The Virtual Vicar

Entrepeneurs show great vision, faith in their conviction, persuasiveness and are prepared to sacrifice everything for their cause.  Jesus is an entrepeneur who was able to create an organisation to get his message out. He was so successful in his start-up that not only was it immediately explosive in growth but it is still in existence today.  In fact so successful has he been that Jesus can be regarded as the ultimate entrepeneur, as discussed in more detail in this podcast episode.

Jesus Christ started out his ministry by doing market research in the towns of Galillee.  He used them as a series of focus groups honing his message.  He then recruited a team of apprentices to be trained to do the work.  He sent out 72 of them following his directions once they had had an extended period observing him work. They reported back to him and he gave them feedback on their performance. He praised them for the good work they had done and encouraged them After this he cast his vision for the f…

“Forgiveness is the trait most strongly linked to happiness.”
(Elias, Marilyn: U.S.A. Today, December 10, 2002  “Psychologists Now Know What Makes You Happy”)

The psychologist's view of  happiness, reported above, ties in with the Biblical view, but goes against the grain of much in contemporary culture. If forgiveness is tied that strongly to happiness, perhaps some of the ideas we have grown up with need to be thrown away. We tend to associate happiness with education, success, good health, and so forth. Not that those things are unimportant, but forgiveness is the single most important trait that leads to happiness.

There's a story told in the Gospel of  Mark chapter 2 that tells of four men who bring their paralytic friend to Jesus on a mattress. But they can’t get their friend to Jesus. So what do they do? They go up to the roof of the little house and tear it apart.

I've never noticed before but this was probably Jesus' own house.  He had moved to Capernaum from …