If Your Bible Study Seems Dry...

Life in the 21st century races by. The devices we count on to keep us connected succeed in separating us at times from what we need the most - the refreshing time spent with the Holy Spirit in silence. Over and over again we read about the ancients meditating on God's Word. Today we celebrate speed readers.

I like what Mark Batterson wrote this week:

Reading results in one-dimensional knowledge.
Meditating results in two-dimensional revelation.
Obedience results in three-dimensional faith.

In our haste, sometimes we leave out the vital time spent in walking around with the Spirit and digesting the truth of God's Word. I know in my case I have always felt more in command of the material on Sunday if I allowed the text time to "percolate" within my soul.

So if your Bible study seems dry, take time and let it "soak in the Spirit."

- David

The Bible,really

"You Christians look after a document containing enough dynamite to blow all civilization to pieces, turn the world upside down, and bring peace to a battle-torn planet. But you treat it as though it is nothing more than a piece of good literature."

-Gandhi

War Is Where You Find It

So we're at Target today and I wandered back to the electronics section like a moth wanders to a flame. Perched on an end cap there was a device I had heard of but never seen before - the Sony Digital Book Reader.

Like the Amazon Kindle, the Sony unit is designed to replace the printed book. There are a lot of things that I like about that idea, particularly when you combine it with the ability to keep texts like translations up to date. For example the New Living Translation, which is my favorite, is on its fourth round of changes. Yes there have only been two editions, but during the interim period, changes have been made. All those changes presumably make it better, but the "real book" buyer will not see them unless he purchases a later printing. Apparently this happens all the time, but publishers don't let anyone know.

If you're digital, you can just synch the book with the newer version and you're up to date. So it interests me, this new device, because I can see the uses in ministry. But there are other uses too. In fact the book the display device was showing when I walked up was "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins. That author along with other militant atheists like Sam Harris, are attacking Christianity and ridiculing Christians and their beliefs.So I changed the book it was displaying to another work of fiction. :)

If you are interested in reading a great exegesis and apologetic response to Dawkins and particularly Harris, then pick up this book from Ravi Zacharias. It is an excellent help in answering the attacks, as Zacharias leads his readers through the arguments , and then with the help of Dallas Willard, makes a case for God.

This Sunday's Text

“Do not judge others, and you will not be judged. 2 For you will be treated as you treat others.* The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged.*
3 “And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye* when you have a log in your own? 4 How can you think of saying to your friend,* ‘Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,’ when you can’t see past the log in your own eye? 5 Hypocrite! First get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye.
6 “Don’t waste what is holy on people who are unholy.* Don’t throw your pearls to pigs! They will trample the pearls, then turn and attack you.

New Living Translation. 2nd ed. Mt 7:1-6

"Don’t preach just to keep from being preached to. For the same sermon you preach will be applied to you, and the stuff you dish out to others will be dished up to you. Why examine the splinter in your brother’s eye, and take no notice of the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Bud, hold still while I pick that splinter out of your eye,’ when there is a plank in yours? Listen, you phony, first pull the plank from your eye and then you’ll be able to see better to get the splinter out of your brother’s eye.

"‘Don’t throw your valuables to the dogs,
And don’t spread your pearls before the hogs;
Or they will trample them under their feet
And even turn and bite you.’
- Clarence Jordan, Matthew, The Cotton Patch Gospels

1-5 "Don't pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults— unless, of course, you want the same treatment. That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging. It's easy to see a smudge on your neighbor's face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own. Do you have the nerve to say, 'Let me wash your face for you,' when your own face is distorted by contempt? It's this whole traveling road-show mentality all over again, playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your part. Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face, and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbor.

6"Don't be flip with the sacred. Banter and silliness give no honor to God. Don't reduce holy mysteries to slogans. In trying to be relevant, you're only being cute and inviting sacrilege. The Message - Eugene Peterson

I read passages like this and it causes me to love Jesus more. There's such a disconnect between many of those who are called Christians and Jesus.

Religiously Educated Consumers Part 2 - the Questions

So...

What's the best activity tied to church to help people grow to love Jesus and learn to live for Him?

What's the minimum requirements for a person to be involved with in their daily life to grow? (I'm thinking spiritual disciplines but feel free)

What's the best venue for transformational discipleship? (SS, small groups, 1 to 1, other?)


How do you discern whether people are growing?

Is there a point when a person shouldn't be in a SS or small group class? A BTDT point? And if so, what for them?

Inquiring minds who are a wee bit fed up with the status quo want to know. I'm developing some thoughts and ideas but really would appreciate some input.

Was Uriah Living His "Best Life Now"?

I cannot get the David and Bathsheba story out of my mind.

What David did was so wrong on so many levels it just slays me. And then I think about the man whose life was taken from - Uriah.

I don't think I'd be exaggerating if I said that David and Uriah knew each other on a "Band of Brothers" level. They had after all been at war together, scrambling over the rocks and hiding in the mountains as Saul pursued David and his band. The respect Uriah had for David, and for David's God was obvious - he was a convert to Judaism who had given up his home, his heritage, and his gods to follow the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

That along should have been enough to stop David from ever sleeping with Bathsheba.

But it wasn't.

And when called, Uriah came. But when David tried to get Uriah to compromise his integrity - he wouldn't. And that refusal ultimately cost him his life. Understand, Uriah had done absolutely nothing wrong. He was the epitome of a godly warrior. In the height of arrogance, David even trusted in Uriah's integrity by sending his death warrant in Uriah's own hands, knowing Uriah would not break the seal on the scroll.

And when the plan was told to Joab, he executed it well. Uriah was to be sent to the wall, and everyone else was to pull back, leaving Uriah to die alone.

But he didn't.

17 Then the men of the city came out and attacked Joab, and some of the men from David’s soldiers fell [in battle] ; Uriah the Hittite also died.
2 Sam 11:17 (HCSB)

Those men would not leave their trusted friend to die alone. What a testimony that Hebrew men would give their lives for a Hittite convert. Must have been an awesome man.

So tell me Joel Osteen, was Uriah enjoying his victorious life - his best life now?

I Don't Like That David

Yesterday the message was rooted in the text in 2 Samuel 11 where King David commits adultery with Bathsheba and just continues sinning. He descends into the gutter and digs a basement. His sin gets blacker and blacker, and blacker.

I do not like that David.

Did that come out like Dr Seuss?

“I do not like green eggs and ham I do not like them Sam I am.”
"I do not like them here or there! I would not like them anywhere! I do not like green eggs and ham! I do not like them, Sam-I-Am!"

I'll have to look at the tape, but that's what my lasting impression of this morning's message was. But I was genuinely stunned to see the man spiral out of control and drop out of relationship with God. All week long I kept reading the passage. Even went back and read every single Scripture dealing with David's life to see where it was he might have gone wrong.

It just bothered me. Still does.

I don't want to be that David.

It seemed to me that God had given great guidelines for the Kings of Israel to follow, that would have prevented David from falling - had he followed them. In Deuteronomy, it's clear - "don't take a bunch of wives because they will turn your heart away from God. Don't get too wrapped up in stuff, because that too will take your heart away from a focus on God."

So David gets to be king of a united Israel and immediately adds a bunch more wives and builds a Taj Mahal of a palace.

Guess he's not the only one who has done that, and why campaigns that tell us "Don't drink and drive", "Just say no", even "only you can prevent forest fires", won't work on someone who has decided to do whatever he wants to do.

I don't like people like that. Who know what's right and then do what's wrong.

Especially when they are me.

Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy on me a sinner, and strengthen me through your power that I might reflect your love in my words and in my deeds. Lord hide me so far beneath your greatness that I can see nothing but you and desire nothing but to stay fixed to you.

Poking Around In Dark Corners

Tonight I broke into the dark corner of the Scriptures that is the book of Numbers. I've been a follower of Jesus for 33 years now, and I have never heard or been taught anything about this book. Never studied it. Never read anyone else's work on it. So all of this is new information to me.

That kind of ticks me off.

Jason's point after my last post was that we have a tendency to stay very close to the water's edge when it comes to our study of the Bible. It's "Jesus saved my soul and I'm going to heaven when I die" all the time from day one to day 5,201.

And yet as I've progressed through Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and now Numbers, I can see just how much we have been missing - how much I have been missing.

Ray Steadman says of the book:

In Numbers we have dramatically set forth what is perhaps the hardest lesson a Christian has to learn – to trust God instead of his own reason.
This is where we struggle, isn’t it? We think that what we want to do and the way we want to do it is the right way. The hardest struggle we have, even as these Israelites had, is to learn to believe that God knows what he is talking about and that what he tells us is the truth, and is for our good, and to operate on that basis despite what friends and others around are telling us concerning the right way.

Given that, wouldn't it make sense to study this book?