Hello Friend,
I’m working on my next book, which is actually the FIRST book in a series of FOUR different books (I think? Things change, so you never know. HA!). The books are about the Gospels …
Matthew.
Mark.
Luke.
John.
… and each book will focus on a different Gospel and the stories of Jesus as told by that Gospel writer.
The objective of each book is to give the reader a look into the original audience of the Gospel (the original readers or listeners) and a taste of …
What they were experiencing.
What problems they were facing.
What struggles were in front of them.
… so that we can (then) look at various stories of Jesus from that Gospel through the lens of its background and context.
We want to let each Gospel and each Gospel writer speak for itself/himself.
AND THEN.
(This is the fun part.)
We want to let our imaginations run WILD as we wonder why each Gospel writer would have included the stories they did AND what those stories might have to speak to us today.
Each book will open with a chapter about what we know of the original audience along with some of what we know of them and their circumstances and then will contain anywhere from 20-30 different chapters/reflections/entries/whatever you want to call them on various stories from the Gospel; AND each entry will end with a couple of reflection questions and plenty of space for you to journal your own thoughts and reflections.
Maybe you’ll read one entry a day.
Or one a week.
Or 10 a day.
Maybe you’ll read the book devotionally.
Or maybe you’ll read it in one sitting.
Or return to it again and again and again.
How you read it is totally up to you, but I’m REALLY excited about this project because I feel like it’s stemming from my sweet spot and my deepest passion (Jesus and the Gospels) along with what I’ve learned from my friend Alexander John Shaia and his lifelong work with the 4 Gospels. I was trained in Biblical studies back in seminary and love to dig into and reflect on the stories we find in the Bible, especially in the Gospels … and that’s what these books are shaping up to be.
All of that to say, today I want to share with you the ENTIRETY of (unedited!) chapter 8 - a reflection on Jesus’ command to NOT worry.
Enjoy, and thanks for supporting my work!
Glenn || MY BOOK || PATREON || BUY ME A COFFEE
PS - I’ve been sending one of these excerpts a month, but since I already gave one earlier this month AND I’m giving you a whole chapter now AND the holidays are coming … this will be the last excerpt until after the New Year. Cool? Cool. Enjoy and feel free to reply with any thoughts you may have.
Background and Context
Before I share the chapter with you, a little context for Matthew’s Gospel (which will be the focus of chapter 1) would be helpful.
Matthew was writing to the Jewish Christians / Messianic Jews who were living in the wake of Rome’s destruction of the temple, the center of their universe. They would have witnessed the deaths of …
Their family.
Their friends.
And their teachers.
ALONG WITH.
The destruction of their temple and much of Jerusalem.
They relocated to a place called Antioch where they were tasked with rebuilding, starting over again, and (in a sense) separating from their Mother faith (Judaism) so that they could follow the way of Jesus The Christ (who they believed to be the Messiah), which much of their family and circles of friends didn’t understand or approve of.
And so, Matthew’s Jesus tells these readers not to worry …
Matthew 6:25-30
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Universe-Imploding-Moments
I don’t think I was ever more worried than the night my wife and I had a miscarriage. It was the most horrible experience of my life and a season that I will never, ever forget as questions and doubts and worries and fear flooded my mind 24/7.
“Is Dana (my wife) going to be OK?”
“Will we recover from this?”
“Will the pain ever go away?”
“How will we ever get out of bed again?”
“Will we be able to get pregnant again?”
It was one worry and one question and one doubt after another all day, every day for what seemed like weeks and months and years and decades … an eternity.
Yeah.
It felt like an eternity of lying in a pile of rubble, buried beneath the pain of our imploded universe.
Universe-Imploding-Moments do this to us, don’t they? They have the ability to stop us in our tracks, cripple us from being able to move through our everyday lives, and consume our minds with an infestation of fearful, doubt-filled worry that feels as if that particular moment in that particular season will never ever pass.