate evil.  The "mathematics" of God's morals are as true as His character. 98 - A Psalm of Jubilation.  It along with Psalm 40:3, Psalm 96:1, 144:9 calls for singing a new song of praise to the Lord.  In heaven there shall be a new song sung to the Lamb of God; in Rev. 5.  But again, in Ps. 98, the praise and music is inspiring and invigorating. The ocean itself even adds to the worship.  It all sings of God who gets things right. Praises be. 99 - God is the Lord of all. He is the ruler and He loves justice/righteousness. He hears when we pray and answers our prayer so let's worship our Holy God. 100 - this is a Psalm of Thanksgiving that we must keep reciting and keep in our hearts.  Psalm 100 is what we are born and live to do 101 - This is a theme of one who is resolved to do right: to be loving, to live justice, to have integrity, to shun evil, to reject alliances with evil people, to avoid gossip and lies and liars, and to expel evil people from God's country.  Some think David wrote this Psalm as he was coming to rule as King of Israel. It's his pact with God to have a proper kingship. 102 - is written in a time of terrible affliction. The writer is humiliated and a miserable sight for others to look upon.  Life has taken a bad turn. Pain seems to be his closest companion. Yet his faith is unshaken.  He loves God more than he insists that life go his way.  He knows God still loves Zion, His people, and He hears their prayers - and He wants future generations to remain true to God also. Somehow, in faith, he knows that God is eternal and that his current suffering is but for a season. So he declares that He will remain in the Lord and the children and their children shall live with the Lord too.

II Kings 6-9 We are in the Nation Stream reading from The Message. 7streamsmethod.com | @7StreamsMethod | @serenatravis | #7Stream | Donate

Commentary by Dr. Drake Travis

Lord, Elisha is simply a fascinating character and servant of you.  Make and commission more like him. We pray you use us dynamically the way you used Elisha.

6 - Elisha's miracles continue. Here is a nature/gravity miracle that is, in terms if physics, equivalent to Jesus walking on water. And it isn't a magic show. It's the repairing of a problem and letting the ministry continue because of God using Elisha in a spectacular way.  His involvement during times of war is impressive.   Elijah's power and access to the spiritual world of angels is used in a magnificent way.  Huge angels of armies appear, the enemy army is struck into blindness and confusion. Then an enemy army is "captured" by mysterious circumstances and Elisha insists they be fed and comforted.  It's near tongue-in-cheek comedy that works. That army leaves Samaria fed and fine and never attacked again.  The famine and cannibalism gets conveniently blamed on Elisha by the Israelite King (huh?!). The King wants Elisha dead and sends an executioner.  Elisha's not too troubled however.

7 - Elisha declares the famine will be a non-issue within a day, but the king's attendant won't get a bite of the bountiful food that will be found.  The story of how this happens is strange and shocking and fascinating when the enemy camp "hears" a huge army stampeding in their direction.  Thank you God for sending angels again!  The deserted camp is loaded with food and weapons and lucre and ... God supplies again as Elisha is simply manning his ministerial post and speaking for God.  I hope these stories are hitting you the way they way they are hitting us: God has unlimited power and all things are possible with Him. He can do today what He did in Bible times now. And He intends to reach even more since there are more people today, and only the power of God can accomplish such a great endeavor. Pray God uses us like Elisha, shall we? 8 - The woman whose son was brought back to life had left for 7 years because of the famine. She returned and the King was determined that the property she had vacated was returned to her; all of it plus profits during her vacant years. The king's heart for her, because of Elisha's involvement in blessing her, triggered yet more blessing.  The influence of Elisha is colossal - in case anyone needed to hear that! Elisha goes to Damascus in Assyria and prophesies as to coming events - the dying king and his successor and the treachery that is coming upon Israel from Damascus.  Checking back at I Kings 19:15-18 clarifies matters and explains the emotion [that has a history behind it]. Hazael is going to be brought in to punish Israel for their horrible sin. Remember that during these chapters we are well prior to 800 B.C., Israel has been in blatant rebellion for over a century, Hazael is newly made king in Damascus and ... we'll get back to him later. Meanwhile Jehoram is made king. His story is further told in II Chron. 21. He had a good father and grandfather, but married Jezebel's daughter and what good can come of that? He murdered his brothers as they seemed to be competition for him. OK, where can this sorry guy's life go from here? --> Arabs and Philistines attacked Jerusalem. God inflicted him with an agonizing disease that would make a staunch proctologist cringe as his bowels gushed out of him and it killed him.  Pause and remember that "going bad" never ends up good. Ahaziah is king of Judah next. He too was related to Jezebel and Ahab - it isn't rare the way kings have tried to find peace via intermarrying where/when/who they shouldn't. He was gone in a year. The details of his death are in ch. 9; next. 9 - Jehu led Israel as king for 28 years. It was a furiously effective campaign to rid the country of Baal / Ahab&Jezebel / Joram & Ahaziah; wicked kings related to Jezebel / ALL Ahab&Jezebels' workers & relatives / all Baal worshipers / Baal pillars and the Baal Temple.  Needless to say, the young prophet anointed Jehu and high-tailed it to get out of his way! Jehu would have had dozens of Nascar trophies had he lived today. He was boisterous as they come, intrepid, without an ounce of pity for people he was called to eliminate. It took a zany man to eliminate this vile religion that has invaded God's land. Jehu did his job. His final deed in this chapter was to order that Jezebel be thrown from the palace to her death. It happened. Jehu then took his sweet time before casually ordering Jezebel to be buried . . . too late for the dogs had devoured her. Wickedness and wicked lives end up in wickedness and wicked places, don't they?

Leviticus 17-20 We are in the World Stream and have started a new bible version: The Message. 7streamsmethod.com | @7StreamsMethod | @serenatravis | #7Stream | Donate

Commentary by Dr. Drake Travis

"God, we thank you that you have laid the path and laid it out straight for us. You want us well and ... well, thank you again.  Amen."

17 - blood and its handling is dealt with sternly in this chapter.  God is the God of Life. Life is in the blood.  Blood must be shed properly and in the right place.  Blood is sacred. We are saved by the shedding of blood as it happened on Calvary in the spring of Jesus' 33rd year. The 13-14 centuries of having a holy reverence and strict rules about blood is training the Jewish people to be ready and to be in awe of Jesus' blood as it's shed. There is a true story of a grown man who received his sight for the first time when the optical part of his brain was activated by a minor accident; a bump to the head and "poof" he could see just like that.  HIs description of life and the world and loved ones is the stuff of award winning literature. He said that what was most astounding to him was seeing the color red . . . in flowers, clothing, deep sunsets. The color red made him groan in awe.  The color red is telling us something from God Himself.  The color red in blood is telling us something even more.  The allure of it is to draw us to God - not to occultic activity and the ritualistic smearing of it, painting with it, drinking it like those immersed in voodoo.

18 - the nations all around Israel were steeped in cultic sexual activity.  The practices were disgusting and filthy and worse.  Virtually everyone in the neighboring nations had multiple partners.  There were no rules except whatever anyone felt like doing to and with whomever.  Diseases were rampant. There were pockets of tribal populations where 100% were infected and had been breeding/producing offspring that ... well, we don't really want to talk about it here.  BTW, many of these were the people that God told the Israelites to utterly destroy, women/children/animals included.  That was because sex with beasts was practiced too. These people were given to Satanism. Satanic cults always include rampant sex along with their 'rigors'.  God wanted the Israelites to be an enduring people, a testimony, he wanted them healthy and mindful of eternity - not just the next sexual encounter or partner or what have you. The rules of Lv. 18 still stand: the insinuation = one God / one heterosexual partner for life.  This is core to being a people of God. 19 - the rules laid forth in 19 are perfectly legitimate and right.  There is no basis for any of these laws to be argued against or considered outdated. The TEN Commandments, protecting the handicapped, keeping things in proper place / no mixing, orchard management, honoring each soul, no cultic behavior or practices, resting, honoring - it's just a great list.  God wants us well not weird or weirding out for any reason. 20 - there was to be absolutely no sacrificing of infants.  Whoever does so is guilty and is to be executed. Looking the other way and pretending not to notice anyone who sacrifices their infant to Molech v.s. punishing them merely spreads the guilt. Followers of Molech must die.  God would have none of this madness in His land. No dabbling in Darkness/occult/witchcraft will be tolerated. There were additional rules against sexual impurity that God insisted they adhere to.  All God's Law was to be obeyed.  It may seem tedious to describe all this but the better way to see it as God sees it is to realize that unredeemed humans have awfully perverse tendencies that make them into a base "animal" and will soon be acting worse than an animal.  The only way to avert this penchant for going bad is to fastidiously list each and every action they were to avoid and to list them specifically.  No one could whine to God then, now, or ever, "but I didn't knowwwwwwwwwwww."  Yes you do.  God told you.

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Galatians 1:1-4:7 We are in the Church Stream and reading from the New American Standard Bible this week. 7streamsmethod.com | @7StreamsMethod | @serenatravis | #7Stream | Donate

Commentary by Dr. Drake Travis

Thank you Lord for settling issues and removing the haze of what it means to walk in your will and plan. You want us to know you straight out and clearly. Discipleship is not meant to be a confusing puzzle. Thank you for what we learn as you simply tell us.  Amen."

1 - Paul opens with his trademark glorious, triumphant, and encouraging greeting that had to warm hearts wherever this is read.  And Paul quickly jumps in on the matter that is bedraggling the region of these churches that he had mentored and planted on his first missionary journey.  Judaizers were traveling and teaching that circumcision and adherence to Moses' Law was required to be truly saved.  And numerous gullible young believers were submitting themselves to this procedure.  In other words, people were being earnestly taught that they needed to find Christ via Judaism - not through God's grace in Jesus.  Jesus was fine to Judaizers, yes, but the Old Law was still required to be followed. Paul offers a polemic that smacks that idea back into 1300 B.C.!  Some may have thought, well well well Paul. Who do you think you are to go around- ... Paul cuts to the quick and goes right into the legitimacy and credibility of his calling.  It's a true rendition of his vocation and record and how he got to where he is.  Paul was on a unique track - you couldn't fake his resume~ if y'tried.  Point being made, Paul is for real and what he is bringing forth in this letter has proven to be Scripture that is God- breathed loaded with timeless advice.  Paul was mentored by Christ Jesus Himself, so he is not sharing advice from an advisor who heard from a ... no.  He got this straight from Jesus.

2 - Paul talks of his 2nd visit to Jerusalem where he shamelessly, yet discreetly, met with and explained the new covenant to men of prominence and how circumcision was not required anymore.  Paul is preaching a bold topic in a hot spot that could get him in some serious trouble but Paul must do what he must.  He talked further of sternly confronting Peter for waffling on the topic and allowing himself to be intimidated and to actually pull away from Gentile believers when Judaizers showed up to threaten and press the issue of circumcision.  His explanation of justification by faith and not works is a pivotal point here for understanding the gospel. 3 - Paul shares his exasperation with the Galatians who were allowing themselves to cower and revert to religion rooted in tasks and duty and rituals that had never saved anyone - only prepared them [in a peculiar way] to be saved once Christ rose and Pentecost arrived. Abraham is the figure that Paul hearkens back to here.  Abraham was a giant to Jewish Believers and to people of faith in general.  The issue Paul brings up is a zinger: "Abraham was declared righteous because he believed God."  That is the end of the matter.  Abraham was dubbed righteous by God and he is labeled so ~->roughly 600 years before Moses arrives and writes the Law.  Come on Galatians, you are not seeing the giant truth right in front of you. Will you plug your ears AND insist that you cannot hear? Come back to the faith you were taught and know to be true.  The Law of Moses was added to deal with transgressions, but that is only a "solution" for a time period. Christ is the Promise (the seed as Paul explains it) that will bring salvation. We are then heirs of salvation. Heirs need not earn this relationship. It IS before we are mindful of it. We need merely to adhere to God's plan and embrace His Son. 4 - His explanation of what a son is and what a son owns and what a son comes to realize and be, is putting the concept into terms that all the world can understand. We know what children mean and the destiny that they are enveloped in provided they keep in the fatherly relationship as God planned it.  Paul hopes that this illustration will teach them how God is at heart for His own. The thread that reoccurred this week is: "the right way is simple."  People can complicate matters and do so for no good reason. Following God is simpler than we often make it to be. -In Leviticus the cleansing of a leper is simply spelled out. This was a problem that bedeviled the known world. So God just told them what to do about it. -In II Kings, it was an era; a generation that needed to listen to Elisha. No mystery here. Just call Elisha over. He had God upon Him and in Him and there was not a problem let unsolved by Elisha. -Moses in Psalms brings a combination of things that get us and keep us on the right path in God's World: assess your life and get wisdom, praise Him, trust Him, worship Him. That's not too hard, is it? -In Jeremiah restoration is promised in the future but for this era, they needed to allow themselves to be subjected to Babylonian invasion and exile. Not easy, but it's better than being butchered. - Amos shows that they simply needed to plead with God for pardon . . . [they wouldn't however] -Luke makes it pretty clear that getting to Jesus remedied anything. Get Him to come to you or go to Him.  Do what you must.  Interesting that it is nearly identical to how Elisha is presented in II Kings. -Paul is rather spirited in insisting that this gospel is as simple as it was for Abraham.  Just believe and follow.  Don't complicate it.  Let all the laws go, bro.  :-)

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Luke 7:1-8:15 We in the Christ Stream reading from the New American Standard Bible. 7streamsmethod.com | @7StreamsMethod | @serenatravis | #7Stream | Donate

Commentary by Dr. Drake Travis

Lord Jesus, your marvels are altogether marvelous.  Keep us on track with you and in line with what you are about every day.  Amen. Luke 7 - This is about a centurion who had control over 100 Roman soldiers.  He had ultimate power; even to execute on a whim. And as any one knows, when your helper is down/ill/gone things get complicated and laborious and very inefficient very quickly.  This centurion presently has such a problem and somehow he knows Who to call upon.  This is testament to how the news of Jesus is spreading and that hunting him down is NOT a waste of time; never is it a fruitless pursuit to seek out Jesus.  His respect for Jesus is revealed in how he requests that Jesus simply 'say the word'. The man knows about authority for certain. Jesus' exclamation is noteworthy.  He is saying, "hey family (of Jews in the Jewish nation)! The outsiders that you despise have me pegged. They know what I am about. Pay attention. They're catching this faster than many of you are." And this healing takes us straight into Jesus' performing a resurrection. This woman is of Nain is at her end. Her husband is gone. Her only son is now gone. The funeral is complete despair that sweeps the town, drawing a huge crowd.  Jesus stops the procession, brings him back from the dead. Note the wording - that Jesus gave him back to his mother.  Death took him --> Jesus gave him back. The news of this spread like feathers in a hurricane.  Jesus' resurrections, of which three are recorded, truly sent undeniable shockwaves through the countryside. The incident wherein John the Baptist is confirming that Jesus is HIM and here and the Savior is a scenario that had to happen.  Jesus proceeds to prove His Messianic power through healing and it suffices for John's followers.  He then exhorts the crowd of which many of whom had sought out John the Baptist.  Some skeptics who had been tracking John duplicitously were simply jealous of the tremendous crowds that were listening to him in Jordan/Jericho area v.s. being in Temple in Jerusalem.  And now some those same skeptics were following Jesus around - but not wholeheartedly. And Jesus gives them 'the business' . Then one of the Pharisees invited Jesus for dinner and a sinful woman came to be with Jesus.  She was penitent and broken and could not do enough to show her devotion to the Son of God. And just so everyone knows, this was not Mary Magdalene, nor Mary from Bethany (Lazarus' sister), nor was it the woman who anointed Jesus' feet right before the crucifixion; in John 12.  Jesus is so completely tender with her and receptive as he was with those who made mistakes.  He uses the moment to teach about forgiveness, gratitude, and Jesus' personal power to forgive.  What an amazing conclusion to this meal and to this day. 8 - the women listed here who assisted in the ministry is helpful insight into Jesus' day to day.  Even prominent women knew to get involved. Can anyone think of anything better to do than to be about the business of assisting in the work of Jesus!?  Just one assessment I wish to make as we closed the reading today - BE good soil. This is more than a story about a parable of a sower.  When Jesus invests in you and plants His seed in you, make it grown, pay attention, be fruitful, multiply it, tend to it, and watch God simply invest/plant more in you.  God is looking for faithful people to use to make the matters of the Kingdom grow and grow.  Don't be thorny, careless, paper-thin and worthless.  Make good of what God has given.  Again, be good soil.  

Amos 6-7 We are in the Exile Stream reading from the New American Standard Bible this week. 7streamsmethod.com | @7StreamsMethod | @serenatravis | #7Stream | Donate

Commentary by Dr. Drake Travis

Lord, let us be sober and vigilant for righteousness and warn others to walk in righteousness also.  Amen.

6 - The people are living like the finest, enjoying the finest of the fine: food; marvelous food, banquets while ivory lined their palaces, and they are listening to stringed music and sipping wine and they couldn't care less than they do about what is right or the spiritual health of their debauched nation. These people of the northern kingdom are similar to the super rich in first class that rode the Titanic Feb. 1912 on its maiden voyage to a freezing grave - oblivious of the pure nightmare that was closer than they wanted to realize.  The bones of Samarians would become the sight and the landscape. Palaces were about to be smashed. They had poisoned everything that God had done good with them starting from centuries ago and soon they would be heaved onto the scrap-heap of history. It is going to be awful.

7 - Yet Amos still cared.  The Lord was sending locusts to strip Israel - but Amos interceded for the Israelites and God relented keeping the locusts off their crops.  The same happened with a judgment by fire when Amos prayed and God did not.  Then a plumb line is used to measure Israel ... for destruction. God will not show mercy or be pleaded with anymore.  Israel has pushed and pushed back and "banged on the NO ENTRANCE door" long enough. Israel is going to be dealt with by the sword of Assyria. Amos is basically scolded by the king of the north to take his disconcerting words of prophecy elsewhere.  For that Amaziah is going to see his family ravaged...then they will be gone.  It's a sad avenue that sin takes a nation down isn't it?