Faith | Hope | Love: reading the Bible

reading the Bible

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My one year old daughter loves to read. What I mean by “read" is more just flip through pages, look at all the colors and animals, and mumble through her favorite words. Every night we try to read a book before she goes to bed, and often times we read through a Children’s Bible that does a great job depicting the biblical stories and relating them to the gospel. It has caused me to think of how I will continue to teach my children the Bible. I know this can often be a struggle for parents. A lot of words can be difficult to understand, the chapters and can be long, and the parent’s may not have a full understanding of what a passage means in order to articulate it in a clear way. This article by Jon Neilson gives some very helpful and practical ways we can do this. Enjoy!

In Christ,
Brandon H.

6 Ways to Teach Your Kids the Bible

The Gospel Coalition · by Jon Nielson · July 26, 2017

I’m a father of three young kids. I can’t think of many things more important for them than regular exposure to the living Word of God. If you’re a Christian parent of young children, I assume you share the same conviction: Your kids need to hear from God, and you long for them to listen carefully to his good Word.

But it’s hard. Life is busy, kids are lively, and reading the Bible often struggles to compete with the Disney channel, Legos, and the newest phone app.

Here are six tips my wife and I have found helpful in our rhythm of Bible reading with our young kids (currently 6, 5, and 3).

1. Pick a regular time and place for Bible reading.

In general, children tend to love a routine—a regular, anticipated time with Mom and/or Dad associated with a particular activity. Sporadic and random Bible reading may not engage your children in the same way a regular, planned, prioritized “special” time will.

In our home, we’ve chosen the chunk of time before bed for Bible reading. Our two older children know that, in the 15 to 20 minutes before bed, we’re going to gather in their room to read a Bible story, discuss it together, and pray. They’ve come to look forward to it, and it’s become as regular and natural a process as brushing their teeth. It may even help them sleep better, as many bedtime routines seem to.

2. Read short chunks.

Some of us will have to guard against being overly ambitious in the beginning. Since we believe in the power of God’s Word, we want our children exposed to as much of it as possible. So we read two full chapters from Genesis each night. Needless to say, a 5-year-old’s eyes will probably start to glaze over.

I encourage you to pick manageable passages, chosen based on thoughtful criteria. You may decide to begin in Genesis, and move through the Bible sequentially. The key is to not rush it, and to think ahead of time about the right “chunks” for each day.

3. Stop to explain and gauge comprehension.

Even if the passage for the day is only one chapter, that can be a lot for a young child to absorb if read all at once. It’s incredibly important to stop often along the way, explain things, ask questions to gauge comprehension, and ensure your kids are following along and grasping what the passage is saying.

4. Think of age-appropriate questions for discussion.

This aspect has become my children’s favorite part of our nightly time together in God’s Word. I’ve begun thinking of a few basic questions for each of them that will help them do three things with the passage we’ve read: (1) solidify their comprehension of the passage, (2) connect it to the Bible’s overall story, and (3) apply it to their lives.

When you ask simple questions, you’re doing much more than “quizzing” them to ensure they were paying attention. You are actually leading them, interactively, in a time of interpreting and applying God’s Word. And you are preparing them to engage the Scriptures directly on their own in the years to come.

5. Connect each passage to Jesus.

Jesus makes an amazing—even shocking—statement to the Pharisees in John 5: “You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life. But it is they that bear witness about me.” He is saying, in no uncertain terms, that the Scriptures are centered around him—his incarnation, his life, his teaching, his death, his resurrection, his return.

What does this mean for daily Bible reading with our kids? It means if we’re trying to help them understand any part of the biblical storyline, we must give them a sense of how that part connects to the major character—and great climax—of that big story.

6. Let Bible reading lead to prayer.

Listening to kids who are learning to pray can be humorous. If yours are anything like mine, their prayers can be hilarious in their simplicity and self-focus. God has heard prayers in our home for dogs, movies, imaginary people, and, of course, coveted toys.

If we’re honest, though, our children’s prayers often are really just “kid versions” of our own. We can easily resort to praying only for our needs and wants, rather than spending time praising and adoring God, and asking for his Spirit’s work in the lives of others. One way to grow in our prayer lives, then, is to intentionally tether our prayers to our reading. We can help our kids “talk back” to God daily, based on the ways he’s speaking to them through the Scriptures.

Parents, press on. Daily, prayer-fueled exposure to the Word of God is the best gift we can ever give our kids.

Reprinted from The Gospel Coalition, Inc.. Copyright 2017 Find the original article here at https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/6-ways-to-teach-your-kids-the-bible

It has always been a struggle for me to move the knowledge of the Scriptures from the head (intellect) to the heart. I want to feel close to God, but there are many times I read the Scriptures and still feel distant. This article has helped me in very practical ways to move towards a deeper relationship with God. Hope this helps you as well.

In Christ,
Brandon H.

Five Strategies for Avoiding Intellectualism

Interview with John Piper Topic: Study & Scholarship

[Audio Transcript] Pastor John, you have, for years stressed an approach to Reformed theology that is both hard-thinking and deep-feeling. Each of us will tend to fall on one side or the other, either an anti-intellectual feeling, or an anti-feeling intellectualism. Both are to be avoided. In today’s question, a listener wants to know this: “Dear Pastor John, in your 30+ years of ministry, what have you practically done to avoid mere intellectualism — cold academic study — in your Bible reading and in your exposition?”

1) The first thing I would say is that I need to be, we need to be, deeply persuaded that this really, really matters: this non-cold, non-intellectualistic, warm, practical, affectionate relation to the living Christ. We need to be persuaded. This really matters because there are a lot of people out there — I keep bumping into them — there are a lot of people out there who either for personality reasons or sometimes theological reasons think it doesn’t matter what your emotions do. That is, they think emotions are the caboose at the end of the train. They are just not essential at all. And it sounds like the person who wrote this question is persuaded that they matter, and it might be good to ask why. And here is my reason.

The first and greatest commandment is not to know the Lord our God — which is, of course, assumed — but to love the Lord your God. And that includes with all your heart (Matthew 22:36–37). And Paul says at the end of 1 Corinthians: If you don’t love the Lord you are accursed (1 Corinthians 16:22). Love the Lord. And Jesus says, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:37). In other words, the love that we must have isn’t just a kind of dutiful, commandment-keeping love. That is not what you have for your kids, nor your parents. It is the deepest, heartfelt, affectionate, relative kind of love, the kind we have for mother and father and son and daughter — only more, more for Jesus. And if we don’t have it, we are not worthy of Jesus.

So, this is the first thing I would say. We must be totally, John Piper must be totally persuaded that knowing God truly without loving him duly is eternally deadly, deadly. I must be persuaded of that. So, I am trembling at the thought that I could go about my academic work or my scholarly work or my writing work or preaching work or study work in some kind of cold frame with no awakened love for God, affection for God. So, the quest for overcoming what he is referring to as intellectualism is a life and death battle. That is the first thing.

2) The second thing I would say is that we should therefore read all things — Scripture and everything else, especially the word; the Scripture, but also the world and everything in it — we should read everything on the lookout for evidences of God’s value, not just evidences of his truth. The devil owns that God is true and probably knows more true things about God than we do. But the devil will not own that God is supremely valuable and supremely satisfying. The devil values himself above God. God’s presence gives no joy and no satisfaction to the devil whatsoever.

Therefore, our aim in reading the Bible should not be demonic. We are not aiming to rise just to the level of the devil. Our aim is, of course, to see what is really there, what is true about God — but always more, always more; namely, with a view to feeling what is valuable about God, treasuring the treasure that God is. The aim is to see the millions of reasons why God is a treasure, not just the millions of evidences that God exists or has certain attributes. All of our theological refinement should be for the sake of doxological embrace and enjoyment. This affects the way you read. This is what I try to do. I try to read. You read on the lookout for evidences of value, evidences of preciousness, evidences that he is beautiful and sweet and satisfying.

Peter says in 1 Peter 2:1–3, “Long for the pure, spiritual milk” — and I think he means the milk of the word — “that by it you may grow up into salvation — if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.” What is the point of that if: if you have tasted? The point is that all the drinking in the world without tasting will not grow us up into salvation. The aim of drinking the word is tasting the Savior. It is the tasting that is the nutritional encounter with the living God that grows us up into salvation. So, that is the second thing I would say. In all of our reading, be on the lookout for evidences of God’s value, not just evidences of his truth.

3) Which leads now to the third thing that I would say, namely, that the goal of valuing or treasuring or feeling the preciousness of or enjoying the beauty of God in all of our reading confronts me immediately with the impossibility on my part of making it happen. You can’t make yourself value God. You can make yourself read. You can make yourself list off attributes of God that you see. You can make yourself list of ways that God behaves. But you can’t make yourself feel how wonderful they are. That is why the psalmist cries: Open my eyes that I may see wonders in your Word (Psalm 119:18).

So, the third point is: Pray, pray, pray. And we pray not only for illumination to see what is really there about God, but to feel. We pray Psalm 90:14, “Satisfy [me] in the morning with your steadfast love.” Why in the world would the psalmist pray that, except that the human heart doesn’t naturally feel it when it hears and sees the beauties of God? God has to work this. We ask God to make us satisfied in God. So, prayer is absolutely essential not only that my eyes would be open, but that my affections would be awakened.

4) The fourth thing I would say is that, beyond the Bible, I read authors who have understood God deeply and felt him mightily and expressed both the understanding and the feeling with clarity and power. For me, that has been mainly Jonathan Edwards and John Owen and C.S. Lewis and the Puritans. You need to find the great seers of God and the great lovers of God and the great expressers of the seeing and the loving, so that they can feed your soul with true and large affections.

I know you, Tony, would put John Newton in that category and so would I — kind of a latter-day Puritan who saw things deeply and expressed things beautifully and felt things deeply. So that is number four.

5) And then, finally, I would say: Open your mouth and bear witness to family and friends and neighbors and colleagues to the beauty of God and your joy in him. It is precisely in giving expression to our joy that intensifies the joy itself. A shared joy is a doubled joy. God loves mission. God loves witness. God loves sharing. God loves loving people. And he does not love hoarding. Therefore, when we turn on our affections and express them to other people, God is pleased and our joy is intensified.

So, those are my five strategies against cold intellectualism. There are lots more strategies, but maybe that is enough to set the trajectory of discovery.

John Piper (@JohnPiper) is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of more than 50 books, including A Peculiar Glory.

Lauren Schaefer has been attending Calvary Baptist Church since 2011 and resides in Fort Worth, TX with her son Tevyn. Lauren regularly volunteers in the Boulevard (preschool age) and Park (nursery) areas of Kid City. When she's not cheering on her son's team (Go Eagles!) or serving her church, Lauren enjoys entertaining, game nights with friends, and DIY projects.

Community

In March of 2015 God blessed me with a new home. Before it was even mine I knew I wanted use it to serve Him. I didn't know how I'd do that but I figured I could host an event like the youth during D-now weekend or a life group. It wasn't long before God put it on my heart to foster children and I chose to trust His plan. As I was moving in and getting settled, I hung a sign in the front room with a verse from the book of Joshua that reads "as for me and my house we will serve the Lord". Almost immediately Satan started putting obstacles in the way.

Everything that could go wrong did; plumbing, heating, you name it. Then when I began the process of becoming a foster parent, Satan attacked me even harder. He told me I was crazy. He told me I couldn't do what God was leading me to do. One specific thing Satan said was “You can't even afford to fix your fence. What makes you think you could afford another mouth to feed? How do you think you're going to be able to do this?” I tried my best to ignore him and clung to God's word, hoping He would drown Satan out, but I didn't hear anything.

It was during the prayer request portion of my life group meeting that I found the strength to share what I was going through. This group of ladies, that I believe God stitched together, prayed over me and encouraged me throughout the week.

At the very next life group meeting, one of the men in my life group came up to me and said. "Saturday morning at 9:00 a.m. we'll be at your house to fix your fence."

I was taken back,"What?"

He repeated himself.

"I will be at a work conference out of town"

"Well, can we get in the back yard?", he asked.

I replied, "Yes, but..."

"But what?"

"But I don't have any money."

He said "Don't worry about it. We'll figure it out."

I shook my head and said "What do you mean we'll figure it out?"

And he walked away.

Saturday morning came and by the time I got home from my conference they guys were already halfway done. But it wasn't until the next day when the “God moment” came. I was on my way to Church and one of the guys text me and asked "Do you hear God now?" It was like a two-by-four to the head and I broke into tears almost instantly. I had become so focused on trying to hear God through His Word, that I missed Him speaking to me through this group of people!

Community, life groups, are about developing closer connections with people who will circle around you, who know when you're feeling overwhelmed, and they will help you. If you feel like you can’t do something, they'll step in and encourage you. People to say, “Hey, you might not be able to do that right now, but I will help you! What do you need?” Without a doubt, there's a big reason that community and fellowship with your brothers and sisters in Christ is important. Just seeing God and hearing God work through this group of people absolutely impacts my walk with Jesus.

This week I'd like to share an article that lays out some practical ways you can read the Bible for personal application. I'm sure you can relate to experiences I have had in which I have read a passage of Scripture and thought of very little I could apply to my life. Even when I found passages that were applicable, I often struggled as to whether it applied to me, or just to those it was written to.

My hope in sharing this article is that we as a church would desire to grow in our understanding of how the Bible speaks to us. The steps mentioned in this article are not a "cure all" to understanding the Bible, but they are helpful tools in deepening understanding. Let it be our prayer that the Holy Spirit would reveal the truth of the Word of God to us and that we become whole-hearted followers of Jesus Christ!

In Christ,
Brandon H.

5 Ways to Read the Bible for Personal Application by Joe Carter

The Bible is a book about God, not a book about us. And yet as Paul says, everything in the Bible was written for us:The Bible is a book about God, not a book about us. And yet as Paul says, everything in the Bible was written for us:

For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope. (Roman 15:4, NIV)

How can the Bible be about God and yet be written to teach us? As David Powlison explains,

The Bible was written to others—but speaks to you. The Bible is about God—but draws you in. Your challenge is always to reapply Scripture afresh, because God’s purpose is always to rescript your life.

When we reapply Scripture to our own lives, the Holy Spirit is re-scripting our lives so that we may become more like Jesus.

What Spiritual Formation Is (And Is For)

Every day we are becoming either more like Jesus or less like him. The direction we move is largely up to us, for we don't drift into Christ-likeness. Becoming more like Jesus takes effort and intention; it takes spiritual formation.

Christ-like spiritual formation is the name for that process by which Christians in union with Christ and guided by the Holy Spirit, become conformed both internally and externally to the character of Christ for the purpose of communion with God.

Learning how to personally apply the Bible to our own lives is therefore essential to our spiritual formation.

How then do we personally apply the Bible to our own lives? We generally apply the Bible through five ways:

1. Direct commands

The most obvious passages for personal application are those in which God gives direct commands. For example, Jesus’s command to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt 5:43) is not an optional requirement. When we find such clear, direct commands in Scripture we know they are intended to directly “re-script” our lives.

2. General truths

Scripture frequently provides general truths that are broadly applicable to a variety of situations, and then leaves it to us to discern how they should be applied. In Matthew 22:21, Jesus says to give back to “Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” Rather than giving us a list of what belongs to God and what is due the government, Jesus expects us to use godly wisdom to apply this general rule and work out the details for ourselves.

3. Direct analogy

There are many issues of controversy and concern in the modern age that are not directly mentioned in the Bible. In some circumstances, though, we can personally apply Biblical principles to situations that are similar to those mentioned in the Bible.

In his essay “The Place of Scripture in Christian Ethics,” James Gustafson states the commonly accepted method of scriptural analogy:

Those actions of persons and groups are to be judged morally wrong which are similar to actions that are judged to be wrong or against God's will under similar circumstances in Scripture, or are discordant with actions judged to be right or in accord with God's will in Scripture.

(For an example of how to apply direct analogies, see this article.)

4. Indirect analogy

We apply Scripture through indirect analogy when a passage teaches us by example rather than through a stated rule. This is the old-fashioned “Sunday school morality” in which we look to the Old Testament narratives to learn how we should or should not act. For example, in the story of the attempted seduction of Joseph by Potiphar’s wife, we learn to flee from sexual sin and adultery (Gen 39:7-12).

We must be careful, though, not to think the personal application that can derived from such stories is the primary purpose of the narrative. Although Joseph’s actions were a godly example, they resulted in his being thrown in prison — a situation that God used to carry out his larger purposes. Whenever we apply the Bible indirectly, we need to keep in mind the key truth that the while the Bible is for us it is not about us, but about God.

5. Indirect extension

The vast majority of Scripture is composed of neither direct commands nor generally applicable truths. Take, for instance, the various lists of names and genealogies found in the Old Testament. How do we apply those passages to our own lives? As Powlison says,

In one sense, such passages apply exactly because they are not about you. Understood rightly, such passages give a changed perspective. They locate you on a bigger stage. They teach you to notice God and other people in their own right. They call you to understand yourself within a story—many stories—bigger than your personal history and immediate concerns. They locate you within a community far wider than your immediate network of relationships. And they remind you that you are always in God’s presence, under his eye, and part of his program.

The “endurance” and “encouragement” Paul refers to comes from reading the Old Testament and understanding that we are part of God’s story. We can see the promises God made to his people, see how he was always faithful, and be encouraged to endure knowing that he will likewise always be faithful to us.

Application Is for Spiritual Formation

Whether directly or indirectly, by analogy or by extension, the entire Bible is personally applicable to our lives. How it applies may not always seem obvious, of course. But if we seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit the Father will not only open our eyes so that we may reapply his Word, he will use it to re-script our lives to make us more like his Son.

Editors’ note: This is an except from Joe Carter’s new work, the NIV Lifehacks Bible: Practical Tools for Successful Spiritual Habits (Zondervan, 2016).

Faith | Hope | Love

6 Ways to Teach Your Kids the Bible by Jon Nielson