Columbia UBF

We hope you all had a good, restful and refreshing break, and that the first week of classes has been going well! As the semester begins, so do our activities! Here are the details, and notice a few changes:

Connect Meetings: Thursdays at 7.30 pm in the Bible House. We decided to rename our Thursday fellowship meetings, to reflect our new focus for these meetings. Relationships are about connecting with someone else, and this is true both for one’s relationship with God, and with other people. So this semester we want to use these meetings to explore what it means to be connected, with God and with one another as children of God, through reflecting and meditating on various passages from the Bible. This week (Thursday 1/24), we will play some games and have dinner together! Also notice that we will be meeting earlier than last semester, now at 7.30 pm.

Sunday Worship Service: Sundays at 2.30 pm. For the first two weeks of the semester (Sundays 1/27 and 2/3), we will be meeting in the Bible House. The Sundays after that, we will be meeting in Lerner 568 (starting on 2/10).

Stay warm, and may God bless each of you in everything you do this semester!

Sorry for the late notice, but this is just to announce that today (Sunday November 18th), we will exceptionally NOT have worship service in Lerner room 568 at 2.30 pm. We will resume worship services as usual starting next Sunday. Until then, Happy Thanksgiving!

JESUS THE GOOD SHEPHERD

John 10:11-21

Key Verses: 10:11 & 14

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep… I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me.”

When we want to know someone, we ask the question, “Who are you?” And the person responds with his or her name. But we cannot say that we really know the person just by knowing the person’s name or learning some information about the person. In order to know a person, we need to know that person’s personality and character. Likewise, when we say that we know Jesus Christ personally, it requires much more than just having some information about him. We need to have a personal experience with Jesus. The blind man in chapter 9 could have this experience. But how can we experience Jesus?

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The Good Shepherd

Jn.10:1-21

  “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”

There was a beggar who was born blind in Jerusalem. Jesus opened his eyes on the day of the Sabbath and gave him a brand new life. But his neighbors and those who saw him begging before did not congratulate and praise God; instead, they were not happy about this man’s new life and brought him to the Pharisees. Then the Pharisees continued to investigate who had healed him on the Sabbath. Their attention was focused on who broke the law of the Sabbath, rather than the amazing healing miracle. But the beggar overcame their mistreatment and persecution. He kept his faith to the end, saying, “I was blind but now I see.” Jesus blessed his faith and gave him spiritual sight to see the Son of Man and to believe in him. The religious leaders abandoned this unworthy sheep, but Jesus saved him.

Through the event in today’s passage, Jesus spoke to the Pharisees about the Shepherd and the sheep. The Pharisees, who did not live as shepherds, couldn’t understand the meaning of Jesus’ figure of speech. But Jesus explained to them patiently what it meant, and declared to be the good shepherd for the sheep.

In this hostile world, there are too many false leaders. But we must know there is the true Shepherd Jesus. In this passage, Jesus doesn’t talk about leaders, but shepherds for the sheep. It means all leaders should have shepherd images. Let’s think about the image of the good shepherd, and also of false shepherds.

May God open our hearts to meet the good shepherd, Jesus personally.

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SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS

John 9:13-41

Key Verse: 9:39 

“‘Jesus said, ‘For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.’”

            A man and his wife pulled into a gas station to refuel their car. As the gas tank was being filled, the gas station attendant began to wash the windshield. When he finished, the driver of the car said, “The windshield is still dirty. Wash it again.” “Yes, sir,” the attendant answered. As he scrubbed the windshield a second time, he carefully looked for any bugs or dirt he might have missed. When he finished, the man in the car became angry. “It’s still dirty!” he said. “Don’t you know how to wash a windshield? Do it again!”

The attendant cleaned the windshield a third time, carefully looking for any place he might have missed, but he still couldn’t find any messy spots. By now, the driver was fuming. He yelled, “What’s wrong with you, man? This windshield is still filthy! I’m going to talk to your boss to make sure you don’t work here another day.” As the man was about to get out of the car, his wife reached over, removed his eyeglasses and wiped them with a tissue, then put them back on his face. The driver was terribly embarrassed when he realized the windshield was spotless.  The problem wasn’t the gas station attendant, but the driver’s dirty eyeglasses.

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Display of the Works of God
Key Verse 9:3

“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.”

Last week, we studied the last part of chapter 8. At the end of chapter 8, Jesus declared, “Before Abraham was born, I am! (8:58)”. By saying this, Jesus revealed himself as an omnipresent and eternal God. However, the Jews, thinking that Jesus’s statement was blasphemous, picked up stones to stone him. They couldn’t see Jesus who came to save the world from darkness. When they couldn’t see the glory of Jesus, they hated Jesus and tried to kill him. Because his time to be glorified  on the cross had not yet come, Jesus hid himself from their attack and slipped away from the temple grounds (8:59).

Look at the verse 1 of chapter 9: “As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth.” Jesus now came out of the temple and was probably walking to the south, passing near the pool of Siloam (look at the maps and pictures). While he was walking, he saw a man. And the man was blind. Not just blind; he was blind from birth.

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Welcome back to school everyone! We hope that everyone had a great first day of classes and can smoothly (re-)adjust to school. With the semester officially started, here’s a reminder of the regular activities that we’ll have throughout the rest of the semester:

• Fellowship Meetings: every Thursday at 8 pm in the CUBF Bible House (which is located at apt. 1B, 532 west 114th street). This week for our first meeting we will have praise, a brief introduction to our ministry and what we do, testimony sharing, and FOOD (at the end). Come by if you would like to meet us, found out more about our group, enjoy (free!) food with us, and/or just praise and meditate on God’s word with us!
• Worship Services: every Sunday at 2.30 pm in Lerner Hall room 568.
• Bible study: The focus of our ministry is one-to-one Bible study, and our Bible studies are mostly one-to-one, by appointment (so, whenever you have time!). Through them, we look at passages from the Bible, ask questions about them and try to discover what they mean for us and our relationsip with God. Please contact us if you’d like to study the Bible with us and/or have any questions!

Have an awesome start of the semester! Don’t hesitate to contact us with any questions you may have, and we look forward to seeing many of you around!

THE TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE

Jn.8:31-47

Kv.; 31-32      To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

One oriental medicine researcher in Korea was inspired by Gen.1:3, “And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.” He researched about light for 29 years, and found that our body is balanced by rainbow colors. His theory describes that when our body has a color unbalance, we become tired or sick. For example, if we feel tired, it means that the black color in our body is unbalanced, for black color gives energy. That is one of the reasons for closing our eyes while we are sleeping. He discovered that if we color the backbone line of our body with black color, our body would recover from tiredness right away. He has practiced this color therapy and has healed many patients instantly.

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