Mike Beranek

  • beranek7
  • Uxbridge Quaker Meeting
  • Earned a Badge — Completed First Reading Plan

    2012-04-23

  • nice MSG paraphrase about 'theatre' of ostentation

    Matthew 6:1 (MSG)
    "Be especially careful when you are trying to be good so that you don't make a performance out of it. It might be good theater, but the God who made you won't be applauding.

    Created about 1 month ago

  • Earned a Badge — 21-Day Challenge

    2012-02-24

  • God is from far off, like the Samaritan :

    in the form of Jesus in a deeper interpretation of this parable - we are asked not just to consider the stranger fallen as a neighbour needing help but also the victim as the fallen man, even Adam perhaps,…

    Created 4 months ago

    Luke 10:33 (MSG)

  • Psalm 26:1-12

    Psalm 26:1-12 (MSG)
    Clear my name, god; I've kept an honest shop. I've thrown in my lot with you, god, and I'm not budging.

    Created 4 months ago

  • Jewish 'Gate liturgy' - perfected by Jesus

    Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) in Jesus of Nazareth (2007) thoughtfully touches on this aspect of the open and free heart required to see God by linking that preached about by Jesus in the Beatitudes…

    Created 4 months ago

    Psalm 24:3 (MSG), Psalm 24:4 (MSG)

  • Household Gods: Teraphim

    The Oxford Bible Commentary describes these as small hominiform images of gods used widely especially in Israel during the period of the monarchy. Later, along with the practice of divination associated…

    Created 4 months ago

    Genesis 31:19 (MSG)

  • Mandrake fruit: aphrodesiac

    Ancient belief holds that the fruit of the Mandrake plant has aphrosdesiac properties, but of course note (the message of this tale) that God alone bestows or beholds life - including the eventual birth…

    Created 4 months ago

    Genesis 30:14 (MSG), Genesis 30:15 (MSG), Genesis 30:16 (MSG), Genesis 30:17 (MSG), Genesis 30:18 (MSG)

  • Deceiver deceived

    Jacob perhaps gets what he deserved considering how he stole his brother's blessing in Ch 27

    Created 4 months ago

    Genesis 29:25 (MSG)

  • That's far enough Moses!

    I note Pope Benedict XVI's reference to this scripture in his first volume (2006) 'Jesus of Nazareth' p. 6 - of the building expectations in Israel of a "new Moses", a super-prophet who would surpass…

    Created 4 months ago

    Exodus 33:20 (MSG)

  • Cast out, true love became more intimate

    True from my experience, leaving a handsome detached matrimonial house on the South Coast of England for a bed-sitter room in west greater London. Experiences like these teaches one much more profoundly…

    Created 4 months ago

    Proverbs 21:9 (MSG)

  • A pleasantly personal lament to God

    In fact its so 'in ya face' it seems almost irreverent, but not so, see how he ends confidently singing praises in anticipation of deliverance yet to come. I really like this as it brings down the aloof…

    Created 4 months ago

    Psalm 13:1 (MSG)

  • intriguing story of Abraham in Gerar - told three times

    This. story, incidentally the bulk of the movie screenplay Days of Heaven (1978) with Richard Gere directed by Terence Malik - a good watch!-, is repeated in a fashion three times in Genesis: also 12:10-20,…

    Created 4 months ago

    Genesis 20:18 (MSG)

  • Priestly source on the circumcision

    My scholarly Peaks Commentary identifies this as an embellishment of this book by the elusive Priestly source, concerned especially on preserving the identity of the post-exilic Israelites. It had been…

    Created 4 months ago

    Genesis 17:11 (MSG)

  • Earned a Badge — Created Your First Bookmark

    2012-01-20

  • Luke 9:22

    Luke 9:22 (MSG)
    He went on, "It is necessary that the Son of Man proceed to an ordeal of suffering, be tried and found guilty by the religious leaders, high priests, and religion scholars, be killed, and on the third day be raised up alive."

    Created 4 months ago

  • self-sacrifice, not self-help

    This line (& associated) speak(s) so well to the modern condition with bookstores stuffed with self-improvement manuals promising an easy fix for unhappiness and identity confusion. Finding true self…

    Created 4 months ago

    Luke 9:24 (MSG)

  • Movie screenplay here?

    This deception of Pharaoh by Abram, his profit from it and the plague on Pharaoh are very much the main story of the 1978 masterpiece Days of Heaven dir. Terrence Malik starring Richard Gere! A beautiful,…

    Created 5 months ago

    Genesis 12:12 (MSG), Genesis 12:13 (MSG), Genesis 12:14 (MSG), Genesis 12:15 (MSG), Genesis 12:16 (MSG), Genesis 12:17 (MSG), Genesis 12:19 (MSG)

  • Listening

    Listening with the heart alluded to here resonates with St. Benedict's advices - it's good-hearts who can listen. Then the hanging on with tenacity I find a wonderful image.

    Created 5 months ago

    Luke 8:15 (MSG)

  • Does this speak to the modern malaise or what!?

    The combatant-in-God has quite a battle on nowadays where The Rabble is innumerable and one can feel pretty alone. That suggestion of an ordinary day in grace is great succor - let consumerism eat itself…

    Created 5 months ago

    Psalm 4:2 (MSG), Psalm 4:7 (MSG)

  • God addressing human hubris

    This time not with a flood (note not only his earlier promise, and the waterproofed mortar used), but with a much more nuanced device that was not genocidal just clever and manipulative. The tyrant Nimrod…

    Created 5 months ago

    Genesis 11:4 (MSG)

  • Earned a Badge — Created 10 [Public] Notes

    2012-01-17

  • Worldly debts

    Coincidences can be startling. A split second after reading and contemplating this mini-parable of the two debtors, the phone rang: it was a debt collection agency who had finally chased me down! It's…

    Created 5 months ago

    Luke 7:41 (MSG)

  • The Spirit - Missing bit found in MSG Remix version 2.0

    On a technical but I feel not altogether pedantic note, I find the computerized MSG version here just before verse 24 is missing a really lovely quote present in my printed version 2003 by Jesus to the…

    Created 5 months ago

    John 4:24 (MSG)

  • Universal monothesim

    The occupying Romans were of course yet to take up Christ as a nation/empire until years after his death, and worshiped all manner of pagan gods - I believe this is the implicit fact here. In this Roman…

    Created 5 months ago

    Luke 7:2 (MSG)

  • An angry God?

    If so he proves also to have remarkable faith and compassion though too in this story - not to be read through the microscope of modernity and science. Perhaps in this ambiguous way he is reflected in…

    Created 5 months ago

    Genesis 7:1 (MSG)

  • The purpose of my bible study:

    All these finds words of His would be in vain if not worked into one's life and relationships here now on earth - they are so much easier to trot out as an form of doctrine in church than to apply in…

    Created 5 months ago

    Luke 6:35 (MSG), Luke 6:37 (MSG), Luke 6:43 (MSG), Luke 6:45 (MSG), Luke 6:47 (MSG), Luke 6:49 (MSG)

  • the capacity for sin: a test?

    Through this dynamic of sin versus evil we find our way to greater godliness, salvation in this life, to sin is an opportunity to learn and take a step higher - a mechanism cunningly endowed to us from…

    Created 5 months ago

    Genesis 5:1 (MSG)

  • God gave us a choice and by doing so made life interesting

    Imagine how dull life would be if we didn't have a choice between sinning and righteousness. I have a feeling he knew just what would happen when he said to Adam not to walk on the grass, in doing so…

    Created 5 months ago

    Psalm 1:5 (MSG)

  • Dont walk on the grass

    What is it about man!

    Created 5 months ago

    Genesis 2:1 (MSG)

  • Herin lies the mechanism of evolution

    This burgeoning of life with its own momentum is not inconsistent with the concept of evolution, of a glorious mechanism emerging from primordial soup.

    Created 5 months ago

    Genesis 1:28 (MSG)

  • Earned a Badge — Created First [Public] Note

    2012-01-13

  • We do not own the Earth

    We are made to be responsible for it

    Created 5 months ago

    Genesis 1:26 (MSG)

  • Earned a Badge — Subscribed to First Reading Plan

    2012-01-13