| Home > e100 > Essential 100 -- Seven Letters Grid |
| Essential 100 -- Seven Letters Grid | | Date Created: May 24, 2005, 08:42 AM |
97 — Tuesday May 24 — Revelation 2:1 - 3:22
I've had my disagreements with the guy who wrote the Essential 100 booklet, but no more often than I'd expect to with any commentator. I love what he's asked us to do with this one: "If you have time, make a grid of the seven churches on a sheet of paper. Then next to each, summarise what they were commended for and what they were criticized for." I went through a stage of thinking exercises like this were Mickey Mouse -- I've just read the passage why should I make a grid! But I've grown to cherish anything that can make me stop and attend and notice the tons of things that are so easily missed in Scripture.
And sure enough, I love his grid-based observation: only two churches receive an unambiguous thumbs-up from Jesus, and in both cases, it wasn't for being clever or strong or innovative, it was for being poor and weak. Hey, church leader, are you building a Sardis or a Philadelphia?
But I have to just mention as well a verse of the New Testament that has always haunted me as being the most mystical and mysterious thing I've read -- 2:17. Hidden manna? White stone? What’s all that about!? |
|
|
|
