Everyone has questions. Some questions we can find the answer with a quick search on Google. Other questions are more intimidating. Questions that surround our faith can be scary because we worry about what the answer might be and whether or not those answer will affect our faith. What ends up happening is that we ignore the question, but that question still lingers in the back of our mind.
In Asking for a Friend we want to look at a few of these questions and see if there is a way to provide an answer to them that will not only strengthen our faith, but also help us see the world through a more Christian perspective.
One of the fundamental beliefs in Christianity is that God is good. Most of the time, when we are experiencing the good things of life, this is easy to believe, but it becomes harder to accept when we consider the reality of evil. We imagine that if we were loving and good and all-powerful we wouldn’t let bad things happen. This leads us to the conclusion that God is not good, all-powerful, or even real. This question is a crucial one to answer.
Text: Job 38:1-7 Big Idea: God addresses the problem of evil through Jesus and His faithful people. Challenge: Resist evil by doing good.
Everyone has questions. Some questions we can find the answer with a quick search on Google. Other questions are more intimidating. Questions that surround our faith can be scary because we worry about what the answer might be and whether or not those answer will affect our faith. What ends up happening is that we ignore the question, but that question still lingers in the back of our mind.
In Asking for a Friend we want to look at a few of these questions and see if there is a way to provide an answer to them that will not only strengthen our faith, but also help us see the world through a more Christian perspective.
We are created in the image of God. One of the implications of that reality is that our standard for right and wrong comes from God and His character. To find out about God’s character we need to turn to the Bible, which is God’s revelation to His people. The Bible is essential in forming our morality to help us become the people God created us to be.
Text: Romans 2:13-16
Big Idea: The Bible shapes the beliefs and behaviors of God’s people as we influence the world.
Challenge: Read Ephesians 5:1-21 and (1) Confess sin (2) Think of a way to show love.
Everyone has questions. Some questions we can find the answer with a quick search on Google. Other questions are more intimidating. Questions that surround our faith can be scary because we worry about what the answer might be and whether or not those answer will affect our faith. What ends up happening is that we ignore the question, but that question still lingers in the back of our mind.
In Asking for a Friend we want to look at a few of these questions and see if there is a way to provide an answer to them that will not only strengthen our faith, but also help us see the world through a more Christian perspective.
Too often our culture makes us believe that science and faith are at odds with one another, and therefore we need to choose between them as we pursue what is true. The reality is that science and faith are not in conflict, rather, they should be viewed as tools we use to arrive at an accurate and true view of our world.
Text: Psalm 19
Big Idea: Science and religion are tools that we use to gain a better understanding of God and the world we live in.
Challenge: Read through Psalm 19 each day this week and ask God to reveal Himself to you through nature and the Bible.
Everyone has questions. Some questions we can find the answer with a quick search on Google. Other questions are more intimidating. Questions that surround our faith can be scary because we worry about what the answer might be and whether or not those answer will affect our faith. What ends up happening is that we ignore the question, but that question still lingers in the back of our mind.
In Asking for a Friend we want to look at a few of these questions and see if there is a way to provide an answer to them that will not only strengthen our faith, but also help us see the world through a more Christian perspective.
In the first sermon we answer the question, “Can I Trust the Bible?”
This is the foundational question that must be answered before looking at any of the other questions. As Christians we want our beliefs to be rooted in Scripture, and if we can’t trust what the Bible has to say then it will be impossible to have a Christian answer to the questions that we have.
Text: 2 Timothy 3:14-17
Big Idea: We can trust the Bible to give us the truth we need to live as God’s people.
Challenge: Study Philippians with me at www.paulsponderings.com
Money is necessary for life. It is what we use to get the food, clothes, shelter, transportation, and everything else that we need for life.
Because of its prevalence in our lives most of us have done something dumb with our money. It is easy to do.
The reality is most Americans are lost financially. We have too much debt and too many obligations which lead to experiencing significant financial pressure each month. We need help when it comes to money.
The Bible says too much about money for us to be lost financially. God cares about how we use our money, which means that money is a spiritual issue.
The first step in getting unlost financially is to discover where we are. We need to understand that everything belongs to God and that we are His stewards managing His resources. When we remember this truth everything else begins to fall into place.
Text: Matthew 6:19-21 and Luke 16:10-13
Big Idea: Christians are to be good stewards of their finances.
Challenge: Figure out how much money comes into your bank account and where it goes each month.
One of the things that I would like to share on the blog are my sermons, since they are the result of a significant amount of pondering each week.
This is the sermon that I preached on January 1, 2023.
A new year brings with it a hope of a new start. All of us have at least one area in our lives that we would like to see changed.
The issue we face is that we have failed in the past and we don’t know why now would be any different. Our hope of a new start quickly turns into discouragement.
Thankfully, God isn’t after our perfection, but our progress. Our faithfulness to Jesus is seen in our continual transformation day by day and year by year.
Text: Philippians 3:12-14 Bottom Line: Our faith helps us make progress in our journey to become more like Jesus. Challenge: Write down one goal for your spiritual formation and think of the step needed to accomplish it.
This is the third sermon I preached in a series called Listen to Jesus.
God created us to bear His image in this world. We don't naturally bear His image, we have to be taught how. Jesus came to teach us how to demonstrate God's character in this world.
One of the great gifts that God has given to His people is the Bible.
The Bible helps us understand who God is and what He desires for His creation. This means it is important for Christians to read, meditate, and live out Scripture.
One of the difficulties that we have when in it comes to reading the Bible is to see it as a unified Book. With all the different stories and types of literature we can be tempted to view the Bible as a hodge podge collection of writings that don't have a lot to do with each other.
God inspired the authors of the Bible to create a unified Story by using certain words, images, and themes that help link the various parts of the Bible together.
The design patterns of Scripture are something we can overlook when we are only reading short passages at a time.
To catch these patterns we have to read long sections at a time and then keep in mind things that seem to keep popping up. This skill takes work, and it helps to have some sort of teacher who is able to start pointing them out.
This is certainly a skill that the more you using, better you become at spotting the patterns.
As I a pastor I am currently preaching a sermon series entitled "Listen to Jesus" that looks at 6 teachings of Jesus that provide an understanding of how we can bear God's image in this world.
This is the second sermon in the series that focuses on our part in cleaning our hearts.
An expectation God has for His people is that we will be holy as He is holy. To help us in this task God has given us the Bible.
The Bible is a wonderful library of books that cover many different events and themes, which are woven together to tell one story. This one story leads to Jesus.
Even though the Bible is a wonderful gift that helps us understand Jesus and guides us on how to live, it can be hard to understand. We need to be taught how to read the Bible.
One of the basic things we need to understand about the Bible is that it is written in a variety of literary styles. The most common of these styles is historical narrative. Understanding narrative means we have to follow the plot, know the characters, and discover the setting. Knowing the setting of the narrative provides essential clues to understanding the point of the story.
When we take the settings of the narratives into account it helps us to build links to others stories. As we link different stories together we are able to see the unity of Scripture. For example, garden narratives should get us to recall chapters 2 and 3 of Genesis and get us to start drawing similarities and differences between what that story and what happened in the Garden of Eden.
Another key component of settings is time. The number seven is important because it going to remind people about Sabbath and resting.
Like any good story, it is important that we pay attention to the setting as we read through the narratives in the Bible. The biblical authors provide details about the setting to give us clues to the larger story that is going on.
Last Sunday I began a new sermon series entitled Listen to Jesus.
This series will take a look at 6 teachings from Luke 11-15 as we explore how are able to bear the image of God in this world. The only person qualified to teach on this subject is Jesus, and that is why we need to listen to him.
We know that it is important to read the Bible, but there are many places in the Bible that are hard to understand. There are also parts that seem rather boring and we loose interest.
Since the Bible doesn't always make sense to our modern western ears means that we need to take time to understand it.
The Bible is a collection of books written in different literary styles. In fact, many books contain more than one type of literary style within it.
This is important because we don't read poetry the same way as we read narrative. Understanding the literary type helps us understand what God wants us to know.
About a third of the Bible is narrative, which makes it the most common literary style found in Scripture.
In order to understand narrative we need to understand the basic plot. Often when we read the Bible we pluck sections out of their context, looking for some eternal truth that we can apply to our lives, and in the process we miss out on the bigger plot of the story.
Another feature of narratives is character development. Every good story is about people, and their development within the story draws us into the narrative and makes us care about what is going on.
To be honest, it is hard to relate to Biblical characters. Their world is alien to us. We live surrounded by technology, which prevents us from experiencing the natural world around us. The people described in the Bible were outside people. They were herders who cared for animals and lived a nomadic existence.
This is just one of the issues we face as we come to read and understand the Bible.
How can better understand the characters written about in the Bible?
The characters in the Bible show us what humans are like. They are a commentary on human nature, a reminder that we are a complex mixture of good and bad motives and actions.
While the Biblical authors provide minimal detail when describing these people, especially in terms of modern day novel authors, the details they provide are important and give insight into their character.
Another key feature is the name of the character. We don't always think about the name of a person, but for the authors of the Bible names were very important and shed light into who the person was.
A frustrating feature of Biblical narrative is that the thoughts and motives of people are rarely shared. In the stories we read and watch the authors typically provide us glimpses into the minds of their characters.
Instead, the Biblical authors provide the details of what happened without moral commentary. This forces us to ponder about what was right and wrong in that situation and how we would have responded.
The Bible is not a collection of nice children's fables that provide a moral at the end of the story. We have tried to do that when teaching the Bible to children, and have ended up watering Scripture down.
The Bible is not a children's story. The narratives in the Old and New Testaments are filled with complicated characters, who often make the bad choice. Over all, these are not people we want to imitate.
What we want to do is to pay attention to the failures of these characters and why they made those decisions. This helps us to think about our actions and the reasons behind our failures and our faith.
We also want to pay attention to how they turn to God and experience God's grace and love. These are the moments that allow us to see God's character and the love He has for us.
The more time we spend reading and meditating on Scripture the better it is able to guide our lives.
It is different. I would rather speak in front of an audience, but I have to do what I have to do.
This is the conclusion of the sermon series: Trust Jesus.
I added this sermon after the Covid-19 pandemic hit because I thought hope is something that we need right now.
One of the most important tools that God has given us for our spiritual formation is the Bible.
The Bible contains wisdom from God that helps guide our lives.
But the Bible is more than a collection of eternal truths. If it was then all 66 books would read like Proverbs. No, the Bible is made up of a collection of different literary styles. The most common style is narrative.
As we read the Bible, we notice that there are many stories that tell us about the lives of people and their pursuit to follow God. Some of these stories are strange to our ears and don't make a lot of sense to us. This problem is made worse because we are constantly looking for the lesson from the story so we have something to apply to our lives.
When we do this, we often miss out on the real lesson that these stories teach us.
So how do we read the stories of the Bible?
It is important that we don't look at stories as isolated events that are there to teach us some eternal truth. We are to look at the whole scope of the narrative and discover how God worked in the lives of people. This gives us a better sense of what God wants us to know.
There is a central plot the runs through the story of each person that connects the individual events of there lives. Understanding this plot helps us to learn the lessons we need to be the faithful people God created us to be.
Not only is there a central plot the moves through the story of each person, but there is a central plot that connects the stories throughout the Bible. Finding this plot helps us discover that the main story of the Bible points to Jesus.
I want to return to posting BibleProject videos on How to Read the Bible. You can find the previous three here, here, and here.
We understand that there are different types of literature. How we read a news article is different than how we would read a fictional story.
This difference in literary types is expanded as we look are different cultures at different time types. One of the reasons the Bible can be hard for us to understand is because it was written in a different time and place. If we approach the Bible the same way we would our modern day literature we are going to miss much of what the Biblical authors wanted us to understand.
There are two important lessons that we are to remember as we read and study the Bible.
The first lesson is to read the Bible slowly and deliberately, giving ourselves time to think about what was written. We are not meant to understand everything in one reading of Scripture, so we return and reread and meditate on what we have read.
The second lesson is to discuss our readings with a group. The dynamic of a group allows us to hear from perspectives we don't have as we read Scripture. This opens up the possibility for us to see the truth of Scripture in a whole new way.
It was strange to celebrate Easter at home this year. Right now Bethlehem, like most churches around the United States, are coping with the regulations given by our state government. Even though we cannot meet in person, we are doing what we can to continue to have a Christian community via the power of the internet.
This is the sermon I preached for Easter Sunday: Trust Jesus for New Life.
