Reading this article in The Wilson Quarterly, America: Land of Loners?, has inspired me to return to a topic I took up early last year in my personal blog, Notes from a Byzantine-Rite Calvinist. That topic is friendship, something that appears to have eroded in our highly mobile, post-industrial societies. Many observers have written on friendship in the past, including Aristotle’s reflections on it in books VIII and IX of the Nicomachean Ethics. In the Bible we read of the deep bond of friendship between David and Jonathan, which endured in spite of the hostility of the latter’s father, King Saul. Abraham demonstrates that it is possible to be a friend even to God.
In the coming weeks I will be posting occasionally on the topic of friendship, beginning in the very near future. I am increasingly persuaded that in our society the decline of genuine friendship, as opposed to mere acquaintance or the utterly meaningless facebook friendship, is adversely affecting the larger web of human relationships, including marriage, family and the variety of communities of which we are part. Stay tuned.
August 26th, 2010 | 12:34 pm | #1
- A PRAYER FROM JESUS -
This prayer is from Jesus that we may here from Him, that He may meet our needs. It only consist of three simple steps.
1) We need to read one scripture. This will focus us in the word that brings everlasting life.
2) Since this prayer is from Jesus we need yo direct our prayer to Him personally. Too often Christian focus they’re prayer’s to G_D the father. Scripture proclaims that Jesus should be the focus of our prayer.
3) The simplest part of this Prayer is to ask Jesus one question. Please, all that is required for this question is to make it simple. Let Jesus Himself finish the question when He gives you that understanding through prayer.
The PRAYER
The scripture that is the focus of this prayer is “ACTS 2:38″. It’s not necessary to do any study into this scripture. Jesus Himself willl bestow the understanding that will resonate in your heart.
The most important part of this prayer is that we need to direct our prayer directly to Jesus. If you normally would say Father in your prayer, change your focus from the Father to Christ Jesus by lifting Jesus name up every time you would normally use Father in your prayer.
Maybe the hardest part of this prayer is the question that we need to ask Jesus. For man as we are, always try to understand the question and may add many additional quires. The simplest question is all that is required.
Simply ask Jesus ‘WHY’
August 26th, 2010 | 2:37 pm | #2
I’m not sure why a Oneness Pentecostal felt the need to post a “prayer from Jesus” at a blog on friendship, but I look forward to see what you’ll say on the role of friendship, especially in terms of moral formation.
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