Redemption of the Apple

I am again serving coffee hour tomorrow. I have decided to serve canteloup melon, strawberries, deviled eggs, and apple muffins. I made apple pies for Friday's Church Baked Bean supper so I had some extra apples to work with. I must say that the idea of serving apples at church got me laughing a little bit, so I decided that I should replace my vision of Eve and the serpent with a more positive vision of apples. So here are some apple scriptures that I found:

"Shew thy marvellous lovingkindness, O thou that savest by thy right hand them which put their trust in thee from those that rise up against them. Keep me as the apple of the eye, hide me under the shadow of thy wings, From the wicked that oppress me, from my deadly enemies, who compass me about." Psalms 17:7-9

"Keep my commandments, and live; and my law as the apple of thine eye." Proverbs 7:2

There are also several scriptures in Songs of Solomon, but I'll leave those for you to find.



Now interestingly, here comes the learning part of my blog. As I used the concordence to find apple scriptures, I learned that yet again I have been influenced by outside forces. Genesis did not come up. There is no apple in the Adam and Eve story. I had to google this question. I found that apparently in the Latin translation, the word malum means both evil and apple. People clung to this idea and started to use apples in pictures of this scene, thus our idea of the apple. What was actually eaten? fruit taken from the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil. There is no other mention of what kind of fruit it was. I'll bet you it was one of those spiky looking fruits in the produce section of the grocery store.

Does this remind you of the question of the blonde haired, blue eyed Jesus?

The Seven Deadly Sins

What is your weakness? 2nd Cup of Coffee turned me onto a quiz that is supposed to identify your fault. Apparently, wrath is my greatest weakness. I think those that know me would find this kind of funny, but I guess the results are not just action but also intent. And there I must admit, smiting those that hurt / harm myself or my family seems to be a reasonable response. Anyway, I have posted my results below. Why don’t you take the quiz and let us know your results. Do you think it is an accurate assessment of your character?

Greed:	Very Low
Gluttony:	Low
Wrath:	Medium
Sloth:	Low
Envy:	Very Low
Lust:	Very Low
Pride:	Medium

The Seven Deadly Sins Quiz on 4degreez.com


I did a little extra research about the 7 deadly sins and found that there is no direct scriptural reference. The ideals are repeated throughout the Bible, but there is no specific place that says “And though shall avoid the Seven Deadly Sins: pride, envy, wrath, sloth, greed, gluttony, lust.” These 7 are not the original list, but have been refined and ordered throughout the ages. Coming to the form that we currently know when they adapted by Pope Gregory. It is actually many Medieval stories that engrained the idea into our minds.

A very interesting article on the Seven deadly sins can be found at http://sjmc.cla.umn.edu/stupro/virgil2001/sevendead.pdf

I think that I will need to pick up the Canterbury Tales again.

Making Pies for Jesus

The Bible says that we should do things for the LORD with a grateful heart, but I was not of a grateful heart as I was making pies for my church’s baked bean dinner. Six dinners a year. Two pies per dinner. It certainly doesn’t seem like too much to ask for. But my heart was not in it this week. So the questions become, am I not giving fully to the LORD or are pies not the request of my God, but of my church? Unfortunately, this is a simple form of a much larger question that we all face every day.

As we work to follow in Jesus’ footsteps, we can easily fall into thinking that we are doing good, but in fact just be doing. Imagine if instead of outright evil, evil was more insidious. Outright evil we would see coming and fortify our defenses. Insidious evil comes in the form of distractions. First of all, the noises that these distractions produce don’t allow us to hear God’s whispers to us. Secondly, these distractions, keep us from our true calling. We get busy making pies, planning bazaars, and attending events. Instead of following our calling and doing our part, we get caught up.

For me the question becomes, how can you tell the difference between what is right and what is just static?