Union Church

Proverbs: Friendship

Listen along as we wrap up our series through the Proverbs.

Notes//Quotes:

Kim J reading - Proverbs 27:1-10, 17

“In the bible wisdom is certainly not less than being moral and good but it’s much more. It’s being so in touch with reality that you know what is the right thing to do in the vast majority of the situations that the moral rules don’t apply to. The vast majority of your choices, your decisions, you’re going have a whole lot of different choices in front of you and in most cases no matter what your understanding of morality is, no matter what your moral standards are there will be many many many options that are all moral, they are all allowable morally but which one is the wise one? Wisdom is the ability to know what the right thing is to do in the situations that the moral rules don’t address!” - Tim Keller 

“Financial capital - the wherewithal for mass marketing - has steadily replaced social capital - that is, grassroots citizen networks - as the coin of the realm.” - Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone

“Our epidemic of loneliness and isolation has been an under appreciated public health crisis that has harmed individual and societal health. Our relationships are a source of healing and well-being hiding in plain sight – one that can help us live healthier, more fulfilled, and more productive lives. Given the significant health consequences of loneliness and isolation, we must prioritize building social connection the same way we have prioritized other critical public health issues such as tobacco, obesity, and substance use disorders. Together, we can build a country that’s healthier, more resilient, less lonely, and more connected.” Vivek Murthy, US Surgeon General

“You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.” - Dale Carnegie 

“Two sayings in chapter 27 give the two sides to this: the cheering effect of fellowship, and the healthy clash of personalities or views. A true friendship should have both elements, the reassuring and the bracing”. - Derek Kidner

Proverbs 18:24 

“Friendship requires a foundation, an affinity, a common love, a common vision that can’t be created that can only be discovered.”  - Tim Keller

Matthew 11:18-19

John 15:12-17

Proverbs: The Wisdom of Love

Listen alongs as we continue our series in Proverbs.

Notes//Quotes:

Proverbs 2:1-22

“Hate can be a deeply stimulating emotion. The world becomes much easier to understand and much less terrifying if you divide everything and everyone into friends and enemies, we and they, good and evil. The easiest way to unite a group isn’t through love, because love is hard. It makes demands. Hate is simple. So the first thing that happens in a conflict is that we choose a side, because that’s easier than trying to hold two thoughts in our heads at the same time. The second thing that happens is that we seek out facts that confirm what we want to believe—comforting facts, ones that permit life to go on as normal. The third is that we dehumanize our enemy.” - Frederik Backman

Mark 10:17-22
John 16:31-33
Matthew 11:25-30

In this way only we attain to what is not to say difficult but altogether against nature, to love those that hate us, render good for evil, and blessing for cursing, remembering that we are not to reflect on the wickedness of men, but look to the image of God in them, an image which, covering and obliterating their faults, should by its beauty and dignity allure us to love and embrace them.
—John Calvin

Proverbs: Marriage, Blessing or Ball and Chain?

Listen along as we continue our series through Proverbs.

Notes//Quotes:

Prov 18:22 & 21:19 - Mike Reading
Title: Blessing Or Ball & Chain

“So where did this pessimism come from, and why is it so out of touch with reality? Paradoxically, it may be that the pessimism comes from a new kind of unrealistic idealism about marriage, born of a significant shift in our culture’s, understanding of the purpose of marriage. Legal scholar John Witte, Jr., says that the earlier "ideal of marriage as a permanent contractual union designed for the sake of mutual love, procreation, and protection, is slowly giving way to a new reality of marriage as a ‘terminal sexual contract’ designed for the gratification of the individual parties. Witte points out that in western civilizations there of been several competing views of what the “form and function” of marriage should be. The first two were in the Catholic and Protestant perspectives. Though different in many particulars, they both taught that the purpose of marriage was to create a framework for lifelong devotion and love between a husband and a wife. It was a solemn bond, designed to help each party subordinate individual impulses, and interests in favor of the relationship, to be a sacrament of God's love (the Catholic emphasis) and serve the common good the (Protestant Emphasis). Marriage created by bringing male and female into a binding partnership. In particular, lifelong marriage, was seen as creating, the only kind of social stability in which children could grow and thrive. The reason that society had a vested interest in the institution of marriage, was because children could not flourish as well in any other kind of environment. However, Witte explains that a new view of marriage emerged from the 18th and 19th century Enlightenment. Older cultures taught their members to find meaning in duty, by embracing their assigned social roles, and caring them out faithfully. During the Enlightenment, things begin to shift. The meaning of life came to be seen as the fruit of the freedom of the individual to choose the life that most fulfills him or her personally. Instead of finding meaning, through self denial, through giving up one's freedom, and binding oneself to the duties of marriage and family, marriage was redefined as finding emotional and sexual fulfillment and self actualization. Proponents of this new approach, did not see the essence of marriage as located in either its divine sacramental symbolism or as a social bond given to benefit the broader human commonwealth. Rather, marriage was seen as a contract between two parties for mutual individual growth and satisfaction. In this view, married persons married for themselves, not to fulfill responsibilities to God, or society. Parties should, therefore, be allowed to conduct their marriage in anyway they deemed beneficial to them, and no obligation to church, tradition, or broader community should be imposed on them. In short, the Enlightenment, privatized marriage, taking it out of the public sphere, and redefined its purpose as individual gratification, not any "broader, good" such as reflecting God’s nature, producing character, or raising children. Slowly, but surely, this newer understanding of the meaning of marriage has displaced the older ones in western culture. 
- Timothy Keller

“The sage, is writing from the perspective of the man. As one looks at a pig and sees only the gold ring, so is a man who is so enamored by a woman’s physical beauty that he does not recognize her lack of discretion. The sage is warning those who will listen that the beauty is not worth all the problems that a woman’s indiscretion will bring to him. Later, in the poem concerning the virtuous woman, the sage will affirm that what is really important is not charm or beauty, but rather a woman’s fear of Yahweh. “Beauty without wisdom is the height of incongruity.” 
- Tremper Longman

“Destructive to marriage is the self fulfillment ethic that assumes marriage and the family are primarily institutions of personal fulfillment, necessary for us to become "whole" and happy. The assumption is that there is someone right for us to marry, and then, if we look closely enough, we will find the right person. This moral assumption overlooks a crucial aspect to marriage. It fails to appreciate the fact that we always marry the wrong person. We never know whom we marry; we just think we do. Or even if we first, marry the right person, just give it a while, and he or she will change. For marriage, being (the enormous thing it is) means we are not the same person after we have entered it. The primary problem is… learning how to love and care for the stranger to whom you find yourself married.”
- Stanley Hauerwas

 

 

Learning Wisdom: Work and Money

Listen along as we continue to see God's wisdom for life.

Notes//Quotes:

Kim J reading - 
Prov 6:6-11, 3:9-10, 23:4-5

Gen 2:15-17, 
Gen 1:27-28

Prov 10:4 
Prov 15:6
Prov 22:1-2, 
Prov 23:5 

“The works of monks and priests, however holy and arduous they be, do not differ one whit in the sight of God from the works of the rustic laborer in the field or the woman going about her household tasks, but that all works are measured before God by faith alone… Indeed, the menial housework of a manservant or maidservant is often more acceptable to God than all the fastings and other works of a monk or priest, because the monk or priest lacks faith.” Martin Luther

Col 3:17, Col 3:25

Our work can be a calling only if it is reimagined as a mission of service to something beyond merely our own interests. Thinking of work mainly as a means of self-fulfillment and self-realization slowly crushes a person. - Tim Keller and Katherine Alsdorf

“The Church’s approach to an intelligent carpenter is usually confined to exhorting him not to be drunk and disorderly in his leisure hours, and to come to church on Sundays. What the church should be telling him is this: that the very first demand that his religion makes upon him is that he should make good tables. Church by all means, and decent forms of amusement, certainly—but what us is all that if in the very center of his life and occupation he is insulting God with bad carpentry? No crooked table legs or ill fitting drawers ever, I dare swear, came out of the carpenter’s shop at Nazareth. Nor, if they did, couple anyone believe that they were made by the same hand that made heaven and earth. - Dorthy Sayers

1 Cor 15:57-58,

Everyone will be forgotten, nothing we do will make any difference, and all good endeavours, even the best, will come to naught. Unless there is God. If the God of the Bible exists, and there is a True Reality beneath and behind this one, and this life is not the only life, then every good endeavour, even the simplest ones, pursued in response to God's calling, can matter forever. - Tim Keller

Proverbs: Children and Parents

Listen in as we continue our series through the Proverbs.

Notes//Quotes:

Prov 3:1-12 - Linda B
Proverbs 3:1-12

Proverbs 26:11, 1
Prov 5:17, 
Prov 11:22

They were happy, or at least as happy as a family can be when it's burdened by a grief too large to be absorbed by time. - Frederick Backman

“The parents’ chief resource is constructive, namely their ‘law’, taught with loving persistence. This ‘law’ (tôrâ) is a wide term which includes commands (cf. 3:1; 7:2) but is not confined to them: basically it means direction, and its aim here is to foster wise habits of thought and action.” Derek Kinder

Prov 22:6, 
Prov 17:6
Prov 22:15

“It must be borne in mind that the application of any proverb depends on the people involved as well as the situation. These proverbs do not imply that parents must apply physical punishment when they judge that a simple verbal reprimand will do. Discipline is never to be done out of anger or hate or a desire to harm, but out of love and a desire that the person improve. In this way, the parent follows the model of God, who disciplines his children.” - Tremper Longman

In every moment when you are parenting, you are being parented. In every moment when you are called to give grace, you are being given grace. In every moment when you are rescuing and protecting your children, you are being rescued and protected. In every moment when you feel alone, you are anything but alone because he goes wherever you go. - Paul Tripp

Matthew 18:1-6

Proverbs: Wisdom for Direction

Listen in as we lean into God's wisdom for life today.

Notes//Quotes:

Proverbs 4:20-27

“Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.” - Frederick Beuchner

The father is vitally concerned to keep his son moving on the right path in his life. In many ways, this discourse is an admonition like the previous one. It does not mention God explicitly, but by invoking the two-path theology, it does so implicitly, since the father’s path is the one that is associated with God. The admonition to the son here is to focus all of his energies on staying on the right path and avoiding the evil path. Again, this underlines the idea that wisdom entails a lifetime of work and not a single decision. - Tremper Longman

Matthew 7:13-14

“A major part of godliness lies in dogged attentiveness to familiar truths. So a kind of medical inspection follows, in which one’s state of readiness in the various realms symbolized by heart, mouth, eyes and feet, comes under review.” - Derek Kidner

The way of freedom isn’t found in grasping for God’s omniscience, but in grasping for God’s hand.This freedom, though, isn’t synonymous with safety. In fact, sometimes it’s risky. Bethany Jenkins

Surrendering
Asking
Listening
Consulting
Going

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Wendell Berry

“Love God and do whatever you will: for the soul trained in love to God will do nothing to offend the One who is Beloved.” - Augustine

Prov 16:1-3
Prov 16:9

“I see an opportunity. I don’t see anybody else taking the opportunity. I feel an obligation to come. I think it’s a good idea. I think God’s calling me. But I can’t be absolutely sure. I can be sure that I must not lie; it’s in the Bible. I can be sure that I must not bow down to idols; it’s in the Bible. I’m sure of a lot of things that are God’s will. But as far as I know, I won’t be sure that I’m called to plant a church until it happens.” When people would persist, saying, “Didn’t you have a peace about it?”  I’d reply: “No, it was too hard of a decision. It was too scary. But I know this: guidance is as much something God does as it is something he gives. Therefore, I knew that by selling my house and moving up here and signing a three-year lease that, if I failed to plant a church, God was preparing me for something I couldn’t envision.” - Tim Keller

 

Proverbs: Wise Words

Listen along as we continue learn wisdom as we look through the Proverbs.

Notes//Quotes:

Larry & Jorgen reading, Proverbs 10:18,19,31,32; 12:13,14,17,18; 15:1,4; 16:23,28; 18:13,21; 24:26

“There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts,
 but the tongue of the wise brings healing.” 
Proverbs 12:8

“Death and life are in the power of the tongue.”
Proverbs 18:21

“A dishonest man spreads strife, and a whisperer separates close friends.”
Proverbs 16:28

“an evil man is trapped by his sinful talk”...“From the fruit of his mouth a man eats what is good”
Proverbs 12:13 & 13:2

“2 For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body. 3 If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well. 4 Look at the ships also: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. 5 So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things"
James 3:2-5

“he who conceals his hatred has lying lips”
Proverbs 10:18

The characteristics of words:
1. Truthful and honest rather than deceptive. 
2. Kind and gentle rather than rash.
3. Wise and apt rather than careless.
4. Forthright and courageous rather than gossip.
5. Economical rather than impulsiveness.

“Whoever speaks the truth gives honest evidence, but a false witness utters deceit.”
Proverbs 12:17

“a soft answer turns away wrath.” 
Proverbs 15:1

“With patience a ruler may be persuaded, and a soft tongue will break a bone.”
Proverbs 25:15

“The lips of the righteous know what is acceptable…”
Proverbs 10:32 

“A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver.”
Proverbs 25:10

“Whoever gives an honest answer kisses the lips.”
Proverbs 24:26

“When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but whoever restrains his lips is prudent.”
Proverbs 10:19

“Even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise; when he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent.”
Proverbs 17:28

“out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.”
Luke 6:45

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Proverbs 1:1-7: Learning Wisdom

Listen along as we begin a new series looking at the book of Proverbs.

Notes//Quotes:

Prov 1:1-7

“You’ve heard of the meat of the word and milk of the word, proverbs is the hard candy of the word. You don’t just swallow it. You don’t just bite into it. You have to let it dissolve very slowly on your tongue.” Tim Keller

The book of Proverbs opens by breaking up the plain daylight of wisdom (ḥokmâ) into its rainbow of constituent colours. Derek Kidner

“For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.” - Yoda

I used to wonder about that myself. Thought it was a bunch of mumbo jumbo: a magical power holding together good and evil, the dark side and the light. Crazy thing is...it’s true. The Force, the Jedi. All of it. It’s all true. - Hans Solo 

In my experience, when you think you understand the Force, you realize just how little you know." - Ahsoka Tano 

1-9 - 10 speeches calling to heed/listen to wisdom 
10-29 - Collection of all sorts of sayings
30/31 - Wisdom from Agur//Lemuel 

Prov 22:6
Prov 10:15
Ecc 5:10-12

Prov 3:5-8

1 Cor 1:18-30

 

Learning Prayer: Psalms

Listen in as we hear from multiple people in our congregation.

Psalm 37:1-7 - Don’t Worry, Be Happy

Listen in as Bill Berve continues our series through the Psalms.

Notes//Quotes:

Psalm 37:1-7 - Larry and Jorgen

Do not fret because of evildoers,
Nor be envious of the workers of iniquity.
2 For they shall soon be cut down like the grass,
And wither as the green herb. Psalm 37:1-2 

"When you're looking to the left or the right to see how you measure up to other people whether good or bad--you have an inability to see what God is doing for you. In the case of both envy and self-righteousness, the answer is found in looking to God-being thankful for what He has given you (including the opportunity for eternal life) and using Him as the standard for righteousness, which can only produce humility since we fall so woefully short." (excerpt from Comparison & Envy study)

Psalm 37:3-7 Trust in the Lord, and do good;
Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.
4 Delight yourself also in the Lord,
And He shall give you the desires of your heart.
5 Commit[a] your way to the Lord,
Trust also in Him,
And He shall bring it to pass.
6 He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light,
And your justice as the noonday.
7 Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him;

“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you , says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope” Jer:  29:11 

“Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin. And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will.  Do not fear therefore you are of more value than many sparrow.” Matt; 10:29 

Psalm 37:4 says, "Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart." Taking delight in the Lord means that our hearts truly find peace and fulfillment in Him. If we truly find satisfaction and worth in Christ, Scripture says He will give us the longings of our hearts. Does that mean, if we go to church every Sunday, God will give us a new Rolls Royce? No. The idea behind this verse and others like it is that, when we truly rejoice or "delight" in the eternal things of God, our desires will begin to parallel His and we will never go unfulfilled. Matthew 6:33 says, "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things [the necessities of life] will be given to you as well.”   F.B. Meyer

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; 7 and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. 8 Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things. 
Philippians 4:6-8