What does First B Jackson teach about busyness?
Drawn from the messages where it was actually addressed: the words said from the front, the passages taught, and where to hear the whole thing.
At First B Jackson, the teaching on busyness starts not with a productivity tip but with a mirror. Both Pastor Ray and Pastor Toby have preached through Luke 10:38-42, the story of Mary and Martha, and both landed in the same uncomfortable place: the passage is not mainly about correcting someone else. When the congregation was asked the week before to name the biggest obstacle to the gospel, many of them wrote down hypocritical or distracted Christians. The story of Martha is easy to hand to someone else, and that is exactly what Martha herself did when she asked Jesus to correct her sister.
The Greek word behind Martha's distraction carries weight both teachers paused on. It can be read as outside pressures pulling her apart, or as something she was doing to herself. Both said they think both readings are true at once, and that the second one cuts deepest. The word Jesus uses when He tells her she is worried pictures a person being pulled in opposite directions, going to pieces over many things when only one thing is necessary. Pastor Toby connected this to his own life directly, describing years without a vacation and a father who told him he was close to being a human doing instead of a human being. He said he repented when he heard it.
The larger point both messages make is that Mary's posture was not laziness or indifference. Sitting at the feet of Jesus was the language of discipleship in the first century, the same expression Paul used to describe his training under Gamaliel. Martha's service was not wrong in itself. What Jesus said was that Mary had chosen the one portion that holds everything else together. The teaching at First B Jackson is that busyness crowds out attentiveness to God not because we are doing bad things, but often because we are consumed with doing good ones, and the remedy is not better scheduling but a deliberate return to sitting with Him.
Taught from Luke 10:38-42 · Acts 22:3 · Colossians 3:1-2 · John 11
The passage taught · Acts 22
1 “Brothers and fathers, listen to the defense which I now make to you.”
2 When they heard that he spoke to them in the Hebrew language, they were even more quiet. He said,
3 “I am indeed a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, instructed according to the strict tradition of the law of our fathers, being zealous for God, even as you all are today.
4 I persecuted this Way to the death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women.
World English Bible
The messages that teach on it
- January 29, 2023 One Thing Is Necessary Pastor Ray reflects on Luke 10:38-42, Mary and Martha, asking what truly distracts us from sitting at Jesus' feet and hearing what God is saying.
- January 29, 2023 One Thing Is Necessary A Wyoming pastor reflects on Mary and Martha in Luke 10, asking what it looks like to truly pay attention to Jesus rather than staying busy for Him.
Mentioned along the way
- October 5, 2022 Women's Bible Study - Oct 5th, 2022 Deborah teaches on prayer using the Lord's Prayer as a model, exploring how prayer changes reality, what hinders answered prayer, and why God bends down to listen.