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From My Editing Work: The Cross and Resurrection

From Galations: A Participatory Study Guide, p. 9: Paul’s words gave the Galatians hope for transformation and they are hopeful to us, too.  Jesus Christ frees us from bondage.  The external world may not immediately change, but the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ frees us from guilt, fear, anxiety, and hopelessness.  God acts in…

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From My Editing Work: The Bible Comes Alive

From page xvii of Galatians: A Participatory Study Guide by Bruce Epperly — When we encounter scripture with heart, mind, and hands, the Bible comes alive and changes our lives and communities.  We become the Galatians of our time, reveling in Christian freedom and living in the Spirit.  We discover that God’s liberating Word, incarnate…

Ecclesiastes: A Participatory Study Guide
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Starting Ecclesiastes in Sunday School

While I was off teaching Revelation elsewhere, my Sunday School class at First United Methodist Church of Pensacola studied from Harvey Brown’s new book Forgiveness: Finding Freedom from Your Past. Harvey’s book is just 40 pages (it’s in our Topical Line Drives series, and that’s the limit), and we discovered just how many questions can…

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On Publishing Philippians: A Participatory Study Guide

This post will contain reflections both on the recently released Philippians study guide and the series of which it is a part. I generally write such reflections after each book my company releases. So be warned—there are products discussed here! When I first created this blog I was the only author in the participatory study…

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Philippians: Two Groups That Threaten Community

I haven’t blogged much, recently and I may go back and look at some earlier, lessons, but I wanted to quote something we’ll be looking at in class this morning. This comes from the forthcoming study guide to Philippians by Bruce Epperly. He has just described two groups, the first those identified in 1 Corinthians…

Making Prayer Happen

Laura at Pursuing Holiness is blogging about prayer and what keeps us from praying as much as we should. She has some excellent thoughts, and in particular she mentions what I think is the most important point: Another problem with prayer is that we so often, after a discussion where someone has shared a need…