Reading Response Questions for One.Life 8 & 9 - Essay Example

Reading Response Reading Response Chapter 8 Chapter 8 of the book discloses the view of McKnight Scot concerning the church. I have full agreement with the author’s view of the church since he urges people to get close to the heart of the message of Jesus through discovering the old rhythm of every day prayer at the heart of the early church. According to McKnight, the old church had a good way of praying and having fellowship with God. McKnight Scot says that through the early church, the old path of praying as Jesus did is understood, and through the path, people learn to worship and pray with the entire church, and not just by themselves as individuals (McKnight, 2010).

In my view, the church is the perfect place to worship and pray. In addition, the church makes Christians have the desire to know more about the old devotional traditions of the Christian faith, and to become fully engaged in their renaissance today. There are various strengths and weaknesses in the church. Some of the strengths include the church enabling people explore how Jesus Christ prayed, how various denominations pray (Orthodox Christians, Anglicans and Roman Catholics) and how the Psalms teach Christians to pray.

Other strengths of the church is empowering believers and making them understand that praying as a church is an important part of spiritual formation. The main weakness of the church is incorporating modernity into worship whereby God is no longer given the due respect as He was being given in the early church during the time of apostles of Christ. If I were in the capacity to change, I would ensure that every single believer follows the word of God to later, remaining holy since God is Holy.

Chapter 9Chapter 9 of the book covers the life that believers lead in their ministry of serving God. According to the chapter, believers need to live a committed and dedicated life; however, they later get it hard to maintain the committed life (McKnight, 2010). The main reason as to why believers fail to maintain the life is the mixing of money and possessions with the church. I agree with the chapter since it speaks of the practical life that believers face every day. The chapter strikes me when it introduces the issue of leading a committed life and mixing possession and money with the church; something that drifts believers (me, for that matter) away from Jesus.

There are various reasons that make people find the committed life difficult to follow. Such reasons include peer pressure whereby a believer with non-believer friends would be swayed away. In addition, some people have the internal fear when others see them with the bible, preaching the word of Christ, The Lord or wholly serving God in church. The other reason is the work or daily activities that people do whereby they can do a lot of work having little time for daily worship or fellowship with God.

I agree with McKnight Scot when he says that the most glaring contradiction between the life of Jesus and ours pertains to money and possessions. Money and possessions make everybody change; something that did not happen to Jesus. In addition, man is very greedy in the sense that he always want to amass possession without having the interest of other people at heart. On the other hand, Jesus was generous, caring and loving to everybody to the extent of sharing meals with people, and teaching about sharing.

The best way for Christians to deal responsibly with money and possession is committing them to God first through prayer, giving tithe, giving out to charity and helping the needy. Also, praying to God for the wise way to handle money and possession would help Christians become responsible. ReferenceMcKnight, S. (2010). One Life: Jesus Calls, We Follow. Michigan: Zondervan.