{"id":548,"date":"2014-05-08T22:42:16","date_gmt":"2014-05-09T03:42:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/?p=548"},"modified":"2014-05-18T22:43:47","modified_gmt":"2014-05-19T03:43:47","slug":"we-are-all-taught-by-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/?p=548","title":{"rendered":"We Are All Taught By God"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thursday of the Third Week of Easter<\/span><\/h2>\n

Acts 8: 26-40; John 6: 44-51<\/span><\/h2>\n

Dc. Larry Brockman<\/span><\/h2>\n

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

So, \u201cThey shall all be taught by God\u201d.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>That\u2019s the scripture that Jesus quotes today.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>That means that God is teaching you and I and everybody else all the time!<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Yes, it is God who is our primary teacher because God loves and cares for all of us.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

And you know what?<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>There are many ways that God teaches us constantly: through His creation; through the people He places in our lives; through inspiration when we pray; through the scriptures and the catechism; through wonderful experiences in our families and lives; in books and other media; through the lessons we learn in life; and even, and I would say especially, through the mistakes we make.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>The question is not whether God is teaching us all the time, but whether we are hearing His teaching and responding to Him.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

What does it take to listen and respond to the Lord?<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>First, we need to hunger for the teaching.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>We can\u2019t just expect to absorb God\u2019s lessons for us by going about our lives in an ordinary way committed to the duties and activities of the world; oblivious to the cues God is placing in our lives.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Rather, we need to be constantly searching for God and his will for us as we live our lives.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Second, we have to be open to change when we hear the message.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Sometimes we hear a message, and begin to think about it, but then we get caught up in the humdrum of our world, and our opportunity to change and respond to God is lost.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The story of Philip and the Eunuch is a great example of how someone listened to God and responded.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>The Eunuch, a foreigner who was a Jewish sympathizer, was reading Isaiah while riding his chariot.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>This man was going about his business, important business for the Empress Candace of Ethiopia.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>But he was also seeking God as he went along, that\u2019s why he was reading Isaiah.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Second, he was open to change.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>After having heard Philip explain how Jesus fulfilled Isaiah\u2019s scripture, the Eunuch doesn\u2019t just thank him and continue on with his business.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Rather, he stops his chariot, and asks Philip to baptize him.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The Eunuch is a symbol for all of the Gentiles.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>The Jews were the first to be offered Salvation by Jesus.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Most of them rejected it at the time because they weren\u2019t listening or didn\u2019t believe.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>But this foreigner hungered for God, so much so that he was feeding off the scriptures as he went about his business.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>And so, God opened the way through Philip for him to learn what the word was really all about.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span>Then, rather than pass by his opportunity to change; he stopped in his tracks and asked to be Baptized right then and there.
\n<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Jesus goes on to talk about how each of us can be nourished with the bread of life.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Yes, the Eucharist gives us access to the Lord and His graces, so that we are in the right frame of mind for God\u2019s lessons.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>The Eucharist is a great way to hunger for God\u2019s teaching and be ready for it.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

So believe, receive the Eucharist, and hunger for God\u2019s teaching, however it comes and whenever it comes for to you.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thursday of the Third Week of Easter Acts 8: 26-40; John 6: 44-51 Dc. Larry Brockman \u00a0 So, \u201cThey shall all be taught by God\u201d.\u00a0 That\u2019s the scripture that Jesus quotes today.\u00a0 That means that God is teaching you and I and everybody else all the time!\u00a0 Yes, it is God who is our primary […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[287],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548"}],"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=548"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":549,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548\/revisions\/549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}