Bulletin Announcements – 16 October 2016

• Sunday School Term 4 starts today. Parents are reminded to pick up their children promptly from the Sunday class after the S9 service.

 

• We thank God that Sam Chan, Leslie Lee and Lily Shen are the deacons from the S9 that have been elected for the 2016-2018 term at the AGM (25/9).

 

Ariel writes – a weekly Scriptural devotion:

“Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.” (Mark 7:15 NIV)

In Mark 7-8 Jesus radically, some might even say “grossly”, challenges the purity laws of the elders (past Jewish leaders) which the Pharisees and teachers of the law fastidiously kept. The Jewish leaders were upset at Jesus that his disciples weren’t “ceremonially washing” their hands before eating. Jesus calls them hypocrites and then (Mark 7:33) he goes and puts his fingers in a deaf and mute man’s ears, and then he spits on his hand and puts it on the man’s tongue to heal him! Later on (Mark 8:23) he spits on a blind man’s eyes to heal him as well. Don’t know about you but I wouldn’t want anyone else’s spit on my tongue or in my eyes. However, Jesus does these miracles in such a way to “grossly” prove his point in the verse above. He said this because the Jewish leaders were very concerned about hygiene but then on the other hand they didn’t honour God with their hearts (Mark 7:6). This convicted me in one simple area of my life; I realised on the odd occasion I show more concern about my children’s hygiene than their character. I wonder if this verse convicts you in some way too?

from pastor Ariel