Posts by Alyssa Horrobin (Page 4)

JESUS TREK – 6 – The Man by the side of the road

JT left that building and continued walking around the town. As he came to the edge of town he found a man laying by the side of the road, he obviously had been robbed. As a small child, he wasn’t sure what he could do but he began to approach the man.

A man in rich priestly robes, with an entourage, passed by the man lying on the side of the road smirking. Waving at the man, he said haughtily, “Oh leave him, he probably had too much wine and fell in with bad company. We don’t have time for him. I forbid any one of you to help him!” Some of the man’s followers looked sadly as they walked by; but they followed their leaders’ direction and went on down the road.

pharisees_7

Jesus Trek – 5 – The Rich man

JT walked down the forest path and wound up in another town. This town was much larger and had some quite elegant buildings. In addition, there were also structures that were little better than shacks. It was easy to see some here were rich and others quite poor.

When he got to the center of town he found a simple but imposing building. He saw quite a long line of people in front of the building. They ranged in ages from children to quite elderly. The older people stood leaning on canes.

people in line

JESUS TREK – 4 – The 10 friends

JT Walked down the dusty path for many hours and soon he could hear the running of water. As he looked he also saw a few houses and now he could see a town. At the end of a very short main street he saw a large dock with many people milling around.

“When is it going to come, we’ve being waiting forever?” One brightly dressed woman exclaimed to the others. There appeared to be 10 ladies dressed up in finery, it was hot and dusty, yet they stood waiting by the dock.

ten-virgins

Jesus Trek – 3 – A Debt Forgiven

JT trudged down the dusty road as quickly as he could. The last town that he left appeared to value the law much more than mercy. That was something he just did not understand.

After a while he grew tired and found a tree beside a river. He lay against the tree, in the shade, and stretched out for a nap. His dreams were troubled with all he had recently gone through with the house falling into the sea and the indifferent crowd letting the man drown in the quicksand.

raft-log1

It seemed that sounds were breaking through to him in his sleep. The sounds became louder and awoke him. He opened his eyes to find a well-dressed man on a raft floating down the river. “Can you assist me? Can you throw me that rope?”

Jesus Trek – 2 – A friend in Need

After a while JT felt the urge to leave the house on the rock. He thought he should be moving, how else was he to find out what he was searching for? One morning, he set out down the dusty road until he came to a forest.

There were so many trees, that he had never seen a forest this large before. After walking for a couple of hours he heard a faint sound of panic. “Help, Help.” The faint cry came.

JT ran towards the sound as fast as he could go. He hoped he could arrive in time to help whoever was in trouble.

The cries for help were stronger with each step he took. As he rounded the next bend, he saw a crowd of people standing and watching something. He came up to the crowd and managed to slip between them, as he was so small, and finally made it to the front.

There was a man that appeared to be stuck in quicksand, and he was submerged up to his neck. “Help, someone, please help me!!” the man cried frantically. The quicksand was not that large, it was only about 2 arm spans wide, but this unfortunate man was right in the middle of it.

quicksand 

Jesus Trek – 1 – House on the Beach

The little boy, JT, walked down the road towards the beach. It was a bright and sunny day, not a cloud in the sky. He thought, ‘it would be so nice to live on the beach and be able to swim anytime I wanted to.’

As if in response to his thought, he saw a house on the beach. It was like the beach knew what he needed. There was a big house sitting right on the beach.

HOuse on sand

Jesus Trek – Introduction

Greetings, this is the introduction to a new blog series that will be posted every Friday right here about a search for Jesus. This series uses story and allegory to bring scripture to life in a way that is reminiscent of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress or C.S. Lewis’ Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe. It is a journey, a trek, to discover Jesus.jesus-boy-walking

Hello Internet. Can We Move In?

I’ve been challenged recently through reading a number of books about our place as God’s people in the online space. The internet has sort of taken us all by surprise. It caught us off guard and many churches – ours included – have been sluggish to utilize this powerful tool for Gods kingdom. While there […]

Day 33 – 2 Chronicles 24-36 Manasseh Repented?

[Hey all. Pastor John has once again asked me to republish a post I wrote back when I was blogging through the 90 day challenge. This post looks closely at the story of Manasseh in 2 Chronicles in contrast to the same story told in Samuel-Kings. I conclude by offering some things on some distinctive features of 2 Chronicles which stood out for me. ~ Derek]

ManassehToday’s reading concludes the book of 2 Chronicles.

In my previous post I already zeroed in on a few of the distinctives found throughout Chronicles regarding a certain unabashed bias in favor of Judah and a highly optimistic portrait of its kings. Of all the examples I provided in yesterday’s post, none compare to the contrasting stories of King Manasseh when compared to 2 Kings 17 (cf. 2 Chronicles 33).

Both accounts depict Manasseh as the worse king in Judah’s history. Manasseh went beyond worshipping other local gods and began to worship the gods of the East – “all the starry hosts”. He went into the Temple of the Lord and set up altars and statues of these “gods” in there to be worshipped. He practiced sorcery and consulted spiritists and as if none of this were bad enough, “He sacrificed his sons in the fire in the Valley of Ben Hinnom” (2 Chronicles 33:5; Jesus later had this valley in mind when he spoke of Hell). Manasseh was a bad dude.

Day 26: 1 Kings 17- 2 Kings 4 – Did Elijah Really Go To Heaven?

Elijah_ascent[Hello folks. By now I suppose you’re tired of me. This is my third post here! Pastor John asked me, once again, if I’d repost from when I did my 90 Day Challenge back in 2011. Admittedly my own blog tended to be less pastoral in content since I focused on “exploring” the scriptures. So my apology in advance. This post I wrote in February 2011  looks at the story of when Elijah was caught up from Elisha in a chariot of fire. I suggest you go and read the story because I jump right into talking about it. This post is not very pastoral, but I hope you enjoy it none-the-less. ~ Derek]

I was taught in Sunday School class that when Elijah was taken up into heaven from Elisha, that Elijah actually went into Heaven at that time. That is, I was taught that Elijah was “Raptured” and went to Heaven where people float around playing harps and singing hallelujahs for eternity.

I no longer hold that view for three reasons.