Category Archives: Bible Study

Bible Study, Life, Personal, Psycolog

Curiosity and the cat

What is so wrong with wanting to know something?  What is it that makes us have curiosity? Babies touch and place things in their mouths, all to know more about their small environment.  Curiosity is simply learning for learning’s sake.  It is wanting to understand ourselves and others.  It is wondering why things work.  Curiosity is a tendency to explore and know new things. We see people indulge in a traveling to look at new places, new things and new developments taking place outside their environment.

But it can also get us into trouble.  Eve could not resist eating of the fruit of the forbidden tree in the Garden of Eden.  Lot’s wife could not stop herself from looking back on the destruction of the Sodom and Gamora. In Greek mythology, Pandora opened the box and let loose evil, sickness, and unhappiness. Early religious thinkers thought curiosity was sinful because a lust for knowledge was an attribute reserved for God.

Never-the-less it drives me.  I never seem to have enough knowledge.  I never seem to have enough information about a situation to decide on the alternatives.  And when I do make a choice of the viable options, I am not satisfied and continue to research and consequently second guess myself.  Frustrating.

Further, all this knowledge can well become a detriment to reasonable discussion.  I have been accused of being a know-it-all.  Even though I am constantly bombarded with questions, primarily because I usually have an answer, sometimes I just guess to display my mastery of all that is important.

Two ideas here in defense of the natural desire or motive of curiosity: It can open ourselves to God and it is a perfect solution to judgment.

Yes, curiosity killed the cat, but it does open the greatest discovery of all.  The New American Standard Bible states in 2 Timothy 2:15, “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, handling accurately the word of truth.”  Study of the Word of God can very well lead to the approval of God.  Curiosity can well point to God.

It is not as if God is standing well off our path of life and we must let our curiosity motivate a search hither and yon to find him. God is already at our door gently, patiently waiting for your curiosity to open the door.

The next time you start judging someone or some act, turn on the curiosity.  Ask yourself why that person or that act happened.  Put yourself in their shoes.  Ask questions of the why of the action or expression.  The very act of curiosity can well cause us to reassess our own judgmental attitude.

What do you think?  Add a comment.

Bible Study, Life, Personal

The primacy of destination

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My wife and I are diametrically opposed in our concept of traveling.  I prefer to set of in a general direction of a destination and am quite happy to just see what is to been seen.  I like to read the signposts, billboards, and advertisements as I go and let them provide hints where the next turn will be.  I get excited in finding new roads and even trails that I haven’t been on before.  If I have to sleep in the back of the Jeep, that’s just fine. Sometimes I would like just to go, take the nearest road and just explore.  It is a discovery, a grand adventure.  Never-the-less, my sweet wife would rather know in advance what the road is going to be like.  She needs to know what hotel we are going to be in.  She has to know what are the places we are going to visit.  Every restaurant must be checked out prior to even leaving the front step or turning on the car.

Most readers may also be divided into two types.  Some skip the introduction and by looking at the table of contents, jump to what has the most interest.  I was taught in sixth grade in a class on speed reading, to go to the last chapter and read it first just to see where it goes.  Others will start from the first word and dissect the introduction to ending.  Making sure nothing is missed.
Likewise, we go to church and some will just listen to the sermon expecting to learn something.  Others take notes and analyze it with all due diligence.

Both of these methods or mindsets are  nothing more than a preference of style.  In some areas one style may well be better than the other.  The issue is when the holders of preference do not allow for the preference of the other.  I teach a class on the Book of Romans.   We have been working through, making sure we do not miss something that God would have for the class.  We have had sixteen sessions so far and we have just entered the fifth chapter. This preferential methodology of study may not be for everyone.  I realize that some would rather have the notes and let it go at that.

For me it is the difference between hearing and understanding, between reading and study, between milk and meat.  The church needs deep things.  Every Christian needs to dig deeply into the Word of God.  The Bible is more than a tool for defining how we should live.  I does have great maxims of living a godly life, but if we are looking and reading just to find these guidelines, ruled, laws, suggestions, and even forbiddings, then we are missing the mark.  The Bible is for finding God.  The Bible is for feeding the soul.  The Bible is a revelation of a loving God.  As A.W. Tozer once said, “Our spiritual need is not the rock-lined pit for which a traveler longs, but the sweet, cool water that flows up from it. It is not intellectual knowledge about God that quenches man’s ancient hear-thirst, but the very Person and Presence of God Himself.”

Doesn’t really matter your method of traveling, it is about the destination, the direction and the why of the trip.

Bible, Bible Study, Church History

Bible by Chapter and Verse

There are literally thousands of Bible study helps available.  There are commentaries written as academia and some for simple understandings.  There are handbooks, dictionaries, synoptic comparisons, expositions, translations, word studies in both Greek and Hebrew, parallel companions, daily Bible readings, prayer guides and on and on. I have to confess I have quite of few of these helps.  But every one of them depend on the work of another.  Never-the-less, without the work of a Bible scholar in England in the 13th century, it would have been much harder to study the Bible.

Stephen Langton was the medieval Archbishop of Canterbury.  He was the most prominent churchman in England. He was the one working with the Barons of England to force a faithless King John into signing the Magna Charta.  Quite a revolutionary for his time.  What this churchman is not well known for and the subject of this blog is something he added to the Bible that all the others that followed including me and you as we look through the Bible.  The next time someone asks you to lookup a verse in Isaiah they will give you a chapter and a verse number.  That convention was created by Stephane Langton.  He went through the entire Bible dividing it up in what, was to him, the most logical places to put chapters and delineate the verses.

Imagine how hard it would be to lookup John 3:16 if all you had was the text without any numbers to guide you along the way?  Each time the preacher says, “my text will be found in the fourteenth chapter and the third verse, you are depending upon the work of Stephen Langton.  Know full well his divisions were to the Latin Vulgate for the Holy Roman Church. But even after translation of scripture into all the languages of the world, Steven Langton stands in the background helping you find your favorite scripture.

Since the 13th century each expositor, scholar, printer, publisher, copier used this method.  Thank you Rev. Stephen Langton.

Bible, Bible Study, Worship

Glorious Unique

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There are two epistles in the Bible that are most misunderstood: Romans and Hebrews.  I am doing a methodical study of Romans but I took a detour and opened my Bible to Hebrews this morning.  Hebrews 3:1.  “Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, who we acknowledge as our apostle and high priest.”  (NIV).

Fix your thoughts, consider, gaze upon, study view upon view, intensely stare until it becomes the only thing you see.  To open your eyes wide and do not squint at the blazing true Son.  Do not fear the burning of your eyes.  Be blind to all else.  Jesus is the perfect last sight.  Do not be afraid of being lost in the vision.

As Isaiah stood in the temple he was struck by a vision of God.  All else became blurred and shadow.  So we are to stop what we are doing focus only on the apparition of Jesus. Stare, focus until nothing else is as important.  Remember he is not just an historical figure.  He is the infinite Jehovah.  He was not just one person’s concept that bloomed into a religion.  Jesus our teacher and our priest.

It is only in a focus on Jesus do we really see our own predicament. Our vision, our fixation on Jesus reveals our place.  It is not a “What would Jesus do?” moment.  It is not a walk as he walked time.  It is not a comparative religion time.  Doing it the Jesus way is not the goal of our vision our fixation.  Our reason for gawking is a step to the Spirit of Christ.  Works are easy.  Doing things like Jesus is not as easy but doable. The problem is that we can do it all and not catch the vision of Jesus.  “If any man has not the Spirit of Christ – he is none of His”.  The motive, the reason for the fixation is to find not what to do but what to be.

Oh that we were more like that perfect vision.  Oh that because of that enraptured gaze we become more like the perfect character of Jesus.  If we could only grasp the heavenly demeanor, the sweet anger against sin, the heart that grasped a child, the mind that conceived a path for the sinner to find something more than self.

Today we look through a glass that is sometimes smoked over.  But for a glimpse of the divine knowing full well there is a day coming, when the full vision will be ours to behold.  We will behold the perfect. We will see more than an image in our minds but the Glorious Unique. No longer will we need to be exhorted to fix our minds.  It will be our minds.

Bible Study, Preaching, Theology

Compare and contrast of Sin

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Good or Bad.  Right or Wrong.  Fun or Boring.  Easy or Difficult.  Beautiful or Ugly.  Every day, we’re surrounded by judgments, whether on the television or in our own minds.  Our culture is strongly attached to categorizing and comparing.

Yet we’re also told that it’s not politically or even spiritually correct to judge.  Accept difference, see similarity, no one is better or worse than anyone else.  Some kid’s baseball games no longer keep score for fear of being the “losers.”  I am not bald; I am just hair-challenged”.

In a Bible study the other day I was totally distracted by the concept of compare and contrast of two disciples of Jesus.  One is proclaimed as the founder of the church named Peter and the other Judas who is most remembered as the betrayer of Jesus.  One is held in high esteem and the other has become catch phrase for deceit and disloyalty.

So what was the difference?  What is the judgement Christianity has made through the eons?  I think we have to get down to motives or the mindsets of the two characters in question.

Peter betrayed Jesus purely out of fear.  Three times he denied Jesus.  We all know the story.  There is but one conclusion to Peter’s motives.  He was fearful of being put on trial himself just for being associated with Jesus.  Now fear as a motive can be a good thing.  It keeps us from driving into walls and drinking unknown liquids.  The problem is that is a very selfish motive.  Self-preservation is a natural desire.  The issue comes up that Peter knew it was going to happen.  Jesus had told him just the night before in response of Peter’s claim he would have Jesus’s back no matter what.

OK, how about Judas?  What was his motive?  What caused Judas to approach the religious leaders of Judah?  It could not be about the money.  I would not turn anyone in to the religious hierarch for a few pieces of silver.  He was the treasurer for the twelve.  He could have just taken the purse and run off at any time.  There must be more to the equation.

Judas was the only disciple from Judah.  All the others were from Galilee. The only one that had lived his life in a society that was saturated with religion and the devout.  His life was filled with temple and biblical festivals.  He was familiar with the roles and jobs of the priests.  The Temple was the center of his life.  He saw the Priestly system as a vital part of society.

I can really see Judas being the only one trying to bridge the gap.  When Jesus went to Jerusalem, he condemned the very ones Judas had held in the highest esteem.  Judas naturally tried to stand in the gap between the radical Galilee preacher and the establishment.  When Jesus started to talk about the great confrontation with religion it was just too much for Judas.

Judas thought if he could just bring the two parties together into on final confrontation both the Priestly class and Jesus would reconcile and he would be seen as the peacemaker.  But when it all went sour, when the priests started talking about death and crucifixion, when they brought in the Roman’s into the discussion, when they started to whip Jesus; Judas realized the reconciliation would never happen.  When the ones he had tried to bring together with his Rabbi betrayed, Judas could not take it.  His good motive was dashed by the results.  So Judas, now rejected by both his society and his teacher, could not combine his world of the past and the world of the present, he went out and killed himself.

Was Peter’s motive, what was in his heart, the silent just call of his heart to do better was just stuffed down and he betrayed Jesus.  Judas with a good motive and the best of intentions could not handle the impact of his actions.  Peter’s denial hurt no one, Judas betrayal set in motion the death of Jesus and his ultimate suicide.

Which of these two committed the greater sin?

Neither.  Sin is Sin.  The difference was that Peter found a place to be forgiven, Judas did not.  And so we make a judgement that Judas was bad and Peter was good.

Sin is sin, bad things happen to everyone.  Bad things like disappointment, betrayal, physical problems, rejection of love, broken relationships, all happen to everyone.  Bad things happen to good people.  Bad things happen to bad people.  Bad is not sin.  Bad can lead to sin.  And what can be concluded from this comparison of Judas and Peter is that sin can lead to bad.

What do you think?

Bible Study, Preaching

Are we missing something here?

Open Letter to all that Preach and teach

There is an ongoing epidemic in church pulpits across the nation.  This sickness is not being addressed by preachers and teachers who are simply not willing to address the need for a cure. The pulpits rarely preach and teach about the greatest soul killer.  Subjects are hedged and avoided.  Here is a list that just is not heard anymore:

  • “Stop sinning!” — Jesus, John 5:14
  • “Flee fornication” — the apostle Paul, 1 Corinthians 6:18, KJV
  • “God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral” — Hebrews 13:4
  • “If you owe taxes, pay taxes” — the apostle Paul, Romans 13:7
  • “And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature together with its passions and appetites.” — the apostle Paul, Galatians 5:24, Amplified
  • “I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart” — Jesus, Matthew 5:28
  • “…all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone” — the apostle John, Revelation 21:8
  • “Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error” — the apostle Paul, Romans 1:26b-27
  • Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery…” — the apostle Paul, Ephesians 5:18
  • “Do not let unwholesome [foul, profane, worthless, vulgar] words ever come out of your mouth…” — the apostle Paul, Ephesians 4:29, Amplified

I just don’t understand.  Why is it like it is? In Romans, Paul proclaims, “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel.” Is that due to the fear of man? Is it a desire to please the hearers? It is that cowardly preachers are afraid of offending people? It is a conscious attempt to speak only uplifting things?

I leave that to your judgment.

2 Timothy 4:2-3  Preach the word… [3] For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.

Bible Study, Theology

Quit trying to please everyone!

“It is dangerous to be concerned with what others think of you” (Proverbs 29:25 GN)

*When we worry about what other people think, we let them control us. We waste a lot of time and energy trying to figure out what other people want us to be. Then, we waste a lot of time and energy trying to become like that rather than just being what God made us to be. You’re manipulated and controlled by somebody else.

Worrying about what other people think is dangerous because we’re more likely to cave in to criticism. It means we don’t always do the right thing; instead, we do the thing that everybody wants us to do.

And we’re in danger of missing God’s best because we’re so worried about what other people want us to do that we can’t stop to think about what God wants us to do.

Fact #1: You cannot please everybody. Even God can’t please everybody. One person prays for it to rain; another prays for it to be sunny. In the Super Bowl, both teams are praying that they will win. Who is God going to answer? God can’t please everybody. Only a fool would try to do what even God can’t do. You can’t please everybody.

Fact #2: It’s not necessary to please everybody. There is a myth that says you must be loved and approved by everybody in order to be happy. That’s just not true. You don’t have to please everybody in order to be happy in life.

Fact #3: Rejection will not ruin your life. It hurts, sure. It’s not fun. It’s uncomfortable. But rejection will not ruin your life unless you let it.

Quit trying to please everybody! Remember that nobody can make you feel inferior unless you give them permission.

The Apostle Paul says, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31 TEV) This means we can think like this: ‘God likes me, and I like me; if you don’t like me, then you’ve got a problem. If God likes me, who cares that everybody doesn’t approve of everything I do.’

Remember, nothing you ever do will make God love you less. Nothing you ever do will make God love you more. He loves you completely right now.

Bible Study, Church

Teachable men willing to change

In Sunday School we had a challenging discussion on the calling of Peter.  We asked why was the call extended to Peter over some more learned and sophisticated individuals on the other side of the lake.  What was the criteria for calling Peter or for that matter any of the twelve? What is the criteria for a calling today?

By consensus it was written upon the white board, “Teachable men willing to change.” OK, I can go along with that but what about the one that got away?  What about Judas that allowed him to elude the net by the Greatest Fisher of Men?  Jesus during this three year teaching and preaching period cast a wide net, but not all were wrestled into the boat.

Only the twelve men in all history have had the intimate, personal relationship to Jesus the incarnate Son of God.  Judas along with the other eleven has ever been more exposed to God’s perfect truth.  No other has had the crash course in experiential love.  They all were exposed in an intimate first hand washing of God’s love, compassion, power, kindness, forgiveness and grace. No group of followers could come close to the very essence of God.  Yet through it all Judas escaped the net.  In the most indescribably precious, and blessed years the heart of Judas was not softened.

Judas defies comprehension.  Judas constantly and with persistence of mind rejected the very truth of God in the flesh.  And he hid it from everyone around him with skill.  The only one to see into the heart of this chosen fisher of men and see the wicked rebellion was Jesus.  And He called him a devil.

Judas did not escape from guilt. Just like the pain we feel as we accidentally burn ourselves. So guilt is an intrinsic and automatic warning of spiritual danger.  It was guilt that drove Judas to remorse which in turn led to his death.  Do not confuse guilt and remorse with the requisite answer to both. The answer to both is repentance.  Repentance is an act of the will. Judas was teachable but he was not willing to change.  And in the last moment of his life his willingness not to change condemned him.

 

Bible Study

The Dog that would not swim

Charles Swindoll, in his book “Three Steps Forward, Two Steps Back,” tells the story of a farmer who wanted to impress his hunting buddies. So, he bought the smartest, most expensive hunting dog he could find and he trained this dog to do things no other dog on earth could do—impossible things that would surely amaze anyone. Then he invited his buddies to go duck hunting with him. After a while a group of ducks flew over and the hunters were able to make a few hits. Several ducks fell in the water and the proud owner shouted to his magnificent dog, “Go get ‘em!” The dog leapt out of the boat, walked on the water, picked up a bird and returned to the boat. As soon as he dropped the duck in the boat he trotted off across the water again and grabbed another duck and brought it back to the boat.

The owner beamed with pride as his wonderful dog walked across the water and retrieved each of the birds one by one. Unable to resist the opportunity to brag a little he asked his buddies, “Do you notice anything unusual about my dog?”

One of them rubbed his chin and said, “Yes. Come to think of it, I do! That silly dog doesn’t know how to swim does he??”

When Peter in Mathew 14 stepped out of the boat in the middle of a storm to walk on the water to Jesus, many people have the same reaction. Instead of recognizing that he was the only disciple to have the faith to even step out of the boat, he is criticized for his lack of faith when he sank in the waves. But in reality, he was the only one with enough faith to go to Christ. The other disciples sat in the boat and they almost always get overlooked in this story.
But they were there, still in the boat.

Bible Study, Theology

Willing is the first step

Matthew 8:1-4
Being an outcast throughout his life a leper was willing to try most anything to be included.  I heard a song today about a woman who was struggling to be included.  She sung, “We are all the same inside but everyone wants to compare me by my outside.”  The leper was just like you and I on the inside but the only thing that was seen was his medical handicap.
So he came to Jesus and  made the statement: “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” He had acknowledged the very evident power of God.  He acknowledged the ability of Jesus to heal.  He didn’t ask to be healed he just stated facts.  His willingness was a statement, not a question or even a request.  He had fallen down at the feet of Jesus and in an attitude of worship he proclaimed that the power of God through his Only Begotten Son can heal. God in human form was able to make the outside just like the inside. To become like everyone else.
Jesus stretched out his hand and made the astonishing statement, “I am willing, and you are clean.”  the leper was as clean on the outside as he was on the inside.  The scabs fell off.  The red splotches that had itched and pained this man for years turned like a pale rose.
He was probably very excited and wanted to tell everyone around him the news. But Jesus told him to keep his tongue, and to perform some required tasks in the local synagogue.
Not words, not exciting verbosities exclaimed to everyone around him proclaiming the Chosen One of Israel.
Go and make sacrifices. Do what Moses would have him do.  Do the things that normal Israelites would do if healed.  Let the outside be the same as the inside.
His actions were his testimony.  And the result of being normal in the middle of everyone else that once saw him as different, was spectacular.  The non-verbal became the verbal.  Action became the testimony.  The testimony became a calling to those who are not the same on the inside and the outside.  His miracle in itself became a shout to the world of the healing power of God.
God is still making the unlovely, the strange, the unique, the ones that shrink from the norm, the ones that are different inside and the ones that different on the outside, in an instant to become whole.
He is willing as soon as you are willing.