(Translated by Carlos Enrique Espinosa)

The question may seem preposterous, perhaps it is…however, let me continue.

Pandora and Greek Mythology

In Greek mythology, Pandora was the first woman, created by order of Zeus as part of a punishment to Prometheus for having revealed the secret of fire to humans.

Peter’s painful struggle to accept “the strangeness of the other” is very much our struggle today.1 These last two weeks following the war between Georgia and Russia over South Ossetia and the reports of atrocities, I have been torn inside by conflicting loyalties and overwhelmed by sadness, indignation, powerlessness, and guilt.

Peter was a fisherman, and by all accounts, the senior member of the twelve disciples of Jesus. If anyone is familiar with the TV program, “The Most Dangerous Catch” on the Discovery Channel, one has a fair idea of commercial fishermen, their language, their lifestyle, their education, their risks, their feast and famine, and their superstitions.

(Translated by Carlos Enrique Espinosa)

As I write these reflections, I experience great joy. It's like a journey: I know where I'm starting, but I also know that I can expect discoveries along the way.

John, it has been said, has a different view of the Christian hope than the other writers of the New Testament. Whereas the other writers project the believer’s hope into the future, John sees the hope realized in the present.

Much has been said about compassion ministries in the church. Indeed, the Seventh-day Adventist Church has a long history of ministries of compassion, going nearly all the way back to the beginning of our denomination.

Two and a half years ago, my congregation in Hollywood, California, embarked on a journey guided by a question: “What would it mean for our church to have a genuine missionary encounter with our neighbors?” This question itself suggests a whole load of other questions.

Somewhere along the way, the disciples mentioned in the title of this week’s lesson got lost. Rather than learning from the experiences of Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Simon, or Thomas, we are encouraged to find principles for missionary activities in the charge Christ gave the disciples in Matthew 10.

The Historical Jesus?

This week’s lesson claims that “the historical evidence is overwhelming clear” that Jesus lived on earth. We should be careful about making this claim, even though his life and death is at the center of our Christian beliefs and we are prepared to testify that he lived in Palestine about two thousand years ago.

“A voice of one calling…prepare the way for the LORD.…” If asked to come up with some key phrases to express our sense of identity and mission, is this the kind of language we might use?