Doing is the Second Half of Learning

Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.

-- Benjamin Franklin

Last week, I asked a pair of questions during the sermon. The first was, "What kind of verb is the word follow?" Immediately, the right answer came from several directions: "Action!" Then the second question, "How similar is that word to what we're doing right now?" Crickets, at least for a few seconds. Then the realization ... it's impossible to follow Christ by just sitting down.

There are times to sit and learn, but we will never be followers of Jesus if sitting down "learning" is the bulk of our Christian experience. Sitting to listen to a sermon, sitting to learn in a Bible study or Sunday school class, sitting in a circle in a small group. All of these are valuable and important. But they do not comprise the phrase following Christ.

To follow anyone, we must do what they do. That's the simplest definition of follow. The word in the original language of John 6:66-71 carries the idea to follow a teaching by obeying it. A follower of Jesus does the same kinds of things He does (within the sphere of human ability). It is a stretch to call oneself a follower of Jesus based just on regular attendance to sitting-and-learning events.

Let's look at this another way. Let's consider the word obey in terms of being a learner. But before we do, let's also look alternate ways to think about the word obey.

Obedience as "ought". Perhaps this is the most common view. We do because we're supposed to. It's what good followers do. We ought do some things, and we ought not to do other things, and getting those categories sorted out well means obedience.

Obedience as righteousness. Take that a step further, and you can look at obedience as a form of righteousness. By obeying, you're becoming more righteous - a better person, a purer person.

Both ideas have some merit. There is some sense of "ought" to obeying Christ - we certainly ought to. There is even a sense that we do become more righteous the more we walk in His ways (even though we cannot merit His favor or earn salvation in any way). However, I think there's a stronger motivation than these that God has for us for obedience.

Obedience as learning. Jesus taught His disciples, sometimes sitting down as a group, sometimes on a hillside or in a boat, and sometimes along the way. But teach He did. However, He also had His disciples do. They handled the fish and the loaves, they retrieved the donkey, they prepared the Last Supper, they went out by two's to tell others about the Kingdom. He did not expect them to obey just because they ought to or to make them more righteous. He did this to teach them! As they obeyed, they would learn. 

Why do we expect Him to teach any differently today? Have we outgrown the need to do in order to learn? Can we just study forgiveness and learn it, without actually ever forgiving anyone? Or, will we only learn forgiveness when we actually forgive someone?

That would mean that Jesus wants to me forgive not just because I ought or in order to be more righteous, but to really, truly, actually learn forgiveness. And I need to learn forgiveness because that's one of His key attributes. I cannot get to know the forgiving Christ well without learning forgiveness by forgiving people.

Not just forgiveness. Apply this same idea to anything He wants us to learn: love, joy, grace, generosity, compassion, humility, patience, endurance, surrender, and so on. We won't get to know well the Christ who loves unless we learn love by loving people. Go on down the list.

So, why do so many of our Christian teaching venues have chairs?

Consider the seated learning as the "first half of learning." Then consider the unseated, action verb learning as the "second half of learning." Whenever you learn something about walking in the way of Christ, don't consider that you've learned it until you're doing it. Take that lesson and find some way to do it right away - that day, that week, sometime before you try to learn the next thing. Don't declare you learned something awesome in a sermon until you're doing that awesome thing or actually living according to that awesome thing. Then you've learned it!

The last thing we want for our Bible studies is for us to learn something that we're going to disobey only to come back the next week and learn something else we're going to disobey.

You will get to know Christ better by this. It's a way of learning! Jesus even says so Himself in John 14:21. Rather than some mystical appearing of Jesus for those who obey, I rather suspect what He means is, "As you obey, what you are doing is getting to know Me in ways you can't learn by just sitting in a chair."

The one who has my commandments and keeps them—that one is the one who loves me. And the one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and will reveal myself to him. (John 14:21)

Three Step Bible Study

This is not the "one ring to rule them all." There are plenty of great ways to study the Bible (and even more really bad ways), so I'm not about to present the one best way that all must follow or be relegated to coach class in heaven. It is one good way. A lot of folks struggle to have a regular Bible study time because they don't have a particular approach they use, so I offer this way as one of many to help us get into a regular habit. When we see success happen, then we no longer have to find motivation - it's already there!

If you've studied Bible study methods, you'll recognize many elements below, perhaps even using different labels and terms.

This approach is simple enough - just three steps. But the order is important. Your rate of success will be orders of magnitude better if you exercise just enough discipline to work on these steps in order. (If a thought jumps at you that is out of order, quickly note it and then come back to the step you were on. You'll come back to that point soon enough and be able to develop it.)

I recommend having your Bible, a notebook, and a pen (or computer) so that you keep all of your notes together. And I do recommend writing (or typing) - there's something about the physical act that helps you ponder your thoughts more thoroughly.

The three steps are Understand, Interpret, and Cultivate. Pick a passage, large or small, read it at least three times, and then begin taking notes.

1. Understand. In this step, you are concerned only with what the text says, not what it means. You're not yet concerned about how it affects you or what to do about it. The only task here is to get a grasp of what the text claims. What do the key words mean? What happened? Who did what? Can I summarize what the passage says in one sentence? What are the main ideas or events? How did people respond? You can't ask all of these questions for every passage, but these are the types of questions to ask. You know you've done a pretty good job if you can succinctly state what the author intended to say (and the author intended to say one thing!).
2. Interpret. Now we talk about meaning (but not how it applies to our lives, yet). For example, what the author said could be "God's right arm" - that's the Understand section. That's what the author said. Now for Interpret, what does this mean? Does it refer to a literal arm? In this case, no - it refers to God's power (which brings victory). Is the author being literal or figurative? Is he being sarcastic? What is the main point? Is he telling us what did happen or is he giving us an example to follow? The parable was about three guys who got some money from their boss and did different stuff with it (Understand), but what is the parable teaching us (Interpret)? You know you've interpreted well when you can succinctly state what the author meant by what he said (and the author meant one thing!).
3. Cultivate. Finally, we talk about how this text affects our lives. How is this text intended to cultivate us into a stronger followers of Jesus? We often talk about application - how the text applies to our lives, but we want to go further than application. How do I learn to obey what this passage says? What does God want me to do or say or think? How does my following Jesus deepen in response to this passage? How can I cultivate this truth into someone else's life? How is this passage like nourishment for growth? You know you've cultivated well when your life actually changes to be more like what the text teaches. I would venture that we don't truly understand a passage until our lives reflect it.

Note that the author's context must be considered to Interpret, and our context must be considered to Cultivate. We should not, for example, take an Old Testament passage about the covenant with Israel and just assume we're supposed to do the exact same thing - like sacrifice a goat!

When I study a passage for my own devotional life, I use this pattern in my notes, whether the passage is large or small. I often try to study a paragraph or a distinct unit, such as a full parable, instead of just a couple of verses or an really long section. It's perfectly OK just to list questions without answers, by the way!

My notes often look something like this brief example:

Passage: John 3:16 (NET)

For this is the way God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

Understand

• Who is speaking? Is this a continuation of Jesus' dialog from vv. 10-15, or is this now John giving us his understanding as the author?
• "this is the way" - Some translations have "For God so loved...", but that sounds like quantity, not manner. This phrase is referring to the manner in which God loves us.
• "world" - Who is the "world"? Every person? The rebellious "world" that we're not supposed to love (1 John 2:15)?
• "perish" - What kind of perishing is included here?
• ... and so on ...

Interpret

• Note that God expresses His great love by an act of giving, and that this giving is complete. He did not withhold anything in this gift - He gave us Christ completely, as evidenced by His death on the cross.
• He gave us His Son for a specific outcome - belief that results in eternal life.
• Is this believing a pure act of will or is it the inevitable action for the elect (how Calvinistic is this passage)?
• When does this eternal life begin?
• ... and so on ...

Cultivate

• How can I love as God loves? How can I love by giving Christ to others as the Father gave us Christ?
• How can I demonstrate that love this week?!? (It's best to actually list something specific here!)
• Who do I know that will perish because they do not believe? Who of these people will I see today? This week?
• ... and so on ...

Devotional books and study guides are often very helpful, but I much prefer that we interact with the text directly on a regular basis. (It can be helpful to refer to these other materials after interacting with the text on your own.) A simple tool such as this one can be used by beginners as well as lifelong students.

How to Teach the Book of Isaiah in Less Than a Week

Every time I go to Kenya, I spend most of my time teaching at the Ahero Evangelical School of Theology (AEST), which trains future pastors, elders, and teachers, both male and female. I usually have just under two weeks to teach. Sometimes I teach a two-week class, and other times a one-week class and either a smaller topic for the following week (or we're in a different location that second week). This year, I'll have 8 days in the classroom at AEST.

What topics I teach are usually up to the faculty of AEST - they have a curriculum and certain topics the students need in order to graduate, so they tell me what they want me to teach to fit into their plan. That usually means that I have to pull together a semester's worth of material from my notes and studies to teach in a week's time. A couple of years, I've had the luxury of bringing something I had already prepared that fit into their course requirements. This year, no such luxury.

AEST wants me to teach the book of Isaiah the first week and apologetics for the partial second week. Have you read Isaiah lately? It's big. It's complex. It's repetitive, and yet it moves in a particular direction. And did I mention that it's big?

How can I teach that big (it's big), complex book in a week? Well, I can do that - but how can I teach it in a way that will be of true benefit in a week's time? It's flat out too much information, too much theology, and too much prophecy to digest within a week.

I could do just a high level survey, but that's not effective for their concrete learning style. I could do representative sections, but then you miss the narrative, and they are also storytelling learners.

Rather than telling them what Isaiah has, my plan is to coach them into discovering what Isaiah has. In addition to being concrete, storytelling learners, my students at AEST are also group learners. So, I will  create three teams. Each day, the members of one team will all be in one minor section, and the other teams will cover the other minor sections. All three will then be covering a major section of the book in a day's time, and by the end of the week, the whole book will be covered. They will do individual work, and then work as teams, to discover what each passage of each minor section has to say. Then in class, the teams will teach the rest of the class what Isaiah has to say. My job will to be to make sure they stay accurate - very little lecture. By the end of the week, they will have a full overview of Isaiah, and will have taught one another what it says.

The great benefits are: 1) Discovery is far more effective than lecture, 2) they will finish the class with a method of how to study Isaiah after I'm gone, and 3) they will have worked together to help one another understand this great (big!) book.

I pray this will work! (I've never tried this kind of teaching before.)

Discovery is something you're going to hear more about at Grace Fellowship as we continue to learn how complete followers are cultivated.

How Should I Read the Bible?

The Jewish and Christian Scriptures are thoroughly unique pieces of literature. Although we can find features found in other works, such as Ancient Near East treaties, Greek epistles, and Semitic poetry, the totality of the work is really quite unlike anything else that exists. Sixty-six books written by some 40 authors from different languages, geographies, and cultural settings, "collaborating" over 1500 years on a masterpiece that has a unified message, surviving all attempts to eradicate it.

So, how should I approach such literature? What an undertaking!

First, we always want to be aware of our genre, or literary style of writing. The Bible is not just one style of writing - there's narrative, poetry, prophecy, apocalyptic, legal, didactic (teaching), and sometimes a mix. It's important to know what basic style of literature you're reading in order to understand fully what you're reading.

For example, David says in Psalm 76:2 that God's "dwelling place" is in Zion. If this were narrative, then we would take that as a literal statement - God has an address, and it includes "Zion" and a zip code. But the psalms are poetry, which employs lots of figurative language. God's "dwelling" is not an address. Rather, this means that His attention, His people, His concern, His Word, and His activity are centered in Zion. Yes, His Shekinah glory dwells in the Holy of Holies, but David is not waxing poetic merely about God's address. He's poetically conveying something far more important.

Second, we want to be aware of our intentions. We need to know about the text we are reading, but we also need to know about the one doing the reading (namely, us). Am I wanting to learn history? Then that determines not only what parts to read, but what specifics to pay attention to. Do I want to learn facts or do I want to study the Christian worldview (a way of looking at all of life)? Do I want to be taught what is good or how to do something? Perhaps I turn to Scripture to find out the nature of something (such as sin or the human condition). Often, we turn to Scripture for something affective rather than academic - we want a reason to hope, we're looking for comfort in troubled times, we need assurance of God's reliable character, and so on. What we're looking for determines how and what to read.

But there's one more crucial reason to read Scripture, but it's harder to describe. Let me start with a couple of illustrations.

One of my brothers is an attorney, and he often would say something like, "You don't go to Law School to learn the law. You go to Law School to learn to think like an attorney." His point is that Law School is not about trying to digest all the facts about every law (although, there is certainly plenty of that going on!). Rather, the process of Law School over time trains the student to mentally process situations and facts in a very attorney-like way. An attorney reaches his goals through a different mental process than would an engineer or a songwriter.

When I was in undergraduate school, I took most of my electives out of the math department - I couldn't get enough. I knew a lot of students who spent a lot of time memorizing formulas and step-by-step methods. I was no good at memorizing, but I loved the theory, so I stayed with that. Instead of memorizing, I learned to think more like a mathematician. So, on an exam, in order to arrive at the answers, I was doing less recall and more processing the problem from a theoretical standpoint. I didn't memorize the proofs - I would re-prove them from theory during the exam, then use that to answer the question. I wasn't always among the first to finish, but I usually did pretty well.

That's one of the most important reasons to read Scripture, to read it daily, to read it both with a quick broad sweep and a slow, investigative dig: to learn to think as God thinks. More than a list of facts and commands to keep track of, if we can eventually just change the way we think, to think more the way God does, then we'll understand Him and His creation all the more. We won't have to remember what things to do and how to do them; rather, we'll just do right things because we've begun to think like God more.

We'll never be able to completely think as God does, of course. He's got a bit more on His mind than we can handle! But, we can certainly begin to think more and more as He does. The Bible, then, becomes a cognitive training tool, like Law School or the math department, changing how we think our way through life.

An Interpretive Question

We read Scripture ultimately to be changed. We resist change, we put up defenses against change, we make up excuses of why we don't need to change (or can't change), and we sometimes turn to Scripture to merely reinforce what we already believe (whether or not it is true). But truth be told, we want things to be different as the result of reading Scripture, and underneath our defenses is a realization that the real change needed is in us, not just our circumstances. We approach Scripture one way, and want to step from Scripture being a different way ... somehow.

We want Scripture to intersect with real life and make real life better (because there's no way real life can make Scripture any better).

Lynne and I had one Sunday school teacher in Texas who asked the same question at the end of every lesson: "So what?" We just finished taking an excellent look at what the Scripture says, how it spoke into the original context, and what various words and ideas mean. But so what? What does it matter? How do these truths make a bit of difference in my life? Now, that is a bit of an egocentric way to look at Scripture, but it is also one of the reasons God wants us to read Scripture.

Pastors have long been taught to have an "application" with every sermon. Sermons that just relay the facts and historical data may be interesting to a few Bible nerds, but there's no challenge for the listener to aspire to live more biblically, no call to change. So, have an application! Teach the Word, but then show what to do with it. Quite frankly, I find this the hardest part of developing a sermon, and one I rarely do to my own satisfaction.

My preaching professor didn't like the word "application," but rather used the phrase "contemporary relevance." Not that you would want to use that phrase too often in a sermon, but to think in terms of the "CR" for sermon preparation. It differs from "application" in the sense that the CR is not just a "therefore, do this" idea, but rather the more involved process of understanding the congregation and seeing how the eternal Word is particularly relevant to their "here and now."

I have stumbled across another question to ask yourself when reading Scripture. I meet weekly with Brennan Connolly and David Gramling to read and discuss Scripture and challenging books. At least once in every meeting, we ask the same question of what we just read, "Based on this passage, what does it mean to be a fully committed follower of Jesus?" I have discovered this to be a fantastic challenge question for discussion. I have also discovered it to be fantastic to ask myself during my own daily Quiet Time. The question somehow pushes me to dig deeper into the passage in ways I don't do otherwise. And the impact of Scripture has a new angle on me (rather than the other way around - me having a new angle on Scripture).

All of these are good questions and phrases to help us dig into Scripture. Don't just read Scripture - ask challenging questions of Scripture.

I retreated like a man

Last Thursday night and Friday, I was finally able to peel away for a personal retreat - 24 hours alone with the Lord and His Word at a retreat center nearby. These retreats are for turning off the world and focusing on prayer, reading, and even just resting. During these retreats, I also love to take long walks or go for bike rides, although I was a bit discouraged from that by the single-digit temperatures! I used to be in the habit of taking about one a month (plus a three-day retreat once a year), but fell out of the habit when I went back to school. I have yet to get back in the habit.

These retreats are almost always beneficial (I've had a few clunkers!) - there is a depth of relationship with the Lord that's just harder for me to experience in the midst of the hustle and bustle of life. I believe that's the model Jesus set for us when He would get away from the fray to be alone with His Father.

This retreat was by no means a clunker. I certainly could have been more focused during my time, but there were some rich times in the Word and in prayer. Some issues in life took on some good clarity, and there was just a sense of exhaling, instead of what feels like holding my breath for the last several weeks. I spent Thursday night just reading through Ezra, summarizing it, looking at the structure (which always helps me understand a book or a passage), and focusing in on his great prayer in chapter 9. You heard a little about my benefit from Ezra during the worship service on Sunday.

On Friday, it was also my goal to go through the stewardship worksheets that we've been handing out each week during our sermon series. I thought that maybe I could get some benefit from it, even though I'm the one who put the worksheets together. I was amazed at how much benefit I actually did get! I came to a lot of life decisions as a result - shifting priorities, clarifying my focus, adjusting our financial management, all kinds of good things.

One of the most important benefits is something I was already planning on talking about this Sunday, but the concept took on a far more personal, impacting, and even convicting nature during the retreat. The role of pastor's wife is difficult because it's hard to be of help when the husband simply cannot share much of his week because of professional confidentiality. Lynne and I have persistently looked for better ways for her gifts to make me more fruitful despite this limitation. The retreat yielded fruit here - one clear way that we can improve is to complete these worksheets individually, but then also  walk through our individual worksheets together and discuss them. Even more beneficial, however, will be to generate another set of worksheets for us as one flesh. Not just two full sets of worksheets, but one additional set that is for us together as a family, pulling ideas from the other two.

This is great for any couple, but I see particular benefit for a pastor and his wife. It will be a way for both of us to help the other, a way for us to draw closer together, a way to pull our "one flesh" lives into clearer focus, and to set our sights on stewarding the various arenas our lives for Christ more effectively than ever before.

I highly encourage you to do three things:

1. Complete the stewardship worksheets (or some other similar exercise to assess your life's priorities). We have copies available of all the worksheets we've introduced so far.
2. Per the message coming up on Sunday, go through the worksheets together as a couple, as a family, or with a trusted friend. Also consider coming up with a set for the family as a whole.
3. Make time at least once a year to spend alone with the Lord - away from all the noise, with nothing but a Bible and a way to journal, for no less than 24 hours. I usually have to get through at least two hours of "boredom" before I'm really ready to focus - that's just my body and mind going through "noise detox," but then finally I'm ready to meet with the Lord. Some of my richest times with the Lord have come during personal retreats (most of which started off "boring"!).

If you have any more questions about any of these three things, I'm here to help - just ask.

The Not-so-planny Plan

Biblical literacy is a high value at Grace Fellowship. We want all attenders to be able to dive into the Word on their own and be able to draw richness from the text, without needing anyone to tell them what they should conclude from the text. It's the proverbial teaching someone how to fish - we believe that those who know how to fish will eat better than those who don't.

In 2011, we had a church-wide reading plan to read the entire Bible together on the same schedule. Last year, we had a plan to read through the entire New Testament together, but in a order that roughly followed the timeline of the Book of Acts. In both cases, I have heard people mention how much they got out of the plans - having a goal to read, reading large sections at a time showing the big picture, and being encouraging by reading along with others.

For 2013, we're trying a different kind of plan. Rather than having a goal of reading a certain amount in a year's time, we are selecting readings that correspond to the weekly message. The week following a sermon, there is a set of passages to read that relate to that sermon.

Each week, we will publish in Grace Notes and in the weekly bulletin, plus on our Facebook page, the passages to read. For a given week, there will be five passages to read, one per day. Some will be long, intended to be read at a high level, and some will be short, intended to be read with more attention to detail. We recommend that you journal what you are learning from Scripture, what prayers are evoked by the passage, and even steps you intend to take to incorporate the Word into you life. The sixth day is for reviewing the previous five passages and synthesizing them together. There is nothing scheduled for the seventh day, in order to give you a day to catch up or to allow for one day a week that you just can't get to it.

The benefits of this approach are that it helps simplify our lives by not having so many different things to study in a given week, by repeating a lesson to help reinforce it, by actively digging into a passage that you heard someone else talk about, and by going deeper into the Word.

The downside of this approach is that I can't write out an entire year's worth of passages in advance. I just don't know all that I'll be teaching that far away, or where I want to put the emphasis in a given week. So, this means that we can't hand out schedules at the first of the year like we have the previous two years.

Next year, we'll probably do something else. But for this year, read with us and dig deeper into God's Word. Let me know how we can make it easier for you, and I'd love to hear your feedback on what you do and don't like about this approach. Pay attention to Grace Notes, the bulletin, or Facebook to keep up with us. I also plan to start posting on the church Facebook page some reflection related to the passage of the day.

"Can I join your secret club?"

"Can I join your secret men's club?"

I have heard this question a few times in the last month or so. On the one hand, I love the question, because it means that men are interested in a quiet experiment that we've been conducting. On the other had, I reel back at the question, because our quiet experiment was never intended to be a "secret club" that makes men feel left out.

In the words of Inigo Montoya, "Let me 'splain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up."

The speaker at the 2011 men's retreat, Ron Bennett, has co-authored a series of studies geared for men called HighQuest (http://www.highquest.info/overview.html). The idea intrigued us, primarily because the format of this series is unlike any men's study we've seen before.

The series is designed for men to disciple one another. The studies are not fill-in-the-blank workbooks, but guides that slowly introduce spiritual disciplines, and keep men in the same passage, but gives them enough freedom to focus on different parts of that passage. So, when the men come together, they have individually wrestled with God's Word without anyone guiding their answers to a foregone conclusion. But, since the men are all in the same passage, they can compare thoughts and learn from one another.

We decided that instead of having a big, church-wide big splash launch of Yet Another Program that Will Revolutionize Your Church But Will Last Only 6 Weeks Before the Enthusiasm Wanes, we decided to start small and without fanfare.

Four of us asked up to three other men to consider forming a HighQuest group. Then we just started meeting, each group at their own pace. In my group, we are four men who didn't really know each other that well coming into it. We have different church backgrounds, different experiences and habits, but the same desire to grow as men in Christ. I get every impression that all the groups are similar.

The feedback has been very positive across the board! I could list dozens of positive comments, but I think the most powerful statement is that after finishing book 1, we had a 100% return rate from all the groups for men wanting to do book 2. (There are 9 books total, about 10 to 12 weeks each.)

Starting in January, we are going to explain more about HighQuest and then invite more men to start more groups. Not a big program, not a big splash, and not the only good way to do men's groups. Just a lot of good experiences with a "quiet experiment."

My thanks to Chad Krizan for being our coordinator - he will be the one to organize the groups and get people started. But once the groups are started, they pretty much run at their own pace, take care of ordering their own books, and so on. This is one part of our continuing drive to realize our vision, which includes intentionally cultivating relationships in order to disciple our world for God's glory.

So, it's not a secret men's group. But we're about to go from "Beta testing" to production for those men who want to join in. And I have both personally experienced and observed in others real spiritual growth and an improving set of spiritual disciplines.

Getting the Point

On a few occasions, we have discussed in this column various methods of effective Bible study. We've talked about the value of reading in the literary context, understanding the cultural context, reading a passage multiple times, online study tools, marking up your Bible, looking for structure, and even creating the right environment in which to do your studying. There's one more that I find highly valuable. It's remarkably simple, but amazingly challenging.

The method is to write out one summary sentence that encapsulates the passage I'm studying. Sounds simple, doesn't it? Yeah.

The idea is to get one full, grammatically correct sentence that says what the passage says. It focuses on what the passage says, and covers the idea adequately. The sentence is not more broad than the passage, nor is it more narrow. The sentence cannot list all the details, but it does cover them in some way. Here's the hard part - the sentence is not to be a long, complex, regurgitation of the passage, with a dozen subclauses, hyphens, and semicolons. Rather, it is a straightforward, hopefully even elegant, encapsulation of the passage.

The passage being studied could be just a phrase, a paragraph, and entire chapter, or even an entire book. The method works no matter the size of the passage.

If you can do this adequately, then you understand the passage! If your sentence misses the mark, is too broad or too narrow, or has the wrong focus, then you don't fully understand the passage, yet. What a great study tool! The process of developing this one sentence forces you to really analyze what is being said until you "get it."

The best way to do this is to identify the subject and the complement. Uh oh, Middle School grammar terms! Very simply, the subject is what the passage is about. What is the thing that the passage is talking about? But, be as specific as the passage. For example, "God" is usually too broad - the passage is rarely talking about all of God. Usually it's talking about His love or His compassion or His faithfulness, etc.

For an example, let's look at James 2:14-17:


James 2:14 What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,” and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? 17 Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.

What is the subject? Some might say "works." Others might say "faith," or even "faith and works." If you look carefully, you see that it is more about "faith" than "works," but even "faith" is too broad. It's not about the entire topic of faith. This passage is about "what kind of faith is a saving faith?" That's the subject being discussed. If we say this paragraph is about "works," then we won't understand what it's saying. If we say it's about "faith," then we're not specific enough, and won't fully understand the passage.

After you find the subject, find the complement. The complement is what is said about the subject. What does the passage have to say about the specific subject we identified? So, what does James 2:14-17 say about the kind of faith that is a saving faith? In this case, it's a little bit odd - what is said about the subject is what is not true about the subject.

The complement here is, "not a faith that is without works." That is what is said about the subject, "What kind of faith is a saving faith?" Answer? "Not a faith without works!" (The next paragraph answers the question in positive terms, but we learn in this paragraph something important that is not true about our subject, which is just as important to know!)

So, a summary sentence might look like this, The kind of faith that is a saving faith (subject) is not a faith that is without works (complement). That is what this paragraph is about - whatever kind of faith is a saving faith, we know here what kind of faith is not a saving faith. The sentence encapsulates all that the passage says, and nothing more. If you can create a summary sentence like that, you get what the passage is about (and what it is not about!).

Some people read James 2 and think it's about works, and then they get confused because it sounds like we can be saved by works. But ... they got they wrong subject to begin with, so of course they will draw confusing conclusions. The subject is about a type of faith that saves, and the what is said about it here says that faith without works is not a saving faith. Then, if we did the same exercise for the following paragraph, we would learn what kind of faith is a saving faith (a faith that has works). We are still saved by faith, but not every kind of faith is a saving faith. The faith that results in works is the kind of faith that saves.

Creating a summary sentence helps us to see this important truth, and to avoid the common error of thinking James teaches salvation by works.

A Simple Reading Guide

If you're reading this ... well ... you can read. You know how letters fit together, how punctuation generally works, and what English words mean. You can read. Which also means that you can read the Bible and comprehend much of what it says. Even though intense study of the Bible is rich enough to warrant a legion of men and women to dedicate their careers to the discipline, the plain truth of the Bible is easily understood by anyone who can read. The basic message of the Bible is obvious enough, not hidden behind cryptic clues that only the secret few can decipher.

If this is true, why then do we have so many controversies over what the Bible says?

A short weekly article is never going to be able to resolve this great dilemma, but there are two driving principles: First, if we so determine, we can manipulate the text to say whatever we want it to. Second, even though we know how to read, we don't necessarily know how to read the Bible well.

Let me provide a few helpful practices, even though a short article cannot do justice to a mature discipline. My hope is that we can at least see the kinds of things we need to consider when reading the Bible well.

1. There and Then. What did the author intend to say to the original readers of the book? What the text means is what the author intended it to mean, not "what I got out of it." So, what did the author intend? He was writing to a particular group of people in a particular context of life, living in a particular culture. Perhaps there was a specific occasion or reason for writing that particular book. Every passage of Scripture means one thing. Whether a small passage or a large passage, there is one intended meaning. Before we ever thing about how the Word applies to our lives in our contexts in our culture, we've got to spend a little time understanding what the author intended. Some of this we can do just by observing the text carefully, and some of it we can do just through our accumulation of biblical knowledge over the years. Sometimes, we need to consult other resources, such as Bible dictionaries and commentaries. As you can see, this discipline can be taken to far greater depths than most of us are prepared for, but don't despair - most of the time, we can get a pretty good feel for what the author intended without earning an advanced degree!
   
2. Everywhere and Forever. The second discipline, which can only come after we've worked on the first, is to ask what the eternal truth is behind what the author meant. For example, when Moses writes about "gleaning the fields" in Leviticus, the first discipline tells us we need understand what this particular farming practice was to understand what Moses intended to say to his original readers. But, most people today don't farm for a living, so does that mean that this passage doesn't mean anything for us? Of course not! The eternal principle behind the gleaning practice was to sacrificially provide for the poor in a way that allows them to work (if they can) in order to labor for their food. That's an eternal truth! It's a very particular kind of compassion. The second discipline is to discover what eternal truths are being expressed by what the author intended to say to the original readers. Sometimes, the contextual meaning is the same as the eternal truth ("don't lie"). Sometimes, the eternal truth is bigger than the specific idea expressed by the author to his original readers.
   
3. Here and Now. The third discipline is one we typically jump straight to, ignoring the first two. More often than not, if we skip the first two disciplines, we will be very inaccurate with the third. This discipline is to discover how the eternal truth applies to our context in our culture in our situations. For example, how can we who do not farm for a living specifically employ the gleaning principle today? (Or the bigger question, how does a modern Christian look at Old Testament laws in general?) Scripture means one thing, but it may have many different applications for our lives. The passage in Leviticus means one thing - exercise a particular kind of compassion. How we do that in our lives could take many different flavors, but still retain the eternal truth (that was originally expressed in a particular context). This is not "what it means to me," but "how this can be lived out in my life?" 

We must exercise the first two disciplines, first. If we skip them, then we could end up with nonsense, such as "God is telling me that my job is like a field, and I need to plow my job carefully by studying hard and working late hours, but not to harvest the 'corners' of my job by making sure I don't report all my hours." That's no where near what we should gain from Leviticus, but we can get there easily if we neglect the first two disciplines.

There are far more disciplines and techniques that I advocate to help us understand what we read in the Bible (for example, reading a passage no fewer than three times). These three, however, work together to show a sequence of thought we should go through every time we read. Sometimes, we can go through all three pretty quickly, but other times, it may take a fair bit of effort.

Resources: There are plenty of good books on reading the Bible well, but two that I recommend are: How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth, and Playing with Fire. Click on the titles to see more information about each.

Creating a Bible Arc

One of my favorite tools for Bible study is called "Bible Arc," which is an on-line tool created by Bethlehem College and Seminary (affiliated with John Piper's ministry). It's available at http://biblearc.com, and it is designed to help you graphically show the structure of a passage.

To me, the structure of a passage is one of the most important ways to really understand the passage. Whether you look at just the high-level structure or the low-level detailed structure, seeing how the passage fits together is extraordinarily helpful in understanding what the passage means. I've talked about the importance of seeing the structure many times before, including how we can see the Trinity show up in Ephesians 1:3-14 by first seeing the structure. There are just a few tools that really open up the meaning of Scripture for me, and finding the structure is one of them.

The difficulty has been having a convenient tool to show the structure. There's always pen and paper, but that usually leads to a lot of cross-out changes, and then there's the issue of filing away all the paper so that you can retrieve it later. There's word processing, and outlining a passage with multi-level lists shows the structure, but it's hard to "see" the structure. If the passage has a complicated structure, then the lists become even less capable of showing the structure well.

The idea behind Bible Arc is that it allows you to graphically show the structure electronically (which also takes care of all the crossing out and filing hassle). It's basic enough for a beginner to use, but it has enough features for experienced Bible scholars to use.

With Bible Arc, you start by selecting which passage you want to study for a new arc. You can pick from several different Bible translations, including the original languages, also allowing the user to make his own translation. You can have two translations side-by-side, or just one translation. You can also choose for the tool to automatically break up the passage by verses or to start with no automatic breaks at all.

After you create your initial arc, then you choose where the "breaks" are in the passage, such as sentences, phrases, if/then clauses, etc. You select between two words where a break should be (in both translations if using two), and then the tool breaks between then and puts a line. You can do this at a high-level or a very detailed level.

Then, after all the "parts" have been separated, then you "arc" the parts that need to be grouped together. For example, you might have two parts to a sentence, with a break between, but you still want to "arc" the two parts because they go together. Again, this can be pretty general or very detailed.

The third step is to identify what role the different parts play, and this may be a step that many people choose to skip (although it is very helpful). For example, if a part is an "if" clause, then you drag the "if" marker from the legend to right next to that part. (There's a Key that help you understand what all the markers mean.) Basically, you are labeling what function each part plays. You can even make up your own markers.


Some of the labels describe not the part, but how two parts fit together. For example, between a part that says "Bob was happy" and the part that says "and then he threw a big party," you would put the "P" marker, which means "Progression." The second part is a progression from the first part.


There are helpful videos of every step along the way to show you how to do it.

The only way to really get the hang of it is to first look at someone else's arc, and then to play with it on your own. You can see one of my simpler arcs (of 1 Tim 1:18-20) at http://biblearc.com?c2g4. Click on "Key" in order to see what the markers mean. But I recommend just playing with it sometime, if you're into methods of focused Bible study. It takes a little while to get the hang of it, but after that, I find that it actually saves time, because it helps me quickly see the structure of a passage.

Creating the Environment

We cannot make God "show up." We can (and should) set aside time every day to be alone with God to read His Word and to pray. Some people call it "Quiet Time," others call it "Devotions," and we've even recently seen it called "an appointment with God." No matter what it's called, it's an intentional effort to be alone with God and His Word. But just regularly having that time won't necessary make God "show up" - where you become particularly aware of His presence and influence. However, if we don't set aside time, we are far less likely to ever have that awareness.

Even if we set aside only 15 minutes a day, having that dedicated time for the Lord remains history's greatest environment to experience the presence of God. Of all the books, seminars, studies, and DVDs we have, nothing does more for personal spiritual formation than being in the Word and in prayer. There's not even a close second place finisher - setting aside daily time is the all-time champ, with virtually no challengers. Put another way, wanting to experience His presence without setting aside that time is like wanting to see a ball game but never going to the ball park.

Even when we do set aside time, we can also fall into a habit of squandering that time, getting distracted, or wandering aimlessly because we don't have a plan. One of the most effective ways to spend fruitful time with the Lord is to develop rich habits. Not only a regular time and place with no distractions, but also a habit of how to read the Word.

First, you need to have an idea of what you will read in Scripture. It could be passages on a particular topic that you get from a book or it can be going through a book of the Bible. Both are valuable, but I strongly recommend that you: 1) Read at least a full paragraph, rather than isolated verses, 2) Read your passage more than once, and 3) Keep in the habit of going through entire books of the Bible at least 50% of a calendar year.

Second, it helps to ask a consistent set of questions of every passage. There are many suggestions out there for questions to ask, and most lists are fairly similar. I recommend the following for every passage:

What does it say? Without interpreting the passage, just summarize (in writing!) what it says. Before you interact with the text, you need to know what it is (and is not) saying. You might even look up a few key words in a Bible dictionary, concordance, or commentary just to get at what the author intended to say.

What does it mean? Now, you interpret, but only after having a good idea of what the author intended to say. This is not "What does it mean to me?", but "What does it mean?" Getting back to the author's intent, what did he mean by this? The Bible does not mean different things to different people - it means one thing. Every passage means one thing, no matter how hard different people try to make it say something different.

How does it relate? After understanding the meaning, now you can ask how that unchanging meaning affects you in daily life. What aspects of my life, my thinking, my reactions, and my priorities are affected by this truth?

Where do I need to be convinced? We can understand what a passage means and how it affects us, but still not be moved to change. What needs to happen in my life for me to be "sold" on the truth, to adopt it into my life, to confess, to change, or to respond?

Pray. Take what you've seen in Scripture, how it affects you, and how you still need to be moved to adopt it into your life, and pray about it. Be honest with God, ask questions, confess, rejoice, and interact with God, particularly in reference to the passage. Also, I like to pray for those on my prayer list based on the passage - that's a great way to keep me focused and fresh as I pray for loved ones and friends.

This set of habits can take 15 minutes or an hour. It just depends on how deep you want to go. Each question has a list of related questions that could go along with them - or these questions can be taken as is if there just isn't enough time for depth. Also, the framework is flexible enough to work well with any passage, regardless of length or genre.

The main thing is to be in a habit, whether it's this one or another. Try this one, try another one, stick to one that works well for you. You'll find yourself being more consistent, getting more out of the text, and perhaps becoming more keenly aware of God's presence.

Lately, I have been blogging my Quiet Time journal on http://colbiwiki.blogspot.com, using a slightly different framework, but the same elements are there. My hope is that these can provide examples of how a framework can be used.

Marking Up Your Bible

In my men's Bible study, we talked about ways of studying the Bible, including marking up your Bible with notes along the way. The idea is to have one copy of the Bible that is set aside for this particular purpose so that you can make notes in and around the text as you make observations. When you come back to that same text later, you have your own notes to help you remember what you've noticed before. Plus, just the act of writing notes helps you to think your way through a passage.

It's best to have just one Bible for this, so that you don't have notes strung around in many different places. Choose a Bible that has good space in the margins for personal notes. I recommend a translation that is more literal, such as the NASB, ESV, or NKJV. Other kinds of translations, such as the NET or NIV, are good to have for other purposes, but since individual words will make a difference (as you will see), your "mark up Bible" should be one of the more literal translations.

You can certainly choose your own method of mark up, but stay consistent! Think a long time before starting to mark up to make sure you have a system you want to use. You don't want to mark up one way, and then later change your mind and mark up another way, and then end up with a Bible with different kinds of mark up. You might even make some photocopies of some pages to "practice" on to see which mark ups you want to use.

Let me share my method, not because it's any better than other methods, but just as an example. My method is pretty simple:

• Circle: I circle words or phrases that are repeated in a passage. For example, in Isaiah 45, the idea there being "no other" God is repeated (vv. 5, 6, 14, 18, 21, 22, 24), even though different words are used. So I circled each occurrence. Now, every time I go back to Isaiah 45, I see some circles and quickly realize that the exclusive nature of God is an important theme in this chapter.
• Underline: I underline commands, especially ones that apply to us. Later, when I see an underline, I know there's a command for me to obey in that passage. I don't usually underline commands given to people in the narrative if the command doesn't apply to us (like telling Moses to go to Egypt - it's a command, but not to us, so I don't underline it).
• Exclamation point: In the margin, I put an exclamation point next to thoughts that are particularly important. Maybe it's the key point of the passage. Maybe it just strikes me as I'm reading as being particularly important. The exclamation point is like saying, "Look here!"
• Check mark: I put a check mark in the margin next to promises, especially promises that apply to us. Maybe they are promises that have already been fulfilled, maybe not, but the check mark alerts me that there's a promise from God to us here.
• Highlight: I don't highlight much, but if there's a phrase that is a core truth to the Christian life, I'll highlight it. I also highlight cross-references in the margins that I've looked up and have found to be particularly helpful.
• Square underline: I will underline some words or phrases with tips on each end to make the words look like they are sitting in a shallow box if the word or phrase is defined by the passage. For example, John 17:3 says "This is life, that..." The phrase that follows defines what "life" is. So I put a square underline under that word to alert me later that this verse defines what "life" is.
• Margin notes: Sometimes, you've just got to write a thought in the margin - no other mark up will do. These include inspired thoughts, cross references not already list, helpful interpretations, etc.

Be careful not to mark up too much! If you mark up everything, it's as good as marking up nothing, and then your Bible is harder to read. Be smart. As an extreme example, most sentences in Mark start with "And..." Don't bother circling every "and" - yes, it's repeated, and yes, it means something, but you don't want all that ink spilled on your pages.

Also remember that whatever you mark up and write will be there for the rest of the life of that Bible. I've written down things and then years later read it again, wondering, "What was I thinking?!? That's the stupidest thing I ever saw!" Try to mark up the things you think will also be relevant tomorrow and next month and next year.

For those who have a problem writing in their Bibles, I have one piece of advice for you: Don't do it. If you don't want to, then don't. It helps to have a Bible dedicated just for this purpose which you can treat like a pre-filled notebook of Biblical texts for notetaking, but if you'd rather not, don't do it and don't worry about it. This is not the test of a true Christian.

Find your own method. Some of you probably have mark up habits that I would like to use myself.

More Cool Stuff in Scripture

Our reading through the New Testament together now has us in the Book of Acts, Luke's "sequel" to his Gospel, tracing the key events of the early church. There's something very cool in Acts that could well be Luke's cues to us about the structure of the book. There are six summary statements throughout Acts that seem to summarize the action that has preceded, and prepare for what follows. These six verses create six "panels," or sections, to Acts, which help us to see the important progression of the book.

The first summary verse is 6:7 ("And the word of God kept on spreading; and the number of the disciples continued to increase greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were becoming obedient to the faith"). All of this action happening (especially persecution), and then all of the sudden, a summary verse that talks about the Word spreading, even to Jewish priests (success, despite the persecution). In the first section, the main character is Peter, the location is Jerusalem, and the audience is entirely Jewish. The very next thing is the story of Stephen, the first recorded martyr of the church, and as the persecution intensifies, many of the disciples are driven out from Jerusalem.

The second summary verse is 9:31 ("So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria enjoyed peace, being built up; and, going on in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it continued to increase"). Again, the narrative is talking about amazing events, and then out of the blue, a summary statement about the progress of the Gospel. In this second section, the main character is still Peter, but the location now includes Judea, Samaria, and Galilee, and therefore the audience of the Gospel now includes "half-Jews" - people who are not fully Jewish, but still have similar history and connections with Israel. The Gospel is beginning to spread out of Judaism, forced by the persecution. The very next thing are the accounts of Peter coming to terms with the Gospel spreading to, of all people, Gentiles. That was a huge paradigm shift for Peter and the others.

The third summary verse is 12:24 ("But the word of the Lord continued to grow and be multiplied") - the Word is continuing to spread. The main character is still Peter, but the location is now Palestine and Syria, which means the audience is primarily Gentile. The very next thing is the calling of Barnabas and Saul to become missionaries to the Gentile lands.

The fourth summary verse is 16:5 ("So the churches were being strengthened in the faith, and were increasing in number daily") - another statement about the progress of the Gospel, despite the persecution of the new missionaries. The main character is now Paul (the Greek name for Saul, which he used as soon as he started going into Gentile lands). The location is now vastly different - Antioch and Asia Minor. The audience follows the same pattern in every town. First, the Jews, and then the Gentiles, who get far more attention because they are now more receptive than the Jews. The very next thing is the vision Paul has in a dream to go over to Europe (specifically, Macedonia), crossing greater boundaries with the Gospel.

The fifth summary verse is 19:20 ("So the word of the Lord was growing mightily and prevailing"). Still more progress with the Gospel despite violent rejection of the missionaries. The main character is still Paul, but the geography is Europe (Greece in particular) and the audience is overwhelmingly Gentile. The very next thing is Paul emphatically stating his determination to get to Rome with the Gospel. Rome is the center of the Western pagan world, the epicenter of Gentile politics, military, and religion.

The last summary verse is the final verse of the book, 28:31 ("And he [Paul] stayed two full years in his own rented quarters, and was welcoming all who came to him, preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching concerning the Lord Jesus Christ with all openness, unhindered"), a statement of how Paul, even though under arrest on false charges, has freedom to preach the Gospel of Christ right in the center of power of the pagan West, the most influential city of the Greco-Roman world! The main character of this section is still Paul, the geography is Paul's journey from Jerusalem to Rome, and the audience is again mostly Gentile. The very next thing is ... the rest of church history!

The book starts in occupied, Jewish Jerusalem with a small band of scared Jesus freaks who have nothing but a command to make disciples of all nations and to be His witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth. The book ends in Rome, the Gentile capital, with the missionary to the Gentiles preaching the Gospel freely even within the household of Caesar himself. All along the way, Luke appears to give us summaries of the Gospel's progress even while telling us of the difficulties suffered by the apostles and missionaries. In every case, the very next thing is some brand new barrier that will be successfully crossed by this Gospel.

So, what is the book of Acts about? The structure itself tells us: by the power of the Holy Spirit, who is the real main character of every section, the Gospel will advance, not only in spite of the suffering of those willing to carry it across new boundaries, but even through their suffering. And the very next thing is the rest of church history!

As you read the Book of Acts with us, check out this structure and keep it in mind as you follow the storyline. It's a ripping good story!

The Tech of Worship

Over the last several weeks, the Worship Teams has been investigating the use of a couple of different software packages for displaying the lyrics, announcements, and sermon notes. No software package is the best at everything, but one that suits many of our team's needs well is Proclaim, published by the people at Logos (http://proclaimonline.com and http://logos.com). In a lot of ways, this won't make much difference to the congregation - all proclaims display nicely. Most of the difference is in the ease of putting the presentations together in a team environment. However, there are a few features for the congregation that some may want to take advantage of.



First, you'll need a mobile device, such as an iPhone, iPad, or Android tablet. If you don't, then  you should be able to worship and takes notes as before. If you do, then go to the Logos website or the app store and download the Logos app for your device. This is a great app for Bible reading and a whole host of Bible study tools and Christian books. Many Bibles and books are free, but you can also purchase an amazing array of others. You will need to create a user ID and password for your Logos account. (Note, the support for Android phones is coming - the Logos app is there, but the Proclaim support is not yet functional.)

Then, when the worship service begins and the presentation software goes "on air," your app can detect that there is a presentation being shown. You can use the menu to hunt for a presentation, or you will soon get a pop up asking if you want to follow our presentation.

Then, whenever there is a slide on the screen with the following symbol in the lower righthand corner,



that means that there is a "signal" available. A signal can be a scripture reference, for example. Your app will ask you if you want to jump to that passage of the Bible. If you choose to, then your app will jump straight to the passage in the translation of your choice.

A signal can be a calendar event. For example, when the slide is being displayed for the ladies' tea, your app will pop up a notice that allows you to automatically add that event to your device's calendar. Just click, and it's on your calendar, with the right date and location.

A signal could be a website - click and your device will navigate to that website. There are a few other signals possible, but we likely won't be using them.

Logos is more than a mobile device app. There is a full program for both Windows and Mac with an extremely rich set of Bible study features. This program can also be downloaded from http://logos.com. This is the Bible software I use far more than any other, and I continue to build my digital library with commentaries, theology books, pastoral books, and so on.

You can also access your Logos library through a web browser at http://biblia.com. It's not as feature-rich as the full program, but it's great to be able to get to your books even if you're away from your computer.

The program, the app, and the website all stay in sync - leave off reading in John 3 in the program, and then later go to the website, and after you log in, you'll go straight to John 3. Plus, your entire library is available on all three platforms (for the most part - some book licenses are only valid in the program version).

Many of you use YouVersion (http://youversion.com) on your mobile device. That's good software, too. But we can't sync it with the presentation on the screen. Currently, we are using YouVersion to allow you to follow the sermon and take notes. We are still testing that - some of you like it, some of you don't. We're trying to find a more usable system for notetaking on your devices in a way that connects directly to our sermons somehow.

If you have any questions on getting set up with this, please just let us know!

A Journey

I'm on a journey that leads to destinations unknown. The ride has been good - a bit rough at times, but interesting. Sometimes I feel like I can see over the horizon and get a glimpse of the destination, but then it slips away, and I'm not sure I saw anything at all. But I know I will get to a good destination - I just can't tell you what that place looks like. I'm taking this journey at the pace of one step each morning.

For my daily Quiet Time, I'm spending time in the Word on the topic of God's Spirit. I made a list of every occurrence of the word "spirit" in Scripture, and am identifying which ones refer to the Holy Spirit in some fashion. Plus, there are some references that don't use the word "spirit" at all, such as "Comforter," "Helper," and "Counselor." I take one reference in context each day, study it, journal about it, and then pray through the passage for my own life. And then I pray that passage for those who are on my prayer list for that day - whoever is on the list, I'm praying from that passage for them.

There are 628 occurrences of the word "spirit" in the New American Standard translation, and a large portion of those refer to the Holy Spirit in particular. So - this journey will take a while. I'm in no hurry. I've already made it as far as Matthew. Most of my journaling is asking questions rather than answering them - and that's OK.

After I finish going through all the passages, I plan to then retrace my steps and collect my observations and questions into categories. I want to be able to see the variety of lessons there are for us about the Holy Spirit. I'm learning new things about the Spirit already, and I expect to find out more new things when I make this second pass.

I'm not sure where the journey is going, but I know it's good, and I'm excited to find out where it will lead me. Maybe it will become the stuff of a future sermon series on the Spirit, but even if it does not, I pray that I will know the Spirit more deeply as a result. Not just know more about Him, but to know Him better.

For your own Quiet Time, consider taking a topic and discovering all that you can from the Bible about it. There are plenty of tools and helps available to make this easier - I'm happy to help you with that part. Remember always to study a passage in context - most passages are understood rightly only by knowing the context (historical, cultural, and literary). At minimum, study a paragraph at a time.

What's the deal with the structure?

Last Sunday, we covered Psalm 106, and we saw how the psalm was laid out:

Praise (1-3)

   Request (4-5)

      Israel forgot, but God saved (6-12)

         Israel’s résumé of rebellion (13-39)

      Israel angered, but God remembered (40-46)

   Request (47)

Praise (48)

This kind of literary structure is called a chiasm (KEE-asm, or a "chiastic" structure), and they are actually pretty common in both the Old and New Testaments. I try not to "nerd it up" too much during a sermon with terms like this (only when I feel it will really be helpful), so I didn't mention what this structure was called or why they are important. The name "chiasm" comes from the Greek word for the letter "x," which is "chi," because the structure resembles the left half of the letter "x."

Why does Scripture have them, and why so frequently? First, it's a nice literary device - it's parallel and balanced, it reinforces ideas, and it organizes the point being made. Second, it helps set off one section of Scripture from another. The chiasm should be treated as a unit, somewhat distinct from what precedes and what follows. It helps us to know which ideas belong together, and we should study chiasms as a group, rather than separated into parts. You fully understand the point when you take it all together.

Third, a majority of the original audience of Scripture were listeners and not readers. They didn't have chapter numbers, verse numbers, or helpful paragraph headings. You can't always hear where a paragraph ends, for example. Literary structures like parallelism, transitional phrases, and chiasms help a listening audience know how the book is organized and how the thoughts go together.

Chiasms are important because, as noted earlier, they help us to know how best to study Scripture well. Literary units should most often be studied as units. Chiasms are also important because they help draw our attention to the center of the chiasm. In this case, the author draws our attention to the "résumé of rebellion," the large center section of the psalm. That's the author's teaching tool - Israel's repeatedly errant history. The other parts of the psalm help us to put that history in perspective and what to do about it.

That's why we started the sermon from the inside and worked our way out.

There's always a wise caution with chiasms, though. Some people go crazy with them - finding them where they don't really exist in Scripture, trying to make too big of a deal of how the structure affects the meaning of the passage, and so on. Structures like chiasms are helpful literary devices, not magic keys to unlock the "true" meaning of Scripture.

It's OK to "nerd it up" in the newsletter, right?

Our Reading Plan for 2012

Last year, we set a challenge to read the entire Bible straight through as a church. I started off the first part of the year doing a decent job of reminding you, but then I fell out of the habit of keeping the idea before you and encouraging you. That's not setting the best example of persistence, and that was just in reminding you to read, which is far easier than keeping up with the actual reading!

The advantage of the plan for 2011 was that we were reading the entire Bible, and doing so in a more chronological fashion. Reading large sections of Scripture allows us to see themes and the big picture, but it is harder to keep current with a larger reading plan. If you fall behind, it can feel overwhelming to get back into it. That's when many stop following the plan, even though it's easy enough to just start back up on schedule and not worry about the parts that were missed. Missing some is better than missing all.

We have a new plan for 2012 with a different strategy. We want to use a variety of strategies over the years - sometimes the whole Bible, sometimes just certain parts; sometimes sequential, sometimes chronological, sometimes thematic.

Our plan for 2012 is to read the New Testament together. But we're going to read it together in a unique order - instead of reading it sequentially, we're going to read it somewhat chronologically. Reading sequentially would put all four Gospels up front, so I'm putting one Gospel per quarter. We start with Luke, because I want to then use Acts as the timeline (Acts is Luke's sequel to his Gospel). As we reach a given location in Acts, such as Galatia, we will set Acts on "pause" and then read the epistle related to that location, then resume where we left off in Acts. (Even though each epistle was written later in time than when Paul was at that city in Acts, this plan will keep things together geographically.) After we're done with Acts, we'll then read the remaining books of the New Testament.

The organization may be a little complicated, but following the plan won't be - just follow the schedule we are providing. The readings are not long, and are grouped by week, not by day. That gives you plenty of flexibility to get your readings in with consistency.

You can get a printed copy of the plan from the table in the sanctuary or from the church office. You can get an electronic copy by clicking here (http://doiop.com/GF2012Plan). Also, if you go to our website, wait for the reading plan graphic to cycle through, just click on that picture and you'll get the plan that way.

Since the readings will be much shorter this year, I want to challenge you to a very important reading technique - read each section at least twice (I recommend three times). That will increase your comprehension and retention. Statistics suggest that retention almost doubles when the material is repeated, and can approach 90% if the material is covered three times.

Read with us! And I'll try to do a better job of reminding you.

The Latest NIV

The 2011 update to the NIV translation of the Bible is due out this month (the online version has been available since last Fall). One of the major goals of this translation was to provide a more "gender-inclusive" translation. The issue is that original languages (Greek and Hebrew) often used masculine pronouns ("he," "him," "his") and related words in ways that were intended to include both genders. The new NIV, along with the earlier TNIV and the NRSV, attempt to provide a version that doesn't grammatically exclude women.

This is a noble goal. For those passages that are clearly intended to apply to men and women alike, we want the text somehow to reflect that. No one should feel like an afterthought in God's plan. But this approach to translation is not without its difficulties:

• Many gender-neutral translations change passages that really should be left in the masculine. For example, being a "son of God" is not exactly equivalent to being a "child of God." Not that sons are better than daughters, but that there were certain unique aspects to the sonship relationship in the culture of the author that get lost in these translations - the idea of inheritance, responsibility, carrying on the family name, and so on. Those ideas are part of the imagery of the phrase, but we lose it when the translation only focuses on the more generic child relationship.
• In order to make a passage gender-neutral, often times the translator has to resort to an awkward phrase (for example, using "sons and daughters" every time "sons" occurs). The extra wording can clutter up a sentence easily. Using the masculine, with an inclusive meaning, reads more smoothly.
• Or, the translator will use a plural ("they," "them," "theirs") instead of the singular in order to neuter the sentence. This effectively takes gender out of it, but then you've changed the nuance of a phrase, losing the personal touch of an individual relationship with God, and sometimes sounding grammatically incorrect.

The noble goal has plenty of landmines. An attempt to clarify the meaning of a passage can actually skew the meaning of the passage, which by definition would be a poor translation.

For more information about the new NIV and the translation choices they made, see the following websites: http://www.cbmw.org/Blog/Posts/CBMW-Responds-to-New-NIV2011 and http://galvestondailynews.com/ap/bee3b4/.

The NET (http://net.bible.org) does a very reasonable job of indicating when a passage is meant to be gender-inclusive. They make pretty good choices of when to retain the masculine wording, and every time they choose a more gender-inclusive phrase than the original language, they make a clear note of it. So, you always know what the original said, plus you get a good indication of which verses are meant to transcend gender.

The interesting point for me in this is the translation principle - if the text says "men," but the text means "men and women," what's the best way to translate it? If it says "men" and means "men," then the answer is simple (but some translations still change it!). But should a translation mirror the verbal text or the meaning of the text? The answer is that both can be good choices, as long as the reader knows what you've done. The translator should either leave the text alone and let the readers and commentators decide, or they should change the text with a clear note of what the original says. That's why I like the NET - they do this well. Only when it's obvious to be inclusive should the translator even consider a more inclusive phrase. When in doubt, the translation should leave the text as is.

Translating the Bible is filled with difficult choices. With the hub-bub around the new NIV, I don't want to immediately criticize it just because some gender-loaded terms got translated in an inclusive way. That can be a valid translation. However, as the CBMW article above notes, there are enough of unnecessary changes in the new NIV, changes that skew the meaning, to be a very strong concern. (Furthermore, there are enough difficulties with the current NIV that I choose not to use it, and especially not for teaching.)

We should all know that the original languages used the masculine for a convenient and clear style, not to exclude women from God's grace. A good friend of ours, Dr. Fred Sanders, made the recent observation that it's not just the women who have to tolerate being called "sons of God" - we men have to tolerate being called the "bride of Christ"!

The Other Valuable Lesson on Bible Study

In my previous article, I talked about one of the toughest classes I ever had, and the valuable lesson I learned about studying the Bible by learning how to ask good questions about the Scripture. There are plenty of ways to find the answers, but asking good questions first will help lead you to the most valuable answers. I mentioned that this was one of two highly valuable methods I've learned to study the Word.

The second method sounds more scary than it really is. I have learned that finding the basic structure of a passage is tremendously helpful in studying what it means. Yikes! That's sounds hard and complicated! It can be, depending on how deep you want to go, but it doesn't have to be all that complicated.

Learning how to do this is more than a single article can teach, but I want to at least give you a favorite example of mine. Read Ephesians 1:3-14. Take a second to answer the question, "What is this passage about?"

There's a three-part structure to this passage. In this case, the three-part structure is marked by a phrase that is repeated. Look for it - see if you can find a phrase repeated three times in the passage. It's not verbatim the same, but it's close, and it's important to the passage. (Look for it on your own, but if you get stuck, keep reading for a hint.)

(Hint: Look in verses 6, 12, and 14.)

The repeated phrase is "to the praise of His glory," or something similar. If you didn't find it, stop and look for it until you see it.

Now, who is each one of these phrases talking about? (It's not the same person in each case.) Take a look before continuing.

That phrase occurs once for each person of the Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And that gives us a basic structure of Eph 1:3-14 (vv. 3-10 are about the Father, 11-12 are about the Son, and 13-14 are about the Holy Spirit). Furthermore, each section tells us something about the unique ministry of each one. Plus, the passage as a whole shows us the Trinity (without even using the word "trinity").

Now, re-read the passage and re-answer the question we asked before, "What is this passage about?" Did the structure give you a deeper answer to the question (even a little)?

Finding the structure of a passage can help us understand it much better. Next week, we'll look at the structure of chapter 2 and how that helps us understand it better.