Wilderness Wanderings

So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. (Ephesians 4:11-13)

How do these diverse living stones of God's creation—that is, his people—fit together into a unified whole that we call the church, a spiritual house, or the body of Christ?

The diversity of humanity across the ages and different continents and languages and personalities is, itself, a good gift of God's creation. Like with the altars the Israelites were to build—no tool ought be used to deface the diversity of this God-created humanity as was done, for instance, through the tool of residential schools applied to indigenous persons. No: each person created in the image of God is to be treated as a person. That is, personally. Never abstractly. That is, never in such a way that someone is reduced to a uniform, mono-cultural "brick" of our own determination.

Lest we think this kind of issue only crops up at a governmental systems level in empires like Egypt or dominions like Canada, we should be mindful of the fact that there are a thousand ways de-personalization happens in everyday life, too. Whenever we treat someone as an object to be utilized, as a task to be checked off, or as a resource we must get something from—we have treated them abstractly. It happens when we treat the grocery store clerk as their role, rather than as a person with a name. It also happens when we merely transact actions and activities with our spouse, parents, or children, but don't give time to seeing and hearing them as persons in the unimportant, unproductive, silly anecdotal experiences of their lives. Persons are not something to be used (and therefore to be molded into a form more amendable to our use), but people to be seen, known, and loved. They are not bricks, but "living stones."

So if we cannot coerce a useful uniformity out of this mess of diverse people—how does a coherent church ever get built? The answer is the gifts Christ gives.

While some of those gifts are named here, not all of them are (other lists can be found in Romans and 1 Corinthians, for instance). But the larger point is that all of Christ's people are gifted in diverse ways and are called to use those gifts to serve the purpose of building up this body of "living stones" until we become the unity that in truth, we already are in Christ. This is our "growing to maturity," the final goal of which, is attaining the fullness of Christ which again, in truth, is already ours.

The use of these gifts are the means by which we become what we already are. It is the way that we "keep" the "unity of the Spirit in the bonds of peace" that have already been given. It is the way we work out what Christ has already worked in.

What you will note about this work of growing to maturity and building one another up as living stones into the singular building of Christ's church, is that it is a work of becoming more human and therefore, more Christlike. He is after all, the example we've been given of humanity in its "fullness."

To do this work: we must begin by treating one another personally. Seeing one another not firstly as projects to be worked on or problems to be solved, but as the person who bears a unique gift and calling from Christ to build me up; a uniquely created and gifted person that I and the church are incomplete without.

The only way to receive that gift from the person I encounter, is through a personal relationship. That is, encountering them as the living stone they are and wondering together how we might build one another up and discover the unique places in the body we each hold. In this way, the body of Christ matures, our humanity is deepened, and not only the person in front of us, but also the person we ourselves are, grow together into the fullness of Christ.

But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. This is why it says: "When he ascended on high, he took many captives and gave gifts to his people." (What does "he ascended" mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions? He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.) So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers… (Ephesians 4:7-11)

Gifts, gifts, gifts. A diversity of gifts.

The last set of verses stresses our essential unity as a unity that is grounded in God himself—for there is "one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all." And yet, the kind of unity created in Christ does not enforce us into a uniformity, for we each have different gifts. This given diversity is a gift of Christ!

There are two distinct kinds of unity. The easier unity, which is the unity we will often tend to seek, is a unity of uniformity. School uniforms operate on this uniformity principle. Uniformity seeks to ensure that there will be nothing to make us look different from one another. We try to make sure that everyone does the same things, believes the same way, acts the same way, looks the same way. We are unified and live in peace because we have removed any context for conflict. We flatten all diversity.

There are pictures of this kind of unity-by-uniformity in the Bible—but it's never the model we're to base our lives on. Uniformity shows up in the Bible through Pharaoh's enforced brick making. It is a way of slavery that forces everyone—the young and the old, the writer as well as the carpenter, the shepherd as well as the priest—to submit to one, single, repetitive task that dehumanizes them. Uniformity diminishes one's life, and utterly stunts human creativity to one, single, linear, repeatable output: a brick.

The picture of unity envisioned in Ephesians is different. It has more in common with the Biblical pictures of "living stones" being built into a spiritual house. Or, if you like, Paul's own picture from chapter 2 of a building made of Jews and Gentiles being built on Jesus as the chief cornerstone. "In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit" (Eph. 2:21-22).

Uncut stones are what the Israelites were to make alters out of. Not bricks (Ex. 20:25, Dt. 27:5, Jos. 8:31). The rationale is that the tools used would defile the perfect Creational gift God had given in the stones that lay on the ground, each in its unique form. In the making of altars, therefore, each stone was to keep its unique colour and shape. The stone was not to be reduced to something more amenable to human aims of efficiency or effectiveness. Bricks, by contrast, are entirely effective and efficient. Anyone can stack bricks. But building an alter was to take some time and skill, figuring out how to fit each unique, diverse stone into a strong and stable unity.

This is the picture of the unity Christ builds in his church. It is not a brick-like uniformity, but rather a unity in diversity. It is a mosaic of living stones lovingly and carefully built together. How? Gifts.

It is Christ himself who measures out the dynamic colours and contours that shape the unique diversity of each living stone. To each one of us he apportions a unique form of his grace—a gift that we are invited to use in service of building each other up toward the unity we have been given.

There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all (Ephesians 4:4-6).

The things that divide often loom large, too large. An argument with a family member or close friend can cause us to lose perspective. All we see is how wrong that other is. Beautiful years of relationship can disappear in moments; conflict eclipsing all that has gone before. How could we have ever enjoyed this person's company? They have so many bad habits. How could we have put up with them for so long?

As in the biological family, so in the family of God. We hear Paul's call to be "completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love" (2). We want to argue with him, "You don't know the people in my family, my church. You don't know how self-absorbed, cantankerous, and ego-driven they are. They are not lovable." Unity it too much to ask.

But it seems that our objections have been anticipated. For three chapters, we have enjoyed a long, slow, gaze at the grandeur of God's work in Christ. With pain-staking detail, Paul has shown God's love for us, which pre-dates time itself. The grand arc of history is to reconcile all things together in Christ. In the end, God will receive all the glory for his redeeming love, the church being its show case in this era.

Now we are invited to role up our sleaves to participate in this great reconciling work. But as we pull on our coveralls, we recoil at what it will require of us: humility, gentleness, patience, and love that covers over other's sins. We are called to respond kindly to hostile words, to turn the other cheek. This we do not want to do. The cost is too much.

And so, before he goes on to spell out in more detail how much unity costs and the various contours of our calling in Christ; before we can raise more objections against the practice of resurrection, he pulls us back to our rootedness in Christ. He has us recall all the resources that we have available for practicing the Christian life.

The first resource is unity. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

Our eyes can get so focussed on what is right in front of us. We see what we want to see. What we want to see is the hurts and pains that others have caused us. But this is not the way of resurrection. The writer of Hebrews tells us how to practice resurrection, "And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart" (12:1-3).

It is not just 'Jesus' that we fix our eyes on. It is the Jesus "who endured the cross, scoring its shame…who endured such opposition from sinners." This is the Messiah we see. We set our sights beyond the pain and struggle and injustices to see the one Messiah, who sends one Spirit, to bring together the children of the one Father in his family, into one church.

Setting our sights on this Messiah, we see that our "one God and Fatherl…is over all and through all and in all". Though it is beyond our comprehension, this God is at work in our humility, gentleness, patience, and love that covers over other's sins, to bring about his redemptive purposes. Such qualities are not signs of weakness, but rather of hope and trust in God.

Many human sins, often motivated by the ego, drive Christians apart. Before we began practicing resurrection, we saw only insults and the sins of others. But now we see God; we see Jesus, the Lamb that was slain. His blood is stronger than our divisiveness. In him is our faith, our hope, our baptism. No matter all evidence to the contrary, there is only one body, one family of God.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3:20-21).

An extended Sunday Sermon edition of Wilderness Wanderings! The text is 1 Samuel 30 from the New International Version of the Bible. Dive In discussion questions are below for further reflection! To see this sermon in the context of the worship service it comes from, find it here on YouTube. Or, head to our website to connect with the worshiping community of Immanuel CRC: immanuelministries.ca

DIVE IN QUESTIONS

1. What stands out to you from hearing these verses from 1 Samuel 30? Is God offering an invitation or a challenge to you through those words? Take time to pray about it.

2. What challenges does David face?

3. What is a "Dark Night of the Soul?" When and how might that come in our lives? Have you ever had one? Write about it…

4. What answer does David discover in the Dark Night of his Soul? What does he do?

5. What impact does David's "grabbing hold" of God have in his other challenges? How does David's Kingdom begin to look like the Kingdom of God?

6. What might it look like for you to "grab hold" of God for dear life?

As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. (Ephesians 4:1-3)

As we move to Ephesians 4, all of a sudden this sweeping theology Paul has been weaving begins to take on flesh and enter into the practicalities of our lives. We find that here in the opening verses that Paul now implores us to live out the "bond of peace" forged and preached by Christ through his cross and Spirit that we've been hearing about for the last three chapters.

There is a strange paradox that arises here. Paul urges us to "keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." It's a paradox, because as Paul will go on to say, "there is… one Spirit." This singular Holy Spirit is already united in and with Himself as are the people of God in whose lives this Spirit is active—so this unity Paul urges us toward is already there. It's a gift. So what's to keep? Yet, on the other end of the paradox we discover that the people who claim this self-same Spirit of Christ are often divided, living in dis-unity.

Unity with the whole church of Christ is a gift we have nothing to do but receive from the Spirit as He joins us to the reality of "peace" Christ has worked, and yet this unity with the whole church of Christ is also a goal we must strive to keep in all our Christian lives and living. Unity is a gift and a goal.

Paul wrote this challenging line from prison. A place of being set apart, divided from the rest of the church. There is therefore, a sense of urgency to receive and live and not take for granted or squander this good gift of God in Christ. Paul urges us all to live worthily of the calling we have received.

Far from striving to heights of success, which often includes puffing up our own pride and resume through competing and outshining others, the calling we have received includes a call to walk the humble, gentle, patient, loving path of Christ and his cross instead. This slow, lowly, and unspectacular path of Jesus is the means of living out our calling to keep what we already have and to remain what we already are: united to Christ and one another through the Spirit by the will of the Father.

We've been adopted into this family by the grace of God, the work of Christ, and the power of the Spirit.

But as with any family: it takes some humility, love, and patience to remain united as a family. We don't always get along so well. We annoy each other, disagree with one another, hurt each other, and take from one another. Our families can wound us more deeply than most any others, because we are so much closer to them.

Those collected wounds and annoyances can drive wedges that eventually blow families apart in divorce and estrangement. But, they are also places where the Spirit can quietly break down the barriers of hostility and forge a redeeming peace that unites us again, despite ourselves.

This is the work of Christ's cross in our lives. It is the work we are called and urged to join. We are continually called to reconcile with one another, confess to one another, and forgive one another. This is the slow, humble, gentle, loving work of keeping the unity of the Spirit-joined family in the bonds of Christ's peace. It is the hardest work of our Christian lives. But we do not do it alone. Unity is not just a goal, it is also the Spirit's persistently worked gift as he unfailingly unites us ever deeper to Christ.

May we seek and find just such a reconciled unity as we gather around the family dinner table, the Lord's Table, once again this Sunday.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen (Ephesians 3:20-21).

This doxology circles us back to the beginning of Ephesians: giving praise to God. Doxologies, "glory to God", are scattered liberally throughout the New Testament. And the word glory even more abundantly: God is a God of glory (1:17), his glory reveals who he is (John 1:14), God gives glory to Christ (1 Peter 1:21) and his people (Romans 2:10); Christians are transformed from glory to glory (2 Corinthians 3:18); we are to do everything for God's glory (1 Corinthians 10:31) and give glory back to God (Ephesians 1:6). The new creation will reveal even more glory (Romans 8:18). "Glory" is one of those words that encompasses the whole of Christianity.

But the focus here is on the praise and honor that should be given God for his saving work. What is striking is the assertion that glory is given to God "in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever." No other passage mentions the church explicitly in a doxology in this manner.

It is not that the church and Christ are of equal status. Rather, Paul assumes an unending relation between God, his people, and Christ. The presence of the church with God, which Jesus made possible, will be a cause for eternal praise. Yesterday's prayer immersed us in the love of Christ, which is beyond understanding. Here the activity of God is beyond expectation or thought.

All along we have noted the intense language showing the depth of Paul's emotion. There has been a preponderance of words for God's activity right from the beginning. This doxology sums all that up. We should praise God for his astounding work in Christ Jesus. God is not only able to do beyond what we expect, his power is already at work in us. God is not limited to our expectations. Again, like yesterday, he is able and eager to redeem those we think irredeemable. And maybe even more unbelievable, some day we will give God glory hand in hand with them, and we will be happy to do it. He is eagerly at work in us to achieve this redeemed community.

One implication stands out: the church is not an optional part of Christianity. Rather, it is the community now and throughout eternity where God is given honor and glory. Just as Christ is the evidence of God's redeeming love, the church is the evidence of God's transforming and uniting power. God is glorified, not the church, except that we receive God's love. Unfortunately, church history is marred by too many times and places where the church thought it was exalted.

Whenever the church feels it has power, it is most in danger. The church exists for worship and service and must perform those acts with the same humility with which Jesus traversed the dusty paths of Palestine. Then God is given honor and glory. Sadly, the church often shows more evidence of human depravity than of God's transforming and uniting power.

All Christians need to protest the arrogance, superficiality, and division that mark our churches. We do not have to agree on all points. But we must respect each other, and we must be driven by God's love to exhibit life in Christ and to worship God together.

No quick fix exists for the failure of the church. We must develop a better understanding of God, of faith in Christ, and of unity, and then put that understanding into practice. No doubt the biggest obstacle is the human ego, but that ego shrivels as we gather around an empty cross. And at that cross we prayer,

God our Father, we acknowledge that we and every other person has their origin in you. We owe you our lives. Forgive us for the arrogance of thinking we are better or more important than other people. Let your Spirit work in us to strengthen us. We want your Spirit to merge with ours. Make the presence of Christ so real that we sense your love and live from your love. Help us understand how deep your love is so that it changes us into your very image. You who are all powerful beyond anything we can conceive, we praise you. Every accolade of worth we throw at your feet. You alone are God. From your worth all other worth is determined. For the gift of life in Christ we and all your people worship you. Together and forever, we will sing your praise. Amen.

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord's holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:17b-19)

What roots and establishes us in love? If you recall from yesterday, it is the phrase that comes just before: Christ dwelling in our hearts through faith by the gift and power of the Spirit. This is our rooting and establishing in love. It is Christ's love that grounds us, embeds us firmly in the soil of reality, and enables us to grow.

Having been so established in the love of Christ, the journey of our lives now follows the trajectory of Paul's prayer: discovering more deeply what God has already given, namely, this love of Christ. Interestingly enough, it is a work that we can only do through the power of the Triune God and the work of the Christian community.

It can be said at times, in rather trite ways, that it's all about love. Just love. Yet, trite though it may seem—it is also true. The love of God in Christ is everything.

Discipleship is a work of discovering this love more fully. It is a work of knowing Christ's love. Knowing not in a head-knowledge sort of way, but more in the way of the Hebrew understanding of the term. Paul is asking that we might know the love of Christ in an intimate sort of way—the kind of knowing that comes through an unconditionally loving, committed, long-term relationship, like a really good marriage. The work of discipleship across our Christian lives is to tangibly experience Christ's way of keeping this relationship of love with us, through things like his forgiveness for our failures, his commitment to us despite our foibles, his bearing with us in all situations, and his limitless gifts.

But of course, our knowing of this love doesn't only come from our own experience of the relationship with Christ. It comes also through the "manifold wisdom of God" that places us in a church—a church full of diverse, divided, disagreeable folks—people from all walks of life, all different ethnicities, all different personalities, all different opinions, and social classes. To really capture this idea, you have to picture the most abhorrent caricature of a Christian person that you have ever experienced or heard of.

To fully grasp the width, length, height, and depth of Christ's love—we have to know that he also loves these people. Forgives them. Is committed to them and gives his gifts also to them. Even though we may not see how to be reconciled with these strangers who we are told are fellow Christians—we must confront the fact that they too are rooted and established in Christ's love. We must confront the fact that they too have been reconciled to God and to us in the church! There are no longer any dividing walls that separate us for Jesus removed them all in his cross. In order to grasp the expansive love of Christ, we must confront this reality of Christ's love for those Christians we deem unlovable. This recognition demands of us an ever deeper conversion to Christ: an ever deeper knowing of his infinitely expansive, unconditional agape love.

Paul leaves us with a paradox here: he prays for a knowledge that surpasses knowledge. He asks that we might know something that is ultimately unknowable, or at least ungraspable by us finite human creatures here and now. Yet in this journey of seeking to know the love of Christ that holds us and the church, the fullness of God slowly fills us up as we discover how truly established and enfolded in love we really are.

I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith (Ephesians 3:16-17).

The letter to the Ephesians is prayer. Paul begins with prayer, ends by calling the church to join him in prayer and here in the middle, prays. We talk much about prayer. Probably, we should do less of that and more of it, that is, praying. Like many of us were taught, but don't practice much, at least not publicly, we find Paul on his knees. It's a posture of humility, recognizing that God has what we need, and that God is the primary actor in the Christian life, and we are not. Not that its difficult to get things from God, but that Jesus said, "ask and you will receive." So, Paul is asking.

But what is he asking? What does he want? Well, it's the end, the doxology that we have been offering at the end of these devotions that tells us what Paul desires, "to [God] be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus" always. Years ago, a book called, Your God is too Small, created quite a buzz in the church. According to Amazon, there are several books with that title. I suspect that the size of our prayers corresponds with the size of our god.

The God Paul writes about really has no limits. That is what he has been writing about. He began with all those explosive verbs describing God's actions, summarized first with this phrase, "to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ" (1:10). Later, he expands with this, "And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way" (1:22-23).

After reflecting on our spiritual deadness, he trumpets God's grace, "And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus" (2:6). God was not content with just making us alive again. There is much more in store for us. "And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit" (2:22).

We need to read and reread these opening chapters so that we can understand the magnitude of Paul's prayers. His is no small God. He prays that this powerful, eternal God, out of all his glorious resources, will through the self-same Spirit by which he raised Christ from the dead, that this God will strengthen us in our inner beings.

His prayer is that God will be gloried in the church and in Christ Jesus forever. These are not two separate things. No, Christ Jesus and the church are intimated tied together. He is the head; the church is the body. They can no longer be seen as separate. For God to be gloried, Christ needs to dwell in us through faith so that we are saturated, filled up and overflowing with the gracious life of Christ.

Jesus said, "It is from within, out of a person's heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly" (Mark 7:21). But Paul understands that this is the old heart. God promised new hearts to his people. "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws" (Ezekiel 36:26-27).

Again, notice who is doing all the work. God is. Paul was an Old Testament scholar. He understood that only the God who was powerful enough to create in the beginning, could do this new thing in Christ. Paul prays what God is doing, making people who are dead alive. Cleaning us up happens by degrees. Getting filled up with Christ happens bit by bit.

So, let's join Paul, on his knees, recognizing that we cannot do this thing, not for ourselves, nor for others; let us pray that God will dwell in our inner beings, so that we may live for his glory.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3:20-21).

Eph 3: 14-15

14 For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15 from whom every family[a] in heaven and on earth derives its name.

Upon reading this passage what came to mind was a question from Anne of Green Gables: "Why must people kneel down to pray? If I really wanted to pray, I'll tell you what I'd do. I'd go out into a great big field all alone or in the deep, deep woods and I'd look up into the sky—up—up—up—into that lovely blue sky that looks as if there was no end to its blueness. And then I'd just feel a prayer." L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

A posture of prayer can take many forms, looking up into the sky, raising our hands, bowing heads, and kneeling. God wants to hear from us no matter what form our prayer posture is. Conversation with God is how we build our trust and relationship with him. Paul starts his letter by saying "For this reason…" He is acknowledging that God has a purpose and a plan for his life and the lives of those around him. He is praying with confidence acknowledging that it is God's will that is being done on earth.

When Paul writes "I kneel before the Father…", he is approaching with a posture of humility, understanding that it is God's great plan that is at work even while he is in prison. God's work is unstoppable. Paul's prayer is directed to the Father, through the Son, by the empowering and direction of the Holy Spirit. The Trinity is at work together.

All of God's family is called after His name. We can understand this by going back to Genesis and the covenant made with Abraham, "2 "I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.[a]3 I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you."[b] (Genesis 12:2-3) Everything starts and ends with God. God's plan for our lives. This is essential in the unity of the church being the Body of Christ, One in Christ. We are one with our brothers and sisters in heaven and on earth. We are all part of one family and community of believers.

We can have the same confidence in praying to God as Paul does knowing that we are loved deeply by a Father who cares for us. God calls us each his own no matter where we are.

20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

A Sunday Sermon edition of Wilderness Wanderings! The text is 1 Samuel 28:3-25 from the New International Version of the Bible. Dive In discussion questions are below for further reflection!

To see this sermon in the context of the worship service it comes from, find it here on YouTube. Or, head to our website to connect with the worshiping community of Immanuel CRC: immanuelministries.ca

1. Do you believe in the 'paranormal'? Do you believe that God still speaks to his people?
2. Why does the Bible forbid practicing divination, sorcery, fortune-telling, witchery, casting spells, holding séances, or channeling with the dead, etc.? Consider your practice of spiritual disciplines (prayer, scripture, worship). What do you hope to gain from them?
3. Why does Saul search for this woman? What do you do when you are desperate?
4. What warning does this story bring us? In what ways do you need to heed it?
5. How does God speak to us today? How do we test what we perceive?