During the series that starts on Sunday, “The Power of One,” I’d like to challenge us as a congregation to not only read the Word of God (the Bible) and to listen to it (through sermons or on radio) or to obey the Word but also to memorize the Word. Each week, I will assign a passage for us to memorize. I’d love to see us memorize these with our small groups, our families, our friends or on our own.
I’m going to list them here so that you can always come back to them at a later time. (Here’s a cool thing: click on the verse, it will look it up online for you!) As you’ll notice on Sunday, the love that we have for God is intimately connected with how well we know and obey His Word. Deuteronomy 6: 6-9 reads:
These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
Week 1: Deuteronomy 6:4-9
Week 2: Matthew 28:19-20
Week 3: Ephesians 4:11-13
Week 4: Psalm 95:6-7
Week 5: Malachi 3:10-11
Week 6: Hebrews 10:23-25
LOVE THIS!!!!!!! Great idea : )
Truly enjoyed your sermon Sunday, Cal. Have been memorizing the text you ‘assigned’ to us, also. Regarding the ‘Shema’ I wanted to pass on this excerpt from the introduction to the book I am reading now, called “The Zookeeper’s Wife”, subtitled, ‘A War Story’, written by Diane Ackerman, c.2007:
My grandfather, who lived on a small farm (in Poland)heardd folk stories passed down through generations.
One of them tells of a village with a little circus whose lion had suddenly died. The circus director asked an old Jewish man if he would pretend to be the lion, and the man agreed since he needed the money. The director said: “All you have to do is wear the lion’s fur and sit in the cage, and people will believe you are a lion.” And so the man did, muttering to himself, “What strange jobs I’ve had in my life,” when his thoughts were interrupted by a noise. He turned just in time to see another lion creeping into the cage and fixing him with a hungry stare. Trembling, cowering, not knowing how to save himself, the man did the only thing he could think of — vociferously chant a Hebrew prayer. No sooner had he uttered the first desperate words, ‘Shema Yisrael’ (Hear O Israel)…than the other lion joined in with ‘adonai elohenu’ (the LORD our God), and the two would-be lions finished the prayer together.
So, just as you were saying on Sunday, the Shema is pervasive in the Jewish culture. I guess, as this little story would show, it is so pervasive that it is even part of a Jewish humor : )
Great story, Teri!