For me, study is about being engaged by a thought, viewpoint or argument: first trying to determine if I can align my thinking with that thought; and secondarily, grappling with the ramifications of change.
Since becoming a “Student of JP” I’ve tried to be more careful and write my doctrine/beliefs in pencil. Saying “I’ve always believed that way” is something I try to never use as a defense and I certainly find myself being challenged often as I read articles on the JP site.
That being said, from time to time I will share a nugget I’ve found within an article on the JP site which has “engaged” my thinking and, possibly, even changed my thinking.
I cannot tell you how many times I heard my dad pray the phrase “Bless this food to the nourishment of our body and us to greater service.” Of course, that phrase also became a part of my meal-prayer rhetoric?
But the article “Jesus and the Oral Torah: Blessings” by David Bivin changed all that with one short paragraph:
Before dining with the two disciples from Emmaus, Jesus “blessed, broke and gave,” as he did before he fed the five thousand with five loaves and and two fish. (In Luke’s account of this miracle, but not in Mark’s or Matthew’s, the text reads “blessed them,” but one important Greek manuscript reads “blessed for them” at Luke 9:16.) Because of the recurring “blessed, broke and gave the bread” in the Gospels, it is a common Christian misunderstanding that Jesus blessed the bread. Consequently, Christians customarily “bless the food” before they eat a meal.
I urge every reader to read all articles in this six-part series “Jesus and the Oral Torah“, but definitely the one on “Blessing”
Enjoy…and get engaged!
Brian
