December 17, 2025
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Reading along with us in our Lenten readings from “The Life of Jesus”? Here’s today’s reading:
Advent 2025 – Day 17 in the Book: “The Life of Jesus“
The Year of Growing Opposition
Read Sections 4.1 through 4.3 (pages 67-71)
This book is an account of Jesus’ life and teachings told through in chronological order from the four Gospels to create one continuous story.
*If you do not have a copy of the book please contact the church at (401)667-0775 and we can get you a copy.
Jesus sends out the 12. With instructions. We also need instructions like these. They are given instructions to preach. And power to heal. People needed both physical and spiritual to prove that Jesus heals both the body and soul, and to prove that Jesus was man and God. Shaking the dust off of their feet: it had meaning that was a practice of the Pharisees when they walk through a Gentile Town. Jesus once again turns it around with much greater meaning. A few of us at church were just talking about that we are not responsible for how people respond to our message. It’s our responsibility to share the truth, but if the message is rejected, just move on to reach others.
Jesus prepares His disciples to go out and spread the good news with clear direction and instruction. He tells them and it is still true today, that many will not want to hear and many will hate you just for saying these things. Families and friends will be torn apart by the truth of the gospel because some will be so resistant. This is also something we see still today, we all have family and friends that don’t want to hear it, want to blame God for the bad things in life instead of looking to Him to bring peace in it.
We have too many people like Herodias who are so angered by the truth they will kill to stop having to hear it. Shootings and assainations that happen because someone is sharing something you don’t like or believe. So sad but Jesus knew this would happen and He prepared us through His disciples to expect such reactions.
Just imagine being Jesus and knowing what life should be like when we are connected to God and seeing so many people trying to figure it out on their own. But He had compassion on them and saw great potential for what His message could bring to them. I was struck by Jesus’ direction to pray for workers to be raised up because I rarely pray for that…everything but that in reference to praying for people to be saved. But nothing like Jesus sending out the 12 in response to the need and a reflection of answering the prayer. Three things predominate here. First, God is going to take care of you. Don’t worry about physical or spiritual provision. God has got people He will use to provide and God will have provision for you on the inside as to what to say and the ability to do miraculous things to show you are connected to Him. Second, be prepared to be rejected and hurt because of the message you bring. People don’t like being told they are wrong or that they need to change and they will go to any means to stop you and the message. And third, be courageous and maintain faith and obedience in the presence of that: God and the message are worth it, and God will bring good things to us if we do that and we will not receive the good things if we don’t (salvation cannot be affected by this, but the veracity of us having salvation will be reflected in our courage and faithfulness), and if they treated the founder of the message in this way, don’t expect that followers of Him would be treated differently. And beyond Jesus, there are not many better models of the courage and sacrifice for the message of Jesus than John the Baptist. How tragic was his death compared to the nobility and sacrifice of his life. It just shows the ends that evil will take to protect or defend itself. How sad that the world and God’s people will continue to face this type of murderous evil in the world.
Psalm 52; Jeremiah 29; The Life of Jesus 4.1-4.3
Life of Jesus 4.1-4.3
Advent Days 15 and 16
Advent 2025 – Day 17
Evangelism is the prevailing theme. Go and proclaim the gospel. If you deny Jesus before men, He will deny you before the Father. Persecution will come, even in one’s own household. I was thinking about this in the context of conversions and how Muslims (and even Jews) treat those who convert away, even their own family members.