Performance reviews – and Revelation 2-3

/ timmacbride

Are you in a job where you have annual performance reviews? You know, where you talk about your goals and accomplishments. Mine tend to go a bit like this:

(c) 2014 Scott Adams, Inc.

In theory, it should be a time when you set lofty, noble aims of what you want to achieve in the coming year, and then your employer agrees to support you in your endeavour to realise these goals. But if you’re any good at doing performance reviews, in practice what you’ll do is list a few things that sound impressive, but have next to no chance of failing. So when reality takes hold toward the end of the year and you get no time to do anything, on paper you’ll still look like an achiever.

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Luke 19:1-10

/ timmacbride

Last week, we worked our way through the stories in Luke chapter 18. In every story we saw a pattern: the person of high status (whom you’d expect to be the “winner,” according to first century culture) ended up being the “loser” in the story, at the expense of the person of low status. The score ended up being 5-0 in favour of the underdog, powerfully illustrating a central theme of God’s kingdom: that the rich and powerful will miss out, but the poor and powerless will enter.

Except that’s not the full story.

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Luke 18:31-43

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This week we’re looking at the short stories in Luke 18, and keeping score as to who “wins” in each story. Here’s the recap so far in table form:

Story Winner Loser
18:1-8 Poor widow Rich litigant and unjust judge
18:9-14 Tax collector Pharisee
18:15-17 Children Adult disciples
18:18-30 Disciples Rich ruler
Total: People of low status – 4 People of high status – 0

Today, we have two stories. And at first glance, the first one seems to break the flow. The status-reversal pattern Luke has set up (see above) seems to be sidestepped when Jesus chooses this moment to again remind his disciples of his impending death.

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Luke 18:18-30

/ timmacbride

This week we’re looking at the short stories in Luke 18 – each individual story, as well as the big picture. We’ve been keeping score as to who “wins” in each story. So far we’ve seen a rich litigant, a Pharisee, and some adults (the disciples) unexpectedly in the “loss” column. By contrast, a poor widow, a tax collector, and little children scored a “win.” The score is currently: low status people – 3, high status people – 0. Today, we get a slightly longer story; the famous one about a rich young ruler.

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Luke 18:9-17

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This week we’re looking at the short stories in Luke 18 – each individual story, as well as the big picture. We’ve been keeping score as to who “wins” in each story. Yesterday, we saw the poor widow (someone of low status ) win an appeal for justice over her (probably rich and important) adversary, wearing  down the unjust judge in the process. The score stands at: low status people 1, high status people 0. Let’s find out what happens in today’s two stories.

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Luke 18:1-8

/ timmacbride

1438677138213Last week, the speaker of the Australian Federal Parliament resigned over a scandal involving her use of travel entitlements. (I mention this for the benefit of international readers; if you’re local, you can’t have missed it!) Among other things, this speaker was renowned for ejecting opposition members from the parliamentary chamber. One 1438613360290of the newspapers put together a mosaic of her face, made up of smaller pictures of the 400 members of parliament she had ejected over the past two years. A close-up view is on the left, and the full mosaic on the right. Some very clever, painstaking work. (In the future, it’ll take some convincing for me to believe journalists when they say they’re understaffed.)

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Reading Proverbs – Part 4

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This week, we’re looking at how to read the book of Proverbs – learning skills to be able to read it for ourselves, just like in the old proverb: give a man a fish, and he’ll eat for a day; give a man a blowfish, and he’ll eat for the rest of his life.

Yesterday, we saw how we learn wisdom from observing how God has set up his world. Today, we look at the theme of “retribution.”

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Reading Proverbs – Part 3

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This week, we’re looking at how to read the book of Proverbs – learning skills to be able to read it for ourselves, just like in the old proverb: give a man a fish, and he’ll eat for a day; don’t teach a man to fish and feed yourself. He’s a grown man. Fishing’s not that hard.

Yesterday, we looked at the fundamental theme of Proverbs: the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Today, we look at how we learn wisdom.

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Reading Proverbs – Part 2

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This week, we’re looking at how to read the book of Proverbs – learning skills to be able to read it for ourselves, just like in the old proverb: give a man a fish, and he’ll eat for a day; teach a man to fish and you can sell him a ton of accessories. Or something like that. I’ll get it by the end of the week.

Yesterday, we looked at what proverbs were (genre expectations) and the basics of Hebrew poetry. Today, we start with the first of three key themes that help us understand the book of Proverbs.

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Reading Proverbs – Part 1

/ timmacbride / 1 Comment

For the next week on Coffee with the King, we’re going to look at the OT book of Proverbs. But not verse-by-verse. That would take more than a week; probably more than a year. Instead, we’re going to look at how to read the book of Proverbs – so that you can learn to read it  for yourself in line with the way it was intended to be understood. You know the saying: give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you can get rid of him for a whole weekend. Or something like that.*

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