Create a Banquet: Preaching the Word for Spiritual Nourishment
Preaching the Word for spiritual nourishment … Create a banquet. Writing experts say half the struggle is getting people to read your writing. They also say that a good title is everything. This may be true. When I saw The Hottest Thing at Church is Not Your Pastor or Worship Leader, the title of a Christianity […]
Engaging the Bible Relationally: Deepening Your Connection With God Through His Word
Engaging the Bible relationally … Many people engage with the Bible to know more. They study the Bible to learn about faith, God, morality and how to live their lives. Gaining information and growing in knowledge about the Bible is the desired end. An informational approach to the Bible is largely borne out of the […]
Bible Engagement Basics Review
Bible Engagement Basics review: If I am honest, sometimes … actually, maybe MOST times, the Bible is hard work. It’s hard work getting the motivation to read it, to bridge the gap between the world of the original writers and recipients and mine, and to try and make sense of it through my 21st-century worldview. […]
Why Repentance Matters: Embracing Every Word of Scripture
Embracing every word of Scripture … Why “repent” is a key biblical word we can’t ignore. Maybe I’m not listening too well, but it seems to me that even from our pulpits, some key biblical words are barely mentioned today. One of those words is “repent.” I’m not surprised that I rarely hear the word […]
How to Understand and Apply the Bible
How to understand and apply the Bible … For the Bible to apply to our lives, it must be understandable. To understand the Bible we need to know how to study it. To study the Bible we need a tried and tested methodology. Here’s a thumbnail sketch of how to understand and apply the Bible: […]
State of the Bible 2017
State of the Bible 2017 … Since 2011, the Barna Group has conducted an annual survey concerning the state of the Bible in the USA. The survey is commissioned by the American Bible Society and aims to gather insights into the multifaceted relationship that Americans have with God’s Word. This year’s findings revealed the following: […]
Reading the Bible Publicly
Reading the Bible publicly … If you sit in an average church service on an average Sunday, you’ll probably hear an average reading of God’s Word. That’s heartbreaking. Lacklustre public reading of the Scriptures is a discredit to God’s people and a slight to God! An average reading of God’s Word isn’t good enough. When […]
The Theme Of The Bible
A grand theme. The theme of the Bible is not a principle, concept, set of values, ethics to be learned, spiritual sayings, collection of doctrines, snapshots of God, or a storehouse of propositions. The theme of the Bible is a person to be known. While there are many sub-themes in the Bible – like justice, […]
Praying the Scriptures
Do you sometimes feel like God doesn’t hear your prayers? Are you praying the same hackneyed supplications over and over again? Do you lack confidence when you pray? Are you sometimes unsure what or how to pray in certain situations? Are your prayers mainly about your family, friends, health, work, or wealth? Would you like […]
Interpreting the Bible
Interpreting the Bible … “If the Bible is indeed God’s Word written, we should spare no pains and grudge no effort to discover what he has said (and says) in Scripture” John R.W. Stott. So, how do we interpret the Bible accurately so that it’s not just our opinion? What are the basic hermeneutical guidelines? […]