Archive for the 'Bible Study' Category

When All Else Fails, Show Grace, and Grace Again

Published
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Dan
on 9/15/2008
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“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day.
It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me.
No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father.
I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life.
I am the bread of life.
John 6:44-48

THE FATHER draws people to Jesus, and no one can go to Him unless the Father draws them.

““I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you.”
(John 17:6-7 NIV)

The Father had people, He has prepared people, He watches and is with people, and He gave them to Jesus when Jesus showed up on the scene.

This doesn’t give me a hopeless or helpless attitude towards people that avoid God, but a bigger grace towards them. I know that even when God draws people, they can reject Him, but His followers should still show grace to them, in case they should change and accept Him.

Jesus’ Main Mission: Eternal Life

Published
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Dan
on 9/13/2008
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John 6:29 ¶ Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”
John 6:38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.
John 6:39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day.
John 6:40 For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”

John 6:43 ¶ “Stop grumbling among yourselves,” Jesus answered.
John 6:44 “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day.
John 6:45 It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me.
John 6:46 No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father.
John 6:47 I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life.

In light of these verses, it seems like Jesus’ mission on Earth was to do the will of God, which was that Jesus would not lose any of the people that God gave Him, but raise them up at the last day. Could it be that EVERYTHING Jesus did and everything the Father did before that is all to point to the resurrection at the last day? Wasn’t the resurrection the most incredible miracle that Jesus did? When Paul talks about Jesus, he does not say that His power was fully revealed in any of the other miracles except being raised from the dead. (Ro. 10.9, Eph. 1.19-20, and not Paul, but Acts 2.24)

I am very intrigued by this. The resurrection on the Last Day will be great, because it will be the end of death and those that are with God will be in un-obstructed fellowship with Him forever and ever. I am curious about what I would see if I read the Gospels from the perspective of the whole point of Jesus’ ministry being to point to knowing Him so that you would be raised w/ Him in the last day. This will take some more reading…

Excellent Church Naming Widget

Published
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Dan
on 9/13/2008
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This is NOT my blog post for the day, but this absolutely cracked me up

Since this widget breaks my sidebar, you’ll have to check it out after the more… link. I wonder how long until I see some of these out in front of some of the 250 churches in town???

Continue reading ‘Excellent Church Naming Widget’

Jesus Is [like] the Bread and Water of Life

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Dan
on 9/12/2008
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I just read in the Catholic Encyclopedia that only wheat bread is allowed for communion. It specifically says NOT barley bread. Heh. How about that, with what we read that the feeding of the 5000 was most likely barley bread?!

On that same vein, it makes another comment about Jesus miraculously turning the wine into His blood before they drank it. If this were the case, they would have all drank blood at the ‘Last Supper’ which would have been the first time anything like that had ever happened in Judaism, but a common practice in paganism. When Jesus said, “I won’t drink the fruit of the vine again until the kingdom comes” then what was he talking about?

They made the same mistake w/ Eucharisto that Nicodemas made w/ being born again.

John 6:35 ¶ Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.

See the parable:

Whoever comes to Jesus will have their needs met IN HIM, and whoever believes in Him will never lack the most necessary thing to all life. You can go well over a month without food, but you can only go about 3 days without water. In Jesus even our most basic needs for REAL life are met (and a lot of our needs for the life we see are met too)

to sleepy to post

Published
by
Dan
on 9/10/2008
in Bible Study
. 1 Comment

I’m sitting here doing my thing where I fall asleep w/ the computer in my lap!

I need to follow up on yesterday’s post. Somebody bought my whole family lunch today. Then, in the evening we had a knock at the door, and it was one of our neighbor friends. Every few nights he rides his bike around our park at breakneck speeds for exercise. Whenever we see him and we have the chance, we run out in the front yard and chant “Go, Steve, Go!” over and over again and he laughs. Tonight he showed up with coupons for free ice cream! Hooray.

The coolest part? When he told the lady at Ritzy’s what he was doing, she gave him the coupons for free!

Please pray for God’s Kingdom to come in many ways whenever you read this. I have had several friends posts need for prayer and help today in various places (facebook and emails). It is enough that I prayed earlier, “God, there is so much intense serious stuff to pray for, can I just moan and groan and you’ll go through the list yourself?!”

Never Hungry or Thirsty

Published
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Dan
on 9/9/2008
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Jesus said that whoever would come to him would not hunger and that whoever believes in Him will not thirst. It seems so crazy and wild to me that Jesus really does provide for us everything we need. Can that really be?

I’m a little distracted tonight. Someone gave me a Big Green Egg smoker. As in the big time deluxe smoke-a-20-pound-turkey-smoker. I’m going to keep it out back on my porch that my church built for me. Next to the gas grill that someone gave me. Hopefully pretty soon we’ll have the gazebo up that some people gave us so we can sit under it in the back yard and cook some food. Maybe some of the several pounds of meat that some friends brought by as an out of nowhere present the other night, before they went to play on the brand new playground they just built in our park. You know, the park that helped us realize we didn’t need YMCA memberships because we could run/jog/play/climb in our park whenever we wanted.

So now I’d better go to bed. We have some friends in from out of town so we let them sleep on our bed, which was a gift, while the Sullies sleep downstairs in the living room, which a bunch of high-school kids painted. I get to sleep on the couch which someone gave to me. I hope I sleep well, because I get to meet the guys for donuts in the morning and I still have some money on my donut bank gift card that I got for my birthday.

I won’t ride my bike tomorrow though. I’m meeting my wife for lunch so I’ll have to take the Camry-which someone gave me.

Thanks Jesus.

Accepting the Gifts of God with a Holy Awe

Published
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Dan
on 9/8/2008
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v. 29 So they said to him, “Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? 31 Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” 32 Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” 34 They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”

The Father gave them Manna when they grumbled, and now they are grumbling/asking for proof and the Father still gives them bread…just not what they expect. Jesus is trying to show us that there is something much more important than the food we eat, and it’s HIM! James 1.17 says “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” And it is true whether we always think so or not.

Whenever something is given to you that you gripe about, and then a little later you see that it was a blessing from above, you get to have one of those Holy Awe moments.

When I was in Burma for 2 weeks, they divided up the team one day into the tasks for the next. They said that me and a girl named Holly would do the children’s program. VBS for 70 kids! While the rest of them cooked lunch. I got all upset that I had to babysit while the rest of them got to hang out in the kitchen. I will never forget what John Tate said to me that night.
“Quit complaining Dan. You’re the only one with the gift of teaching. Any one of us would rather teach those kids, but you’re the one that gets to, so stop complaining about it.” Now if you knew John Tate, you would know that he was under the influence of missions stress and the Holy Spirit, because he’d never say anything so aggressive otherwise.

The next day, there I was, playing games and telling Bible stories to 70 little kids that were soaking it all up. I didn’t see my teammates very much, but I heard they were around. They were around alright…in a Burmese firehole kitchen. They had pealed and sliced about 900 pounds of potatoes, then stood over an open fire and fried them in a pot of oil, and sweated and burned their brains out all day long. When it was time to eat, I didn’t want to. I felt that Holy Awe of receiving a gift from above and not even noticing it.

Sometimes God (heh, most of the time) God gives us what we need, but it doesn’t fit into what WE think we need, so we don’t take it. May we accept the things God gives us, even if we accept them like Job “Job 2:10 ¶ He replied, “You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” ¶ In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.” Because I think the more we accept from God, we’ll see that He actually gives us more good things than we realize.

The Work of God Without Fillers, Hormones, Steroids, or Programs

Published
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Dan
on 9/7/2008
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John 6:27 Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.”
John 6:28 ¶ Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?”
John 6:29 ¶ Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”

It’s funny how my distractions play right into my Bible study time. I was reading various blogs this morning and some different church planting movements in America right now and got kind of burnt out on the whole “trying to make our church appealing so people will come” idea. Trendy marketing and catchy 5-week sermon series based on the current trendy TV show or dramatic one word sentences (ie. “with.” or “in”) wore me out as I was distracted before getting to my Bible.

Then I read this passage. Just like today, the masses were looking for the formula or list of what to do to get God’s big red checkmark of acceptance. When they asked “what must we do” they were waiting for a list. John doesn’t have a “sermon on the mount” section in his gospel. Rabbis often had a set of teachings that they could recite, and this might be what the people were expecting from Jesus. They would often ask “what is the most important law” which would sort of tell the listeners what rabbinical denomination a teacher was in.

Jesus completely steps out of what they were expecting for an answer. His list contains one item, and that one item encompasses every aspect of life. It is not easy, it is not even CLEAR, and it requires a lot of time-a long span of life, to draw near to it. It can also be done in an instant, and completed in a momentary act, which would then just be continued on for your life.

The other day I was talking to a guy in my neighborhood about missionaries and he got ‘that look’ on his face. That looks that says “those people destroy culture and brainwash people” and is often hard to really talk about to people that don’t know about missionaries. I think the same thing would happen if you looked at too many websites of contemporary mega-churches. They have all kinds of happy faux-hawk young men and happy mothers of 2 doing numerous demographically strategic activities. Small groups, food shelters, and video of the weekly sermon are all things you would want to know about and participate in.

Long ago, when the Jewish people were cast into exile, the leaders believed it was because they were not following the Torah, or God’s way (law). They developed a commentary on that Law, which detailed even more laws that, if followed, would definitely keep everyone far far away from breaking God’s Law. They came up with 1,500 rules to prevent them from breaking God’s single statement, “Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.” And eventually, all of these rules became laws too, equal in severity and punishment to God’s original law. That commentary turned to law is called the Mishna. The Mishna took on equal standing to the Law, and the Pharisees forgot the point of God’s Torah and began to make the Mishna the point of their lives.

Which takes me back to John 6.29. I think the leaders of our day have written their own Mishna that has taken us away from Jesus, the source of all life. Now you can be in a small group, volunteer in outreaches (that consist of simply inviting someone to come and listen to someone else talk about God) and attend worship every week and think you are doing the “works God requires.” It’s almost like someone said, “Jesus said to believe in the one God sent. What does that look like?” and somebody made a list. After making that list, they forgot what the question was, and tacked those answers onto a different question: “What must we do to do the works God requires?”

I would like to reset and unlearn what I have learned. I would like to trash my whole list, even though for a long time I have been a marketer and promoter of such lists. I want to be connected to the original answer and not the commentary on the questions about the answer. I want to see what happens to a life that doesn’t have any additional baggage, but simply believes in the One God sent.

Is this Jesus Guy the Best Teacher Ever or What?

Published
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Dan
on 9/6/2008
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25 When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” 26 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. 27 Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.”
John 6.25-27 ESV

Jesus doesn’t waste any time at all w/ small talk. He calls them flat out on why they are there. I think Jesus is so blunt sometimes that we just can’t even comprehend what it would be like to be so blunt. There is no discussion of the weather, no complimenting clothing, just BAM! Maybe that’s just how they wrote it, or maybe that’s how their culture was in that day…no tellin’.

Jesus confronts them directly but doesn’t send them away. I could just hear someone say “you are seeking me because you ate your fill of the loaves, now go away” but He doesn’t do that. He recognizes our weakness but still gives us a prescription to get strength. He doesn’t just write us off. The people didn’t plan ahead and were out in the wilderness with nothing to eat. It was their fault, but he didn’t condemn them, he fed them. Now they are chasing after him for more food (it’s a new day so they need a new supply of manna) and He exposes the truth in them but keeps them nearby to learn what to do about that truth.

The Father dos not become disgusted w/ our shortcomings. He does not reject us for our immaturity. The masses were there our of immaturity, but the disciples were there out of maturity. But even that maturity they had was a gift from The Father.

Every one of those people that were fed and ‘ate like pigs’ was now hungry. They all know what bread that perishes is all about, because the miracle that happened 18 hours earlier had vanished. The leftovers might even be gone by now. That opens the perfect opportunity for Jesus to explain bread that perishes and bread that lasts.

They have worked hard to get to Him today. They had to go around the lake or call over some boats and track him down. Surely they would be worn from the trip, and ready for some more food. Jesus tells them not to sweat and work so hard for barley bread and sardines. It’s not worth it. You should work for the eternal life food.

(according to Google Earth, if he was in Bethsaida, or on the coast near there, it would be about 4 miles to Capernaum across the water. That route will be important in a few days)

How often does the Father take the opportunity that shows up in our normal life and desires to teach us something about Himself? I think about fasting and how hungry you can be for food, and to realize that you don’t even live off of food, but off of God. Or the yearning of a man for his wife in the days leading up to their wedding, how small a yearning that is compared to God and His Bride! Or the yearning for justice that we have when we see or experience the darkness of oppression, either by people or powers, and the deepening trust that we have that at the end of time God will put all things right.

Jesus’ Nature and His Temptation

Published
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Dan
on 9/5/2008
in Bible Study
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I have still been amazed today that Jesus really was tempted to bow down to Satan. I was talking about it at lunch and Andy G and I began talking about how it was a real temptation for Jesus to turn the rocks into bread. Andy said a good one, “He probably had to deliberately prevent Himself from doing that.”

If something is in your nature, you do it based on your instinct. You do it as a reflex. When I’m hungry, I eat something, when I’m thirsty, I get up and get a drink. When you can take a rock and POOF make it into bread, you have to be deliberate about not doing it. This is where being made into a new creation comes in. I do NOT live any longer, but Christ lives in me. The life I live I live in Him. That is what works in us to put off old destructive habits and develop holy ones; habits that are in the likeness of Jesus’ habits.

These habits are NOT what make us Christian or saved or anything. These habits are how our rebirth shows up and manifests itself. To do these habits out of obligation or law is to prop up a dead body and move it around acting like it’s alive.

Let our righteous acts come out our of the recreation of our habits. May we develop a heavenly nature that by reflex does what the Spirit wishes, as we deliberately walk in His ways.