Sorry this is a couple of days late. It’s been a busy couple of weeks, leaving home and settling into my new flat. Though after only a week of being here, it’s already a bit of a mess…oops!
Anyway, I’m going to start doing something I want to call “Bible ABC’s” Basically, I’m going to take a word/subject each week and go through its different aspects. So this week I’ll do something beginning with A, next week B and so on. This is just an experiment, I want to know what you guys think of this, so send me an email with a subject you might want covered, or how you think it’s going, any questions or comments. I really want to know what you think of this!
So we’re going to start off with the word ‘acceptance’. We already see signs of acceptance of various circumstances in Genesis 43 when Jacob allowed Benjamin to go to Egypt where he says ‘if I am bereaved, I am bereaved’ (v14). You may not like the circumstance that you are in, but you must accept it. That’s what Jacob had to do, and most importantly, he trusted God with that circumstance, saying ‘may God Almighty give you mercy before the man’ (v14).
Another time that we see acceptance, but in a different context, is in Acts 9:26 when Saul tried to join the disciples. To cut the story short, he wasn’t trusted at first because of what he had done to the Christians earlier, but Barnabas accepted him and took him to the apostles. How can we apply this? Well, we need to accept all believers as our brothers and sisters in Christ, disregarding anything that might have come between you in the past. Of course, it wasn’t right what Saul had done before, but he was accepted later as an apostle.
Lastly, we can accept our oppressors. In 1 Timothy 6:1, this is illustrated as being bondservents to masters (basically slaves) and accepting that position and honoring our masters. As Christians in the world today, we will experience difficulty, oppression and hardship, but we can accept that. In fact, Paul spoke about it as inevitable for a Christian: ‘all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution’ 2 Timothy 3:12.
Please, please let me know what you think of this and give me any suggestions for what you might want to see in B next week!
