poker night Thursday May 8!

Come by the church library at 6:30 for pizza and bible study, poker at 7:00! RSVP to Marshall if you are coming...

Upcoming stuff...

Who is interested in going to any of the upcoming April events?

Link to Bishop's Ball:

http://eysd.org/EYSD/Events/Entries/2008/4/19_The_Bishop%E2%80%99s_Ball_2008.html

the Siloam tunnel

Here are some more fun pictures of the Siloam Tunnel (Hezekiah's Tunnel)...

http://www.bibleplaces.com/heztunnel.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:HezekiahTunnel.jpg

mouse story

Here's a silly tale about a mouse which a friend sent me. (I've been looking around for the original author, which may be at this link.) Whenever I read a story with a moral like this, I wonder if there's some Bible story with a similar message.

A mouse looked through the crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife open a package. "What food might this contain?" He was devastated to discover it was a mousetrap.Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse proclaimed the warning. "There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!"The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head and said, "Mr. Mouse, I can tell this is a grave concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me. I cannot be bothered by it."The mouse turned to the pig and told him, "There is a mousetrap in the house."The pig sympathized, but said, "I am so very sorry, Mr. Mouse, but there is nothing I can do about it but pray. Be assured you are in my prayers."The mouse turned to the cow. She said, "Wow, Mr. Mouse. I'm sorry for you, but it's no skin off my nose." So, the mouse returned to the house, head down and dejected, to face the farmer's mousetrap alone.That very night a sound was heard throughout the house -- like the sound of a mousetrap catching its prey.The farmer's wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see it was a venomous snake whose tail the trap had caught. The snake bit the farmer's wife. The farmer rushed her to the hospital, and she returned home with a fever. Everyone knows you treat a feverwith fresh chicken soup, so the farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard for the soup's main ingredient. But his wife's sickness continued, so friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock. To feed them, the farmer butchered the pig.The farmer's wife did not get well; she died. So many people came for her funeral, the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide enough meat for all of them.

So, the next time you hear someone is facing a problem and think it doesn't concern you, remember -- when one of us is threatened, we are all at risk.

Can you think of any passages in the Bible with a similar message?

pinnacle of the temple

For my first substantive post, I'd like to explore a question that Arie asked this Sunday - regarding the Gospel from the first Sunday in Lent. There Jesus was in the desert for 40 days being tempted by the devil. From chapter 4 of Matthew's Gospel:

5Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, 6saying to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written,“He will command his angels concerning you”, and “On their hands they will bear you up,so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.” ’ 7Jesus said to him, ‘Again it is written, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” ’

Here Jesus is tempted to perform miracles and wow people into believing in him. As I pointed out, of course Jesus does indeed do miracles as part of his ministry. So Arie asked, well, does that mean Jesus was disobeying God?

The answer, of course, must be no! So what's going on?

Well, we know God gave Jesus some abilities that ordinary people don't have - so surely he intended Jesus to use them. What Jesus was tempted to do was to center his whole movement around his special powers. God did not intend for that - Jesus' ministry was about changing people's hearts and bringing them back to God. So God wanted Jesus to show people who he was and what authority he bore - but he did not want Jesus to be a showoff.

You can see how concerned Jesus was about not doing too many miracles - he often told people not to tell anyone else about the fact that Jesus healed them. So here's a question for you to all think about: if Jesus was so concerned about this, why did he do the miracles at all?

In fact, we are all sometimes tempted to be a showoff. Can you think of examples from your own life where you've been very tempted to show off - but decided to resist? Why were you tempted and why did you decide not to?

first post!

Hello everyone. As of this posting, the Trinity Youth Group blog is officially live!

I thought I would start this to create a forum whereby we can stay in touch outside of Sundays. I have some ideas for what we might post here, but I am open to ideas you might have.

I'm hoping to post at least weekly. Frequently I have thoughts about the week's readings that I didn't think of Sunday morning, sometimes because of a question or comment from one of you.

But we can have postings on things unrelated to Sunday of course.

You can reply to my postings. There's a 'comments' link to click on. There are two ways of replying: (1) you can get a google account, which you can sign in to and that automatically adds your name to replies or (2) you can do an 'anonymous' reply - but please sign your name in your message if you do. If you post that way, you have to remember to click the circle next to "Anonymous" and type the squiggly word in the 'word verification' box as it appears to you.