July 23rd, 2008 Jeff
Aliterate people lack the desire to read. They can read (and thus are not illiterate ), but they just don’t.
Not sure what the statistics are on reading habits after high school but I doubt they are very encouraging in our society. People do many things enthusiastically, but not many people are readers as they get older. The exact opposite happened to me. I read a handful of books to get through high school, and then Christ arrested my heart and I quickly developed a voracious appetite for reading. (Still slowly though.)
At least 4/5 homes in America have a Bible, yet a small fraction of people actually dust off one of their many copies and read it. Why? We prioritize what we value. True knowledge of God is not valued. We tend to enamored with the latest and greatest fad, looking for a quick fix, while God’s timeless truth would bring the satisfaction and depth our souls crave (and were created to enjoy). We must fight, swim upstream, and with Him develop a love of Christ and His Word.
Last night our class kicked off — Enjoying the Bible for All Its Worth . I was deeply encouraged by the appetite of the 50 or so adults who came. They ate it up; we covered everything I hoped, and had more interaction than expected. It was a thoroughly enjoyable time for me as their teacher.
In fact, joy was the first thing we discussed: Enjoyment is not optional . Enjoying God. Enjoying the Bible. These are commands sustained by God’s good pleasure in fulfilling them in us. All of the Scripture points us to see Jesus the Christ as the most compelling and worthy Person in all the Universe — to value Him through delight. And it makes sense, since He created us to do just that.
At the start of the second hour I opened the floor, asking "What challenges do we face in reading and understanding the Bible?" Some candid answers from the class:
- not knowing where to start
- no pictures! (actually, most words in the original languages are in fact word pictures!)
- how does it all fit together — why is it not organized chronologically (specifically the OT)?
- pronouncing names (genealogies) and dealing with strange geography
- I fall asleep face down in my Bible at night
- psyche up myself to commit to reading, only to fail in consistency
- it’s boring
I added a few of my own:
- we don’t understand it
- the Bible says things we don’t like
- it takes time + work — we’re lazy!
Then I kindly pronounced all of these bogus . That is, each can be overcome, and God wills that we work with Him in valuing Him and His Word above all else. Have you specifically asked Him to conquer these tiny obstacles in you?
Speaking of joy, their assignment for next Tuesday night is to read Philippians (a letter all about joy) and first seek to grasp the "big idea" of Paul’s inspired epistle. We talked about how this course will help us develop in us the science and art of understanding Scripture and bringing it into our daily lives. It is hard work. We must sit and think and pray. But doesn’t anything worth doing take hard work? We are not alone in the process. God’s Spirit meets with us, shining the light of truth and significance on the passage.
So, fear not, we can make some early mistakes in our hermeneutics, seeking to correct one another gently. We can learn by diligence and humility how to rightly find out what the texts says and means, and how it applies to us today. That way we will all enjoy the Bible together, for all its worth.
For God’s glory and our joy, we get to work at erasing biblical aliteracy one God-loving believer at a time. Fifty of us are catching on.
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July 22nd, 2008 Jeff
Starting tonight I have the privilege and joy of teaching our 3-week crash course in practical hermeneutics, starting tonight, at Foothills Community Church: Enjoying the Bible for All Its Worth
(6:30pm at our building ; let me know if you want to come join us!)
I designed the course to be helpful for any and all Bible readers (even for those who don’t yet read it!) It should be beneficial for those who have plunged the depths of its truth for years as well as those still looking for that dusty Book on their bookshelf. All will benefit, and as Kari and my pastor remind me, I will attempt to "put the cookies on the bottom shelf."
My hope is that the five dozen people attending think and feel with God. And that I talk less and less as the first, second and third weeks come. At the start I will be talking more, and then we will move to all of us doing Bible interpretation and application to our lives.
My prayer is that it will be God speaking, and not me.
Here’s the (albeit a bit aggressive) general table of contents we’ll be tracking with starting tonight. Not all will be covered (e.g., the appendices), and more to follow in the next couple of weeks.
- Enjoyment is Not Optional
- Enjoying God
- Enjoying the Bible
- How Much is the Bible Worth?
- What is the Bible About?
- The Story—Understanding the Story Line of the Bible
- OT: Promises Made
- NT: Promises Kept
- What Challenges do we face when Reading Our Bibles?
- Bible Reading as a Lifestyle
- I-O-U-S
- Hermeneutics 101
- The Importance Of Hermeneutics
- Context
- The Time Challenge of Interpreting the Bible
- Allowing the Author + Text to Speak
- Meaning Flows from the Top Down
- Levels for understanding
- 6 Steps for Understanding the Bible
- A Method Of Hermeneutics
- 1. Identify the genre of the biblical passage
- 2. Read the Bible book for the big picture
- 3. Determine the structure (or outline) of the Bible book
- 4. Make observations about the book or passage
- 5. Meditate on the book or passage and upon your observations, and interpret the meaning of the passage
- 6. Apply the passage to your own life (seeing how it relates to other people especially)
- Bible Genres
- Appendix (definitions, notes on a Bible reading plan, and some short articles for further reading)
Lots of illustrations/diagrams in the notebooks, and plenty of room to take notes. We’ll be getting into some texts ourselves to see how to both understand (think) and enjoy (feel) God’s thoughts after Him.
We’ll also be diving into a few texts, one of them being James 1:2-4 .
Open Bibles, open minds and hearts. God, help us to read Your Word well and see the worth, work and ways of Jesus through every page.
Posted in Blog, Ekklesia, Joy, Teaching | No Comments »
April 11th, 2008 Jeff
God glorifies Himself toward the creatures also in two ways: 1) By appearing to . . . their understanding. 2) In communicating Himself to their hearts, and in their rejoicing and delighting in and enjoying the manifestations which He makes of Himself . . . . God is glorified not only by His glory’s being seen, but by its being rejoiced in. When those that see it delight in it, God is more glorified than if they only see it. His glory is then received by the whole soul, both by the understanding and by the heart.
(Jonathan Edwards, The “Miscellanies,” ed. by Thomas Schafer, The Works of Jonathan Edwards , Vol. 13, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), p, 495, Miscellany #448; see also #87, pp. 251-252; #332, p. 410; #679 (not in the New Haven Volume). Emphasis added.)
Quoted by John Piper in "How My Pastoral Ministry Shapes My Pulpit Ministry," under the heading “16 Foundational Convictions that Shape How I Preach,” point 10: This form of speech—preaching—is designed by God to correspond to his aim in creation and redemption to be glorified by his creatures, namely, his aim to be known and enjoyed. (Feb. 26, 2008 at the National Resurgence Conference.) [See notes | audio | video ]
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March 24th, 2008 Jeff
“Sin is what we do when you are not fully satisfied in God.”
—John Piper, Future Grace, p. 9.
“If we are not fulfilled and secure in God, we will inevitably seek other sources of happiness and security.”
—Ken Sande, The Peacemaker: A Biblical Guide to Resolving Personal Conflict, p. 112.
Posted in Blog, Books, God-centered, Joy, Quotes, Reading, Sanctification, Theology, godly trajectory | No Comments »
March 19th, 2008 Jeff
“It is radically humbling to confess that the source of all our joy resides outside ourselves.”
—John Piper, Future Grace, p. 88.
Posted in Blog, GOD is the Gospel, God-centered, Joy, Theology | 1 Comment »
November 23rd, 2007 Jeff
“…but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” [John 4:14]
“We do have many professing Christians in our day who are not joyful, but they spend time trying to work it up. Now, brethren, I say that when we give God His place in the church, when we recognize Christ as Lord high and lifted up, when we give the Holy Spirit His place, there will be joy that doesn’t have to be worked up. It will be a joy that springs like a fountain. Jesus said that it should be a fountain, an artesian well, that springs up from within. That’s one characteristic of a Spirit-filled congregation. They will be a joyful people, and it will be easy to distinguish them from the children of the world.
I wonder what the Apostle Paul would say if he came down right now and looked us over in our congregations. What if he walked up and down the aisles of our churches, then went to a theater and looked them over, then on to a hockey game, on to the crowds at the shopping center and into the crowded streets? Then when he came back and looked us over again, I wonder if he would see very much difference?
[A.W. Tozer, When He is Come, 15]
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October 6th, 2007 Jeff
“The time is short; eternity is at the door; was there no other evil in these vain amusements than the loss of precious time, we have not leisure in our circumstances to regard them. And, blessed be God, we need them not. The gospel opens a source of purer, sweeter, and more substantial pleasures: we are invited to communion with God: we are called to share in the theme of angels, the songs of heaven; and the wonders of redeeming love are laid open to our view. The Lord himself is waiting to be gracious, waiting with promises and pardons in his hands. Well then may we bid adieu to the perishing pleasures of sin; well may we pity those who can find pleasures in those places and parties where he is shut out; where his name is only mentioned to be profaned; where his commandments are not only broken, but insulted; where sinners proclaim their shame, as in Sodom, and attempt not to hide it; where at best wickedness is wrapt up in a disguise of delicacy, to make it more insinuating; and nothing is more offensive that is not grossly and unpolitely indecent.”
- John Newton, to Miss Thorpe (HT)
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