My Simple Reproducible Way of Doing Bible Study

Phil May 10, 2013 No Comments

I feel like a lot of people make Bible study very difficult and the task of a Bible study leader can be daunting. If you’re looking for a simple, reproducible format of engaging in Bible study, here’s a method I’ve used for a variety of people, for a variety of contexts, and for almost every single Bible passage.

I ask 4 simple questions for every single passage:

  1. Discuss the passage / What does the passage mean?
  2. What does this passage teach us about God?
  3. What does this passage teach us about ourselves?
  4. In light of that, what is God telling us to do about it?

Again you can use this for any passage in the Bible. I mean any.

Here’s why I like it:

It’s obedience centered, where Bible study is not just for knowledge’s sake, but we are expected to have a response from it. If you are planning to use this weekly, all you have to do is add a new first question: “What did God tell you to do last week and how did that go?”

Also, it’s very simple and anyone can do it. The secret is to the success of this method is believing and trusting that the Spirit of God will speak to people. The Bible study leader should have no pressure of producing original content or doing background studies, etc (although they are valuable). But the intention of this is to be simple and reproducible.

I hope this helps someone lead simple but powerful Bible studies with someone.

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Genesis is Awesome

Phil May 7, 2013 No Comments

Yes I haven’t written in a while. I’ve been very  busy and have felt more led to spend time with God and spend time being faithful in other areas of my life.

I will say that I’ve been studying and meditating on Genesis for quite a while and it’s been quite a blessing.

I’ve read Genesis a few times already, but every time I come back, God grants new revelation about the book and its themes, messages, and even challenging texts give me so much life.

Here’s a summary of things I’ve been learning so far in my time in Genesis:

  • God had incredible favor on Abraham and his descendants. This favor defined them as a nation and other nations recognized the God of Israel because they walked in such great favor. 
  • This favor is undeserved and cannot be demanded. If you read Genesis, it is far from stories of role models to be like. Abraham lies twice to Egyptian and Canaanite King as does his son Jacob. Jacob is a deceiver and a liar. Their wives often show lack of faith and act out of faithlessness. And their sons are violent and rash. These people show how imperfect they are in the narrative of Genesis. Yet one thing remains–God’s incredible favor is still on them. None of them deserved it, and none of them had a right to demand more of it. But it shows the prodigal nature of God, radically spending his favor upon undeserved people like our beloved patriarchs, a gesture we recognize as believers who have received the grace of his death on the cross. 
  • The book of Genesis is a stein of both evil and good. Almost in all the episodes, there is never clearly a good thing that happens and there is never a clearly an evil thing that happens. There is always a mixture of both. What a perfect display of our human experience! That line from Les Miserable keeps ringing in my ears: “I am reaching, but I fall…” Even in my own life, in our churches, in our faith communities, we try to do good, but evil is right there with us. Genesis shows the messiness of what it means to be human.
  • …Yet the good news is that the thread of God is woven throughout the pages. He is truly the redeemer of Israel and of his people, in the sense that he takes what is broken and messed up about us and he somehow turns it into palpable good. This is the God we worship and praise. This is the God we have given our messy lives over to. The bloody hands of human brokenness are all over Genesis, but his gracious handiwork is right there behind us, cleaning up and redirecting our mishaps–what a gracious God we serve!

I hope to write more soon.

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Weak and Fragile – A Prayer

Phil April 13, 2013 No Comments

Weak and Fragile.

I know God that your people are weak and fragile, and our fragile lives are in the palm of your hands.

Our lives are daily a mess, our affections for you, and our love towards others are all one big precarious mess.

God, why do you expect so much from fragile and broken people?

Why do you call broken people into perfection and punish us when we don’t meet your standards?

Yet I know that you have been patient with us. And you have walked in our shoes. We are not alone in bearing the burden of living by faith. For you are with us every step of the way.

I know that your Spirit is the answer to our fragility. 

Our frail and weak being is overshadowed by the power that lives within us, and the beaming hope of what we will become in you.

Meet us in our weakness, and supply us with your grace, I pray.

 

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Being Blameless as Noah in Our Generation

Phil April 11, 2013 No Comments
Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God.

Genesis 6:9

I’m reading Genesis now, and I am really moved by the description of Noah.

He is called blameless.

To be blameless is to live a life of righteousness by God’s standards. It’s doesn’t meant perfection from birth, it meant that he lived a life which obeyed God’s laws and he obeyed it with all his heart.

But he wasn’t just blameless, he was blameless in his generation.

Every believer of God in every generation of faith faced the challenges of the corruption of the world around them. God’s people will always be surrounded by people who do not operate in God’s laws, do not care to operate in God’s ways, and will even entice God’s people to do otherwise.

The generation I am living in is in many ways very similar to Noah’s. Noah’s generation, like mine, is full of people who do not care to live by God’s ways. As we are reflecting on the waywardness of our own generation in regards to its understanding of what is sinful, what is unnatural, what is not right, there is still an invitation by God, as was given in Noah’s generation, to be blameless in our generation.

What I am learning is that it takes great strength and perseverance to be considered blameless in our generation. With the advent of technology and the rate at which public opinions can be shared and changed, to be blameless from our youth all the way till old age will be quite a feat. Will we look at our lives with the judgment seat of God in mind, longing to be counted as those who strove towards blamelessness in his generation?

May God help us as he helped Noah.

 

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What do Stars and John the Baptist Have in Common?

Phil April 9, 2013 No Comments
“Let the stars in the heavens be for signs and for seasons…”

Genesis 1:14

Reading Genesis 1 on a starry night is quite an experience.

I was walking home from my car this night and I was looking upward at the beautiful array of stars. I came home and began meditating on Genesis 1.

This passage says that God put stars in the sky for signs.

And there I recognized, as strange it sounds, the similarity between stars and John the Baptist.

You see, John the Baptist, when Jesus came, told everyone that he was not the Messiah, but he was only there to prepare the way for Jesus. His job was basically to point to Jesus and get out of the way, summing up his own life in his humbling words to his own disciples: “He must increase, I must decrease.” (John 3:30)

I suppose what I was getting at was that what stars and John the Baptist have in common is that they both unashamedly point to the greatness of God.

As Genesis 1 says of stars, they serve as signposts by which the greatness of God is revealed. In their vast array of beauty and splendor, they simply point to the hands of the creator God. And John, as he steps into the shadows, Jesus is magnified as the light of the world.

God is magnified by their very existence. He is made great by what they do in life. People will look at them and see not them but the God behind them.

As I was reflecting about this, I desired that John the Baptist and stars would not be alone in the chorus. I desire that my life would be one great sign pointing to the greatness of the Maker of Heaven and Earth. That people, when they see my life, would see not me, but the greatness of the God who rescued and delivered me. As the stars are brilliantly aligned, may I step into the canvas of God’s story as merely a shadow, allowing Christ to be magnified in the light.

 

 

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Changing Our Very Desires

Phil April 7, 2013 No Comments

One of the themes of 2 Peter is that he is writing against people who are “following their own sinful desires” (3:3). The contrary is what Peter sees as ideal.

The Christian life is in many ways a way which we do not follow the desires within us that are sinful, but we are wanting to be transformed and to change our ways.

We find out what is sinful as we read and obey God’s word, but I am reminded that the miracle of following Jesus is not just that we are embracing new and living ways, but God transforms our desires in the process.

Christianity is not us gutting it out and trying to live an impossibly righteous life. It is true that God wants us to live the way which gives life. But in order for us to live that way, we need our hearts changed.

Paul and Peter seem to be on to something–that resisting our sinful desires is a process that God wants us to go through. And the miracle of the Christian life is that he will do it for us as he renews us in his image.

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The Mark of a False Teacher According to Peter

Phil April 4, 2013 No Comments
But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.

2 Peter 2:1

2 Peter is a strange book to many. Most notably is because the entire chapter 2 is a long tirade against a specific group of people.

The combative and vehement language of Peter puts many contemporary people off. Here’s some highlights of what Peter says:

“they are bold and willful ..”
“like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed…”
“they are blots and blemishes…”
“these are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm. For them the gloom of utter darkness as been reserved…”

Peter is talking about “false prophets and teachers”. And he can’t stand them.

As a shepherd of God’s people, he can’t stand poor and deceptive shepherds who lead the sheep astray from God, the great Shepherd.

For such a judgment, the question arises–what is the mark of one who is a false teacher and false prophet according to Peter? Are there false teachers and false prophets today?

For Peter, the mark of a false prophet and false teacher is one who doesn’t have a value for righteousness and who doesn’t practice righteousness.

He speaks of those who “indulge in the lust of defiling passion. (v10)” They have “eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin, and entice unsteady souls. (v14)” They are “again entangled in the defilements of the world. (v20)”

It’s not that they are not followers of God and don’t know better, but rather they are those who “feast with you.” They are teachers within the church of God who have a platform, a teaching ministry, a radio show, or a sermon series.

For Peter the mark of a false teacher is one who is in leadership position in the church yet does not hold to biblical standards of righteousness. It’s not that they’re imperfect (because God does use sinfully weak people for his purpose); it’s that they don’t care. They are conduits of compromise.

The basis and authority of their teaching is not done of having their life subjected to the lordship of Jesus, but rather they “follow their sensuality. (v2)” They themselves are the source of the their teaching. Talking great things of religion but downplaying the importance of righteous living, a life which God purchased for us to live.

This is the indicator of what a false prophet and teacher is. May it open our eyes to false teaching which is occurring in the church today.

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