brutal bits…

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Hi Paul.  How are you going? I'm assuming you are an essential worker so life goes on similarly to you. A question :- the parable of the 10 ladies with lamps waiting for the bridegroom has come into my radar a number of times lately......I can't get my head around the idea that God/Jesus shuts the door to people who want to be with Him - be it that they were ill prepared and came late - they still desired to be with the bridegroom - surely God does not shut the door to anyone who wants to be with Him - there must be something I not understanding in this one ? Ideas please ?

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I love your attitude and statements.

The "smell" of God has to be on it..

Yeah, and the next two parables in Matt 25, and the bit in John 15 "..My Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit"; similar stark, sharp demarkation,... 

Let me know as you come up with thoughts too, the Passion translation translates around the John 15 problem...

It may just be a difference between what the "not having enough oil" meant in those days for a bridesmaid. Was it like salt that was not salty??

Did it mean that the "Master of the house", who appears to be the Groom(?), was saying, "If you weren't ready to help my wife in the way called for with ordinary forethought from someone who is committed to her as a friend, and not freeloading; then I also have no use for you. I didn't ask you to come as my guest, you only came as her attendant - and that appears to be beneath your commitment. I've never met you myself, ...  so don't worry about coming... ? In other words if actual friendship with the bride is below them (do they just want to be part of the wedding party, and to be pampered and spoiled, but not (wear the bridesmaid dress, or) get enough oil to last the night.. was "not having the oil to last the night" then, the equivalent, for us now, of a bridesmaid not wearing the appropriate dress that goes with the wedding party plans, and  just coming in her own white dress, or her own comfortable jarmies??

I'm thinking too…

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Oh God, we like you very much, and ask

that you would help us make sense of these things.

Your wisdom for our living and the tasks

of following your call through what He sings

to us. We know that only birds that fly

might make it into nests up high above.

And cookoos in the nest of birds which try

to push the others out, might need a shove

themselves, if other species would keep on.

But maybe in a bigger scheme of things

both cookoos and the other ones could bond

and help each other, since they've all got wings...

I s'pose the people that He told these to

would have their stories tailor-made for them.

I wonder what he'd say, and what he'd do

if he were here today to speak again?

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