The third in this series on reading the Bible well. This time John looks at how knowing that God's word is his changes how we approach it.
Giving someone a Bible when they don’t know Jesus (yet) is a great idea, but by itself it may not be as effective at saving souls as we’d think.
Regularly when I sit down with someone, they’ll use the phrase ‘called to ministry’. I don’t have a dislike of this phrase, it can be very useful—only when most people use it, it isn’t.
Amidst all the sound and fury about same-sex marriage, it’s often hard to find a straight-forward, clear, thoughtful Christian defence of what marriage is. Sandy Grant has had a crack, and a very good one, in this recent public lecture at St Michael’s Wollongong.
I am a reluctant convert to the Swedish Method for Bible study. I read the Briefing article all of those years ago and decided to try it out in a couple of Bible study groups. It didn’t work! It didn’t seem to make group members think deeply enough about the passage, and it seemed to promote surface-level easy answers.
It was our first cell group meeting. There was Victoria, a committed student leader in her second year of university; Paula, a new person in her first year of study; and me, the missionary who had arrived to accompany and train leaders. The other people who were invited didn’t come.
Bible reading with ready ears and an open heart is engaging and fruitful. There’s something fresh about letting God speak for himself, especially when you search the Bible yourself, making the effort to hear.
If we are people of God’s word, and if all Scripture is profitable for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that God’s people are equipped to do good work, then surely the leader is driven by biblical ideals and high expectations.
The traditional Christian view of the Bible is that it is God’s word. Some churches recognize this by finishing each Bible reading with “This is the word of the Lord”. What does it mean for how we read the Bible?
Discover the five chapters that John devotes to his eyewitness account of the night before Jesus died. (9 studies)