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Resources For "Scandal of Grace" From Each Harderwyk Preacher I. New For This Week From Scandalous Stories – Daniel Emery Price & Erick Sorensen “The biblical reality is that sometimes weeds become wheat. In fact, all wheat were formerly weeds. This transformation doesn’t happen through weeds trying harder to be like wheat. It doesn’t happen by weeds shaping up, acting better, or being more devoted. And it most certainly doesn’t happen by cutting them down and casting them out. So we can put away our judgmental evaluation of the person in the pew across from us and our critical assessment of all our neighbors. It seems we are in need of constant reminding that this transformation happens by the grace of God. It happens through the good news that because of the finished work of Christ, all may come and be part of the good master’s harvest, just as they are. To become wheat, you must come as a weed.” Consider Joining A Scandalous Stories Discussion Group - Wednesday Night ...

Resources For "Scandal of Grace" From Each Harderwyk Preacher I. New For This Week Our focus on Sunday will primarily be the parable of the sower but stuck between is a somewhat confusion word from Jesus where he quotes Isaiah 6.  Capon explains this text in a helpful way distinguishing between prescriptive and descriptive meanings. “Then follow two startling statements.  The first is ‘for to him who has, more will be given; and from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away.’ This seems to me to be one of those hard sayings of Jesus that cries out, not for a prescriptive interpretation, but for a descriptive one.  Jesus, though he could be taken as issuing a statement about what God will do to reward or punish those who hear the parables, seems to be more reasonably understood as giving a simple description of the way things are. ‘If you grasp the fact that the kingdom works in a mystery,’ he seems to say, ‘then that very grip will give you more and more under...

Resources For the "Scandal of Grace" Series From Each Harderwyk Preacher I. New For This Week From Stories with Intent: A Comprehensive Guide to the Parables of Jesus (2nd edition) by Klyne Snodgrass On the Mustard Seed - "This parable is less direct in its application than some because it is so focused on addressing the doubts of Jesus’ contemporaries about the nature of his ministry. Its most important point is that the kingdom is indeed present in his ministry, and, if that is so, the obvious import and next question are about one’s stance toward the kingdom. If the Mustard Seed similitude is an apologetic that the kingdom has come, it is also comfort and exhortation with regard to one’s identity. It is wrong to think this parable is about the spiritual growth of the individual; it is not wrong to understand the dynamic of God’s working and apply it to the individual or to other circumstances. It is not only with Jesus’ ministry that things may look small and insignif...

Resources For "Scandal of Grace" From Each Harderwyk Preacher I. New For This Week Jesus' Parables – Scandal of Grace This Sunday we will kick off a new series on the parables of Jesus we are calling Scandal of Grace.  Our companion for the series is, “Scandalous Stories” by Price and Sorensen and we will have copies of the book on Sunday.  We are jumping right into the parables with a brief introduction to the parables, but honestly we could have given that introduction a Sunday of its own.  We come to the parables with many assumptions and sometimes we try to do more or less than they were intended to do.   Scandalous Stories  is a great book that the three preachers are using together as well.   CLICK HERE  for Amazon link to purchase you own copy for about $10.   Scandalous Stories Discussion Group  - Will use the book and previous Sunday Sermon to follow on with a Discussion G roup on Wednesday evenings at Harderwyk follow...