Daniel has an interesting post on E-Merging suggesting that we view the Bible as a conversation. He says: In real conversations, one participant doesn’t just sit back and agree with everything being said. There are tensions and resolutions, and some questions are simply left unanswered. I think this is an excellent approach to Bible study…
Psalm 104 has a distinct message about God’s creation that has stuck with me strongly since I first studied the passage in graduate school. I have previously posted links to my prior study of the text and structure of this Psalm, done more than 25 years ago. I’m starting from that point now. When we…
The other day I was reading an article on the practice of prophetic ministry–I’m not going to say where; it was in print and not on the web–in which the author claimed that a prophet does not have to get it right. In fact, he said, a person with the gift of prophecy may get…
Since I’m talking so much about critical theories in my discussion of Genesis 1-11 (now on chapter 6), I wanted to call some attention to material I have already posted concerning Biblical criticism. The best starting point for this information is the following pamphlet from the Participatory Study Series: That pamphlet provides answers to some…
(Note: I’m going to introduce this passage as a whole, but when I do a verse by verse study, I’m going to divide it in two–12:1-4 and 12:5-12 simply for convenience.) If you follow the participatory study method, then you may notice that I’m presenting the last step first. You’ll find that this happens quite…
The Christian Carnival CXXXVIII has been posted and for the first time I’ve submitted an entry from this blog. Go! Read! Enjoy!
Paul at Grace rant . . . what? says he has gotten back to reading his Greek New Testament. I congratulate him on this spiritual discipline, and I do believe studying the Bible in its original languages can be a spiritual discipline, but I do think some of his additional thoughts deserve some reconsideration. He…
Very frequently in life, once you find out the right question to ask, the answer becomes obvious. You can waste a great deal of your time trying to find the answer to the wrong question. In Bible study, this is even more true. The question(s) you take into your study will frequently determine the answers…
One element of what I call the central loop (programming background comes out!) is “compare.” To review, the central loop involves: Meditate, Question, Research, Compare (Repeat as needed) This involves a very common principle, that scripture is its own best interpreter. It’s also called “comparing scripture with scripture.” But this process of comparison can be…
In the method of Bible study that I teach, the last element is sharing. Now sharing is last on the list because you have to dig into your Bible study in order to have something to share, but not because it is the least important. Recently I have been impressed again with how important sharing…
