I am the vine is the crucial question of the day: "If ? We are world champions or not, "
The current edition of the IDEA has a slogan on its front page the phrase:" wins in football only one - for Christ everybody wins "
Now go there now and not with the decisive game, but! maybe we can help the football to win significant spiritual insights.
has a very similar indeed Jesus made it even then. He was familiar everyday images of his contemporaries, and brought so spiritual truths to none to the point, as in his famous speech from the vine, John 15, verses 1 to 8 (NRSV): I am the true vine and my Father is the vine grower.
Every branch in me that bears no fruit he cuts off, and brings every branch that does bear fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit.
ye are clean through the word that I said unto you.
Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch can not bear fruit of itself, but only if they remain in the vine, neither can you not bear fruit, unless you abide in me.
I am the vine, ye are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.
who abide in me, like a branch is thrown away and withers. These branches are collected and thrown on the fire, and burned. If you remain in me and my words abide in you, then ask for whatever you want and it will get it.
My Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit and become my disciples.
has now not Jesus said: "I am the football," but, "I am the vine,"
Although he actually like a football - and to this day - treated - by the people and sometimes even by his successors is!
kicked, pushed, weggekickt and shot away!
So he gave himself for us and if we like to celebrate the Lord's Supper, we remember again: The given his life for our lives so that we survive this life!
But this I-am-word from the vine is not so much his dedication and his service to our doing, but his immense power and also the absolute necessity now to live out of it every day.
In contrast to his word the bread (John 6, verse 35), where he introduced himself as the basic foods - that means for life itself - as is this passage about the wine in the Bible is always a word of abundance and wealth .
As necessary and vital to us as Christians is to stay firmly as grapes on the vine, we are with wants to give that word at the same time challenged the immeasurable wealth that Jesus by the close relationship with him, to really use!
Perhaps Jesus would have said this: I am the captain and my father is the team manager. Each player in my team, who's no need for the Reserve Bank, and any player who does his job well, is trained to ensure that it is even better.
Or he might have said: I am the captain and my father is the referee. Each player in my team, the other fouls, gets the red card shown, and any player who does his thing well, is trained so that he gets better.
Only one, Jesus never said: I am the captain and you are the audience!
at the World Cup there are now a lot of viewers, but the belief in Jesus there is no audience. There is only active players. All passive - fruitless - spectators, Jesus says in his speech from the vine, I am the true vine and my Father is the vine grower. Every branch in me that bears no fruit he cuts off.
Beat Fuhrimann, sports minister and staff, "calls mission work, sports athletes in Switzerland," the, has the question: "What can get to the Church of the football enthusiasm?" Answer: Maybe even more than we would like. Football on Weltmeisterchaftsniveau requires enormous commitment of time and energy. This power density can be accomplished only by above-average commitment, hard work, dedication, passion, discipline and training industry. The athletes have one goal in mind: to do the best for their country, for the win!
Are not all these characteristics that stood the church well? Or is total dedication, hard work and enthusiasm for the Lord of the Church "completely different"?
IDEA No. 26/2002, page 15
The "audience" are the world, Christians are watching the game (see Matthew 5, verses 13 to 16: You are the salt of the earth. When the salt loses its taste, what can it be seasoned? It is good for nothing but to be thrown and trampled by men. You are the light of day. A city set on a hill can not be hidden. One does not light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but it is on the lamp, then it gives light to all in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.)! can bring
Just as no one of the team alone the trophy, but if they do it today, then they only do it together - so there are no vines, the isolation and very stands by itself, but there is only a vineyard vines in the composite! Vines that are so one part to each other and with each other and the other part of it and live by, that they are firmly connected to the vine.
I am the vine, ye are the branches.
with the image of the vine, Jesus used a typical picture is that the religious heritage of the people of Israel belonged. In many places of the Old Testament Israel is compared to a vine or vineyard. "Israel is the vineyard and the vine of God" was the message of the Old Testament prophets.
This idea was in the Jewish people so vivid that the vine eventually became the symbol of the people Israel. The coins of the Maccabees as an emblem carried a vine, as the DM had an eagle.
If Jesus according to John 15 indicates that he is the vine, and even says, "I am the true and real, the real and true vine," it must have belonging to Jewish ears as a provocation.
But even in the Old Testament is clear that Israel is the vine planted by God, but a fruitless and feral vine was. The symbol of the vine is used in the Old Testament never otherwise than in connection with degeneracy and barbarism.
It has not only the prophet Isaiah (see Isaiah 5, Verse 1 to 7) said, but Jesus himself took this hard court word, Matthew 21, verse 33 to verse 43 (New American - see also Mark 12, verses 1 to 12 and Luke 20, verses 9 to 19): There was a landowner, who laid a vineyard dressed, surrounded by a fence, dug a wine press and built a tower. Then he rented the vineyard to winery and traveled to another country. came
But when the harvest time he sent his servants to the tenants to send for his share of the fruits. But the tenants seized his servants, the one they beat, the other killed her, and stoned a third. Then he sent other servants more than the first time, and with them they made the same way. Finally, he sent his son to them, for he thought: Before my son, they will respect. when the tenants saw the son, they said, "This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, that we inherit his property. And they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. Now, if the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do with such wineries?
They said to him: he is that evil people put a bad end, and lease the vineyard to other tenants, which he delivered the fruit when it is time for it.
And Jesus said unto them, Have ye never read in the Scriptures: The stone which the builders rejected has become the corner stone, It has the Men's done, it is marvelous in our eyes?
Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God is taken away from you and people will be given to bring the expected fruit.
By Jesus now takes a picture of the vine for him, he is saying, "You mean the people of Israel that its because of your ethnicity are already grapes on the vine. But the opposite is the case. You are - as your prophets have said - a degenerate and feral Vineyard
So this passage about the vine on the one hand, a court word against a degenerate outwardly correct, but inwardly lifeless piety and second, the invitation is not from a nation or community affiliation to draw its life force, but solely from the vine, Jesus Christ is!
The word from the vine of self-revelation of Jesus and that he is here the absolute claim as well as our Jesus gives this word a performance assessment at hand is:
I am the true vine and my Father is the vine grower.
I am the vine, ye are the branches.
Jesus is the vine, the foundation, the foundation, the source, the team captain.
His father is the winemaker, the coach and the referee.
We as Christians are the vines and fruit destined to bring!
His father - and not the vines - will decide who bears fruit and what fruit. His father - not the vines - crosses from the fruitless and dead vines and clean the fruit-bearing shoots. The same Paul expresses in the 1st Corinthians 3, verses 11 to 16 (Bible) like this: The foundation that was laid with you, is Jesus Christ. No one can lay another foundation or even better. Now you can continue with the various materials. Some use gold, silver, precious stones, others take only wood, reed or straw. But speaking on the day on which Christ his sentence remains to be seen, so each has built. Then everything that is tested by fire on its value, and it is visible, whose work will withstand the fire.
anyone have further built on the foundation of strong and durable Christ, God will reward him. Burns but his work, he will lose everything. Although he himself will be saved from the fire, but only just
Not Think So remember that you are God's building his temple and that God's Spirit lives in you!
We as Christians are not intended to judge the lives of our fellow Christians or even to condemn, but to bear fruit.
Our Place as Christians in the instruction word picture of Jesus is simply and solely as a vine to stay connected to the vine, so as to bring forth fruit can!
But our task As Christians, it is not to cut pruning or other. We are not called to arbitrators, but as the vine, with each other to stay on the vine.
means stay:
first From vine to live!
No branch can take a holiday from the vine! It is also not enough if the vine in one day a week on the vine attached. Vines are life-long and round the clock on the vine in order to live as a vine! And just as one can only completely or not be a Christian!
second Trimmed to be!
third To bear fruit!
4th do nothing without Jesus!
5th Answers to prayer experience!
6th Glorify God!
7th Always to be disciples!
(taken from http://www.siegiochs.de/bin05.htm, Krefeld, 30 June 2002
Pastor Siegfried Ochs)
