Wednesday, July 6, 2005

Good Morning!

The new unit for this week is Unit 10 , The Centrality of Scripture

Focus Scripture for the Week: John 5:39

You search the scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life, and it is they that testify on my behalf.

Today's topic: Acts 17:10-15

-- today's scripture is about one of the uses of scripture, which is for our own use in evaluating preaching and teaching that we hear. In this example, the people of Berea were listening to Paul making the case for Jesus as the fulfillment of the Old Testament scriptures, and the people made it there point to read their scriptures and come to their own conclusion about whether Paul's teachings were true.

-- for us to use scripture in this way, we need to be familiar with scripture, which is another reason why we should read regularly, if not daily. It is easy to be deceived by a narrow reading of one particular passage of scripture if we don't know that it is a very narrow reading from our own experience and knowledge.

-- the Bible is a big book, and it can be intimidating to think that our charge is to become familiar with all of it. That kind of thinking can freeze us into not reading at all, since it seems an overwhelming task. But doing what we are doing in this class -- first with the study of Luke we finished this spring, and now with this study -- is the exact way to approach it -- bit by bit, consistently studying parts until, over time, we have studied most of it.

-- the important thing is not speed in which we read through the Bible, but the consistency of our effort and the quality of the time that we spend with that part which we read. Wesley, in his first section, gives us some pointers on how to approach our reading.

Today's prayer request: Family of one of Michelle Ray's co-workers.

Two people drowned at Smith Lake over the 4th holiday, and one of them was the long time boyfriend of the daughter of one of Michelle's co-workers. We need to pray for all of the families involved.

Today's class member prayer:

Jay Waters

Have a great day.

Jay