For the past several months, we've been discussing the different guides God has given us for our spiritual journeys.
They are: community, the Bible, and the Holy Spirit.
We spent a lot of time discussing community - how it guides us, why it is important, how we express it, how to avoid breaking it, etc.
Now we are looking at the Bible as our guide. The first week, we talked about the Bible as a story. Often, in our western mindsets, we read the Bible as a manual or as a set of propositional truths. Many people read verses without ever understanding them within the context of the Biblical story. The Bible is ONE BIG STORY! It is God's story. It is our story. Remember, when you approach the Bible, don't read it like a manual; read it like a story - and let it inform and guide you as a story.
Last time, we looked at some of the history of the Bible - how it was put together and who wrote it. We pretended that the Bible was our friend, and we wrote down frustrations that we had with it. We also briefly discussed Biblical interpretation.
Tonight, we will look more in depth at how to interpret the Bible. We will actually walk through a few verses and learn how to do an exegesis of a passage of scripture. My goal is not to make the Bible harder to read, but to help us to see how important it is to read the Bible in a deeper way. It can be frustrating to read the Bible when we don't understand what it is saying! I believe Satan is in the business of keeping us away from our Bibles as much as he possibly can.
So let's not give up! Let's press into God and keep exploring this wonderful book. God gave it to us to guide us and to teach us and to show us who He is.
This upcoming Wednesday, August 29th, we're going to the Boardwalk! If you bring a Pepsi can, you can get unlimited rides for $9.99.
