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"Dads Teach the Bible" Blog
Posted on November 17, 2012
In November of 2011 I started a new Blog, "Dads Teach the Bible." You can find that here. Category: General
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Sovereignty and Leadership
Posted on July 27, 2011
This morning while working through Psalm 119 I was struck by the tension between our responsibility and our dependence on God to obey. In verses 4 and 5 David, in his prayer, affirms that we are to diligently keep God’s precepts and in the next breath begs God to allow him to do so.
While thinking and praying through this the Lord took me to 2 Timothy 2:24 – 25. It was a poignant reminder of that same tension as we give our lives to others. There Paul lists five characteristics of the bond servant: not quarrelsome, kind, able to teach, patient, and gentle. Note that the first two and last two are character issues. Only the middle characteristic, able to teach, is a skill. One could conclude from this that the character of the bond servant is rather important. It also begs the question how one develops those required elements of character. I have some thoughts but am very interested in yours on this…
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Teamwork
Posted on May 08, 2011
I am sitting in the Madrid airport as I write this waiting for my travel agent to tell me which hotel she set up my reservation. There was an email glitch and I did not get that information. So since she is away from her computer and will not be back at it for about 45 more minutes. I will redeem the time.
You may know that I am on my way back from Morocco, if you did not know that – I am. I was on a team of 5 presenters, a videographer, the daughter of one of the presenters who kept time for us, and two individuals from the Moroccan government. We did three conferences in the last 10 days. One in LaAyoune and two in Dakhla both cities are in Southern Morocco or Western Sahara as you can see on the map if you click the links.
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Seek First?
Posted on March 29, 2011
You probably have sung Matthew 6:33 around a campfire at some point. Nearly, all of us are familiar with the verse. Dr. Hendricks says that familiarity keeps us from seeing what is there.
The verse turned up in my quiet time in the past couple of weeks. Instead of rushing by – do you do that too? I get to some passages of scripture and they are so familiar I find myself skimming them or else reading them without really processing what I am reading – sometimes actually thinking about something else – this time instead of rushing by I slowed down, began to pray, and looked closely at the verse. Things that were not obvious and questions I had not considered before presented themselves.
Category: Spiritual LifeClick here to read more
The Ground of Hearing
Posted on March 11, 2011
Psalm 95:7 – 8, the middle part, says, “…today if you would hear His voice do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah…� You will remember that the Psalmist is referring to Exodus 17:3 -7 here. There the nation had just been through the Red Sea experience, had seen the provision of God through His gift of manna, and were on their way through the wilderness to ultimately receive the Law from God through Moses.
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Boundaries
Posted on March 07, 2011
Reading in Psalm 18 this morning, I did not get much past verse 1 – does that happen much with you? When you read do you allow the Lord – or do you find the Lord stopping you on a particular passage or thought? In the past I have resisted that or better blown right by the check in my heart. I am learning to stop and listen; to pay attention when my reading is arrested by His nudges…
Anyway – the context of this Psalm is around I Samuel 21. David has been anointed king, has killed Goliath, Saul has turned on him, and has determined to kill him.
Category: Spiritual LifeClick here to read more
Seeing and not Observing
Posted on January 10, 2011
I have been preparing to lead a workshop on Bible study at a conference center in Colorado for the past several weeks. Last weekend as I was finishing up the preparation, I took a break to review some verses I have been trying to memorize (I have found that that discipline has become harder for me). Isaiah 42:16 was one of the verses. I took some time to read around the passage, which is rich, and came upon verse 20. I was stunned.
The major focus of the workshop is to increase the observational skills of those who come. It is my conviction that most of us move too quickly through our time in the Word both devotionally and in study moving to application or interpretation before we have really grappled with what the text is saying. John Eldredge say that the spirit of the age is busyness. That is we are afflicted with a kind of cultural ADD. We do not sit still well. Quiet, solitude, and reflection means that we hit all of the red lights between appointments.
Category: Spiritual LifeClick here to read more
Observation 5
Posted on August 27, 2010
You may remember that I have said that observation is key to Bible study; really it is key to life. You may have read Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories of Sherlock Holmes. One of the remarkable things about Holmes is the ability he cultivated of observing all of the detail around him. He used those observations to unravel the problems he was presented. While Doyle characterized Holmes’ method as deduction, it was based on inductive reasoning. Holmes remarked to Watson, "You know my method. It is founded upon the observance of trifles." (Sherlock Holmes, in "The Boscombe Valley Mystery.") With Holmes, the accumulation of the “trifles,” led to the clear understanding of the presenting problem. That is what we are striving for in observation.
So how does one move from the collection of the replica uhren “trifles” to the unraveling of the problem, in our case the core content of a passage? The answer is twofold. First in understanding what the “trifles” are revealing about the problem, and second asking the right questions about what is being revealed.
Category: Bible StudyClick here to read more
Hard Stuff
Posted on August 26, 2010
What do you do with hard stuff in the Bible? In the series of Blog entries on demanding (here, here, and here) we looked at 1 Samuel 15 where in verse 3 Samuel instructs Saul on behalf of God to wipe out Amalek. By wipe out, leave nothing alive. Extermination was the goal and the command. Some people responded to that, especially the part where it was specified that the command included infants. There was response on the website and I got some email about the issue. What do you do with that? I posted this on or about the day that I first held my newborn granddaughter. She is totally helpless and innocent, yet those like her in Amalek were under a death sentence from God through Samuel.
I thought it might be a useful exercise to use this as rolex replica a way to examine how we can and should deal with difficult passages in the Bible. There are more than a few. The process we will follow will take some time and will require some deep thought and some work on those who wish to participate. It will take several of these posts spread over several weeks. If you stick with it I will equip you to handle just about any of the difficult issues you find in scripture.
Category: Bible StudyClick here to read more
Observation 4
Posted on August 25, 2010
We have been looking at increasing observation skills. We have looked at using the seven questions; looking for repeated words, concepts, and phrases; finally we looked at using structural markers as an aid to observation. How can these be used together to wring out observation of the text?
At Dallas Seminary, Dr. Howard Hendricks, Prof, taught and introductory class on Bible study for many years. I had heard messages on cassette tapes that were taken from this course early in the 70’s. I tracked down a Dallas grad and copied his notes from that class. I used those notes and messages as a foundation from which I built first my habits of study and what I equipped others in our ministry to do.
Category: Bible StudyClick here to read more
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