Tanner UMC

08/12/2021

Hi everyone! We are excited to launch our all new page of Tanner United Methodist Church. It’s a great way to find out what’s happening, watch our live streams, and find ways to connect with us!

Please like our new page, the link is below.

https://www.facebook.com/Tanner-United-Methodist-Church-136877895234367/

Tanner United Methodist Church exists to make passionate disciples of Jesus Christ in Tanner.

05/22/2021

Continue building each other up

Daily Scripture & Reflection from Cor.org

1 Thessalonians 5:9-11
9 God didn’t intend for us to suffer his wrath but rather to possess salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. 10 Jesus died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we will live together with him. 11 So continue encouraging each other and building each other up, just like you are doing already.

Reflection Questions

Remember Paul’s statement of core Christian faith in 1 Thessalonians 4:14: “we believe that Jesus died and rose”? God’s intention for us, he said, has always been “salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.” And how did God act to make that possible? We can write massive volumes analyzing all the dimensions of God’s action, yet Paul summarized it in the simple phrase “Jesus died for us.” Jesus already fought and won the crucial battle against hatred, evil and death. The issue now is not can we defeat evil—Jesus already did that. All that remains is for us to choose whether we wish to be “in Christ” and share in that victory. And we get to do that together, “encouraging each other and building each other up.” Then, whenever Jesus comes, “we will live together with him.”

Scholar William Barclay movingly shared Paul’s closing message in this section: “[People] were anxious to know when that day would come. Jesus himself bluntly said no one knew when that day or hour would be, that even he did not know and only God knew (Mark 13:32; cp. Matthew 24:36; Acts 1:7). But that did not stop people speculating, as indeed they still do, though it is surely almost blasphemous that men should seek for knowledge which was denied even to Jesus …only [one] who lives in the dark and whose deeds are evil will be caught unprepared. The Christian lives in the light and no matter when that day comes, if he is watchful and sober, it will find him ready. Waking or sleeping, the Christian is living already with Christ and is therefore always prepared…. The [person] who has lived all his life with Christ is never unprepared to enter his nearer presence.”* How are you living, and helping others to live, prepared to meet Jesus?
Prayer

Lord Jesus, thank you that the Christians in Thessalonica asked Paul about your coming. 2000 years later, his answers speak to my heart, and help me know how to meet you trusting in your goodness, not my own. Amen.

* William Barclay, The Letters to the Philippians, Colossians and Thessalonians (Revised Edition). Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1975, p. 206.

05/21/2021

Waiting for the day of redemption

Daily Scripture & Reflection from Cor.org

Luke 21:27-28
27 Then they will see the Human One [or Son of Man] coming on a cloud with power and great splendor. 28 Now when these things begin to happen, stand up straight and raise your heads, because your redemption is near.

2 Peter 3:3-14
3 Most important, know this: in the last days scoffers will come, jeering, living by their own cravings, 4 and saying, “Where is the promise of his coming? After all, nothing has changed—not since the beginning of creation, nor even since the ancestors died.”

5 But they fail to notice that, by God’s word, heaven and earth were formed long ago out of water and by means of water. 6 And it was through these that the world of that time was flooded and destroyed. 7 But by the same word, heaven and earth are now held in reserve for fire, kept for the Judgment Day and destruction of ungodly people.

8 Don’t let it escape your notice, dear friends, that with the Lord a single day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a single day. 9 The Lord isn’t slow to keep his promise, as some think of slowness, but he is patient toward you, not wanting anyone to perish but all to change their hearts and lives. 10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. On that day the heavens will pass away with a dreadful noise, the elements will be consumed by fire, and the earth and all the works done on it will be exposed.

11 Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be? You must live holy and godly lives, 12 waiting for and hastening the coming day of God. Because of that day, the heavens will be destroyed by fire and the elements will melt away in the flames. 13 But according to his promise we are waiting for a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness is at home.

14 Therefore, dear friends, while you are waiting for these things to happen, make every effort to be found by him in peace—pure and faultless.

Reflection Questions

1 Thessalonians made it plain that the Thessalonian Christians and Paul himself expected Jesus to return to earth very soon (“we who are living and still around”—1 Thessalonians 4:17). After 2000 years, we can see that their sense of God’s time scale was a bit too short. The “when” question has never been helpful, as both Luke’s and Peter’s teaching recognized. Crucial to thinking about Jesus' coming is not “when,” but “who”—who is coming? And who will be ready to greet him?

Jesus used Old Testament prophetic language to describe the end. People would feel confusion, dismay, and fear as everything seemed to be falling apart, he said. But not his followers! For them—us—the end of the world is not cause for fear but for hope: “Your redemption is near.” When you think of Jesus' coming, can you “raise your head” and rejoice in God’s coming redemption?
2 Peter 3 said “scoffers” say about the hope of God making all things new: “nothing has changed—not since the beginning of creation.” Can you dare to dream that it’s true, that God will “make all things new” (cf. Revelation 21:5)? In what day-to-day ways does hope change your life for the better? How hard is it for you to keep believing and trusting given the pace of what Madeleine l’Engle called God’s “vast, patiently waiting love”?*
Prayer

O Lord, of course Paul and the early Christians wanted you to make the Roman world new! Of course I want you to make the world I live in new! Help me keep trusting that you will, but in your time, not mine. Amen.

* L'Engle, Madeleine. Many Waters (A Wrinkle in Time, Book 4). Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR). Kindle Edition, p. 318.

05/20/2021

Spiritual armor for “children of light”
Daily Scripture & Reflection from Cor.org
1 Thessalonians 5:5-8
5 All of you are children of light and children of the day. We don’t belong to night or darkness. 6 So then, let’s not sleep like the others, but let’s stay awake and stay sober. 7 People who sleep sleep at night, and people who get drunk get drunk at night. 8 Since we belong to the day, let’s stay sober, wearing faithfulness and love as a piece of armor [or breastplate] that protects our body and the hope of salvation as a helmet.
Ephesians 6:11-17
11 Put on God’s armor so that you can make a stand against the tricks of the devil. 12 We aren’t fighting against human enemies but against rulers, authorities, forces of cosmic darkness, and spiritual powers of evil in the heavens. 13 Therefore, pick up the full armor of God so that you can stand your ground on the evil day and after you have done everything possible to still stand. 14 So stand with the belt of truth around your waist, justice as your breastplate, 15 and put shoes on your feet so that you are ready to spread the good news of peace. 16 Above all, carry the shield of faith so that you can extinguish the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is God’s word.
Reflection Questions
1 Thessalonians showed how, even before the gospels took their written form, the apostles taught what Jesus taught. It also previewed key ideas expressed more fully in later letters. Ephesians (which either Paul or one of his close followers wrote) took the 1 Thessalonians image of the spiritual ideals by which Christians live as armor for our hearts and minds and expanded it to a full-blown metaphor based on what Roman soldiers (some of whom guarded Paul during his imprisonments) wore.
Paul began this letter praising the Thessalonians for their faith, hope and love (cf. 1 Thessalonians 1:3; also 1 Corinthians 13:13). As he neared the end of his message, he returned to those central spiritual qualities as the “armor” they could depend on to protect their life as children of light, not darkness. How has this pandemic season strengthened or weakened those qualities in your life?
Again, Paul was not writing cheery clichés. Yesterday (1 Thessalonians 5:3) he wrote that some said, “There is peace and security.” N. T. Wright wrote, “The slogan ‘peace and security’ was one of the comforting phrases that the Roman empire put out, to reassure its inhabitants around the Mediterranean that the famous ‘Roman peace’… would hold without problems. That is what Paul is really attacking…. Within 20 years of this letter, the warning had come true.”* How, as a child of the light, can you avoid putting your deepest trust in any human entity?
Prayer
Lord Jesus, keep teaching me that being a person of your light is not mainly about denouncing evil but about living with faith, hope and, above all, love. Fill me with that light. Amen.
* Wright, N.T. Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians (The New Testament for Everyone) . Westminster John Knox Press, p. 129. Kindle Edition.