{"id":501,"date":"2014-02-06T12:26:20","date_gmt":"2014-02-06T17:26:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/?p=501"},"modified":"2014-02-19T12:28:30","modified_gmt":"2014-02-19T17:28:30","slug":"who-should-we-listen-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/?p=501","title":{"rendered":"Who Should We Listen to?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thursday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time<\/span><\/h2>\n

1 Kings 2: 1-4, 10-12; Mark 6: 7-13<\/span><\/h2>\n

Dc. Larry Brockman<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Just who should we listen to these days?\u00a0 Seriously, this is the age of information.\u00a0 Information and Pundits are prolific in our society.\u00a0 All of us have access to hundreds of TV and Radio Stations; \u00a0an infinite resource of information sources over the Internet; and more books, periodicals, and other written sources than one can imagine.\u00a0 And lots of the information we hear conflicts.\u00a0 Weight saving diets conflict with each other; political commentators conflict on root causes of problems; and there are many pluralistic views on religion, all of which vie for our time and claim to have the truth, the answer to what life is all about.\u00a0 Just who should we listen to?\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

If you believe in Jesus, than he answers the question quite well for us today.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 First, he sends people out whom he gave authority.\u00a0 Yes, the people Jesus chose were given authority.\u00a0 The root meaning of authority in this sense of the word is simply this: they were given power by Jesus, the power to represent His message.\u00a0 They didn\u2019t assume this power; they were given this power by Jesus.\u00a0 So, the message was not their message; it was God\u2019s message.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Second, they went out two-by-two.\u00a0 This means they didn\u2019t go out alone- they were paired with another person who had been given the same authority.\u00a0 Why? So that they validated the truth of the message for each other, and so that those who heard the message could not bear false witness against them.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Next, they were told not to take anything extra.\u00a0 In other words, they had no vested interest with them.\u00a0 They weren\u2019t bringing something of material value; and they weren\u2019t asking for anything of material value.\u00a0 They were neutral; they had nothing personal to gain.\u00a0 They were messengers who were simply following God\u2019s will for them. \u00a0They had the simplest and most pure motivation, their enthusiasm for the message of Jesus.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Lastly, they had faith, great faith- the kind of faith that David speaks about in his parting words on his deathbed.\u00a0 David told Solomon to always, always obey the Lord in all things, never questioning the law.\u00a0 That takes tremendous faith. \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

And because they had these simple characteristics- faith, authority, validation, and purity of purpose-\u00a0 they were able to work wonders as they moved through the people, driving away unclean spirits, curing the lame, and healing the sick. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In this day of information saturation, who should we listen to- our politicians; Wikipedia; the latest silver tongued \u201cfeel-good\u201d preacher; the brilliant scientists with strings of initials after their names who dazzle us with \u201cfacts\u201d; \u00a0the winners in the World?\u00a0 Or do we listen to people who are like the Apostles that Jesus sent out two by two.\u00a0 The choice is yours.\u00a0 As for me, I\u2019ll stay with the Church.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thursday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time 1 Kings 2: 1-4, 10-12; Mark 6: 7-13 Dc. Larry Brockman \u00a0 Just who should we listen to these days?\u00a0 Seriously, this is the age of information.\u00a0 Information and Pundits are prolific in our society.\u00a0 All of us have access to hundreds of TV and Radio Stations; […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[270],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=501"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":502,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501\/revisions\/502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}