Resources to Reading Through the Bible

Books

• Dr. George Gutherie, Read the Bible for Life (B&H Books)
• J. Scott Duvall and J. Daniel Hays, Grasping God’s Word (Zondervan)
• Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart, How To Read the Bible for All Its Worth (Zondervan)
• Howard G. Hendricks and William D. Hendricks, Living by the Book (Moody)
• Kay Arthur, How to Study Your Bible (Harvest House)
• David Dockery, The Holman Bible Handbook (Holman)
• I. Howard Marshall, A.R. Millard, J.I. Packer, and D.J. Wiseman, New Bible Dictionary (InterVarsity Press)
• Brian S. Rosner, T. Desmond Alexander, Carson Goldsworthy, New Dictionary of Biblical Theology(InterVarsity Press)
• Raymond Dillard and Tremper Longman, An Introduction to the Old Testament (Zondervan)
• D.A. Carson and Douglas J. Moo, An Introduction to the New Testament (Zondervan)
• Edward Goodrick and John Kohlenberger III, eds., Zondervan NIV Exhaustive Concordance(Zondervan)
• W.E. Vine, M.F. Unger, and W. White, Jr., eds., Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words (Thomas A. Nelson)
• Thomas Brisco, Holman Bible Atlas (Holman)
• Logos Bible Software
• Expositors Bible Commentary (Zondervan), Available on CD-ROM.
• G.J. Wenham, J.A. Motyer, D.A. Carson, and R.T. France, New Bible Commentary (InterVarsity Press), Available on CD-ROM
• Warren Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary (Chariot Victor Publishing), Available on CD-ROM

The First Step is a Big One

Acts 9:6

"Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do."

Thoughts for Today:

The Lord's first word of instruction to Saul was -- "Now." I think this is really significant because the timing of when we choose to take the first step (the beginning point of following the Lord's direction) -- has a lot to do with the impact that a conversion experience will have upon us. The danger is that the longer we wait the less motivated we become. We can begin to rationalize, for example: "He didn't really mean now, there's a lot of loose ends I need to tie up first." We might even look for an alternative explanation "Maybe that wasn't the Lord I met. Maybe the light was lightning and the voice was just thunder." Whatever the situation, the decision of when to get started is always -- "now."

The Lord's next words, "get up and go... and you will be told what you must do," should be underlined and highlighted in all of our Bibles for they are the key to understanding the concepts of discipleship, faith, and righteousness. These concepts can appear difficult and complicated. However, they are really very simple when expressed as: "get up and go... and you will be told what you must do." The complications jump in when we think too much. Too often we want more control and greater detail, for example "Where exactly do you want me to go?', "What exactly do you want me to do when I get there?" or "What should I take with me -- do I need to pickup something on the way?"

In the military, one of the purposes of boot camp is to prepare independent young men and women to take orders without question or explanation. On the battlefield if the sergeant yells "hit the ground" a new recruit might get killed by enemy fire if he or she pauses to ask for more information of what ground to hit, or a more detailed explanation of the danger. The same can be true for us as we face the trials and tribulations of the spiritual boot camp we call life -- do we hesitate or obey? All too often we look back at an event and say "It would have turned out so much better if I had only listened to the Lord!"

Questions to Ponder:

When the Lord says, "Get up and go," how do you respond? How do you express in your life the concepts of discipleship, faith, and righteousness? Faith is doing something even though you don't know how it will turn out. When was the last time you stepped out in faith? Are you willing to follow the Lord right now, and then wait for His next instruction?

Give Us Ears to Hear and a Heart to Heed

Is God Motivating or Moving You to Where He Wants You to Be?

Acts 8:1b

"On that day a great persecution broke out against the church at Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria."

Thoughts for Today:

I wonder -- when everyone was running for their lives as a result of a "great persecution against the church at Jerusalem" -- if anyone remembered Jesus last instructions? Matthew 28:19 "...go make disciples of all nations...." Mark 16:15 "...go into the world and preach the good news to all creation..." or Acts 1:8 "...you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." Rarely do we -- when we are in the middle of a crisis, disaster or run for our lives -- realize that God sometimes uses significant events to not only get our attention, but also to motivate us. Remember from our earlier study how God might use challenges in our lives not necessarily to teach us something, but to put us in a new place where we can fulfill His plan.

How quickly do you think the church would have spread to the surrounding regions without persecution? Without a high level of motivation the church probably would have stayed predominantly in Jerusalem and eventually become stagnant. Most of you have heard the illustration of a grasshopper placed in a jar with the lid on. At first the grasshopper keeps jumping, banging its head on the lid of the jar. Eventually it learns and doesn't' jump as high, so much so that the lid can be taken off of the jar and the grasshopper will not jump out of the jar. How do you get the grasshopper to leave the jar? You have to turn its world (the jar) upside down!

It is the same for us. Sometimes we can get so comfortable doing what we're doing that we don't realize the consequences or destination of the path we are on. We think everything is just fine. God knows better. Other times God wants us to grow or serve in another area -- so He speaks to us -- gently at first, eventually with greater emphasis. My greatest prayer is to have "circumcised" ears and heart, that I might hear God's voice, be sensitive to His will, and obey His direction -- without needing a major crisis or other potentially disastrous event to correct my course.

Questions to Ponder:

Not everything we experience in life has a clear purpose or meaning. You can make yourself crazy trying to understand why something happened and what it is supposed to mean to you or someone else. Sometimes things are beyond our understanding until after the event has occurred and we have the benefit of looking back. However, there will be other times when things just don't make sense from any point of view -- except God's. This is where faith kicks in -- when you are running for your life -- that is the true test of faith and is my prayer for you and for me -- "May we know the peace and love of God that surpasses all our understanding." Is God moving or motivating you right now? Is it time to stop resisting or trying to understand, and just let God take you where He wants you to go?

A Devotion from The Pocket Testament League

You can subscribe to these devotions via email.

Look Up

5 Ways to Not Be Like Gollum

Ben Reed —  January 10, 2013  This is a blog post by Ben Reed.  Check out his blog.

http://www.benreed.net/index.php/author/benlreed/

 

You’ve heard of Gollum, from The Lord of the Rings, right? That weasely, sneaky, under-handed nasty thief whose sole focus in life was the Ring. He didn’t start out that way. He started out as a curious, “quiet-footed” hobbit. Check out a bit of his backstory.

Gollum’s downward gaze shaped who he became. Instead of letting his curiosity help him explore the beauties of God, he let it drive him into the dark places. Smeagol became Gollum because he didn’t “look up.”
Curiosity is a gift from God…until you let it lead you to dark places. Instead of your curiosity looking for shadows of hope and grace scattered throughout the earth, it can lead you to search in dark corners of self-pity, self-hate and loneliness. Curiosity can lead you to your sin, your “dark places.”
When your gaze is always “downward,” you’re setting yourself up for a life where you’ll be dominated by your shame, guilt, and failures. Gollum is the prototypical person who is fully aware of their “thing,” their addiction, their “thorn in the flesh,” and who has made their life, and everyone else’s, revolve around that addiction. Gollum is so marked by his addiction that his whole existence revolves around it, and like a vortex he has sucked other people into his pain.
Time to look up.

²⁶ Look up into the heavens.
Who created all the stars?
He brings them out like an army, one after another,
calling each by its name.
Because of his great power and incomparable strength,
not a single one is missing.
²⁷ O Jacob, how can you say the Lord does not see your troubles?
O Israel, how can you say God ignores your rights?
²⁸ Have you never heard?
Have you never understood?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of all the earth.
He never grows weak or weary.
No one can measure the depths of his understanding.
²⁹ He gives power to the weak
and strength to the powerless.
³⁰ Even youths will become weak and tired,
and young men will fall in exhaustion.
³¹ But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength.
They will soar high on wings like eagles.
They will run and not grow weary.
They will walk and not faint.

How do you take positive steps away from your sin, and help ensure that your addiction and recovery don’t become your identity? How do you make sure you don’t consume others in your road to health? How do you ensure you’re not dominated by your guilt, shame, and fear?

6 Ways to Not Be Like Gollum

1. Get outside. Enjoy the beauty of God’s creation. As you do, you’ll find the dark places of your heart a bit brighter. (Isaiah 40:26)
2. Get outside. Remind yourself that there is a God…and that it’s not you. He’s all-powerful, you’re not. He knows all things…you don’t. He created the stars. You didn’t. (Isaiah 40:26-27)
3. Exercise. There’s something healing about working strenuous, physical activity into your routine. Growing physically weak reminds us that God’s strength is perfect. (Isaiah 40:29)
4. Serve someone else. Gollum served, and only thought about, himself. If you want to get out of your rut, do something for someone else, in a way that your favor can’t be “returned” back to you. Make life not about you.
5. Remind yourself of the times that God has loved you and breathed hope into your story. (Isaiah 40:27)
6. Trust in the Lord. (Isaiah 40:31) Easier said than done, though. Which is why you can’t do this on your own. Everything else can be done, just between you and God. But trusting in the Lord is too difficult to try to do by yourself. Bring someone else into your journey, and give them the freedom to speak hard, life-giving Truth into your story.

Check Out This Great Resource: Bible.org

If you are looking for more in-depth study of the Bible or just some Bible helps, Bible.org is a great resource and tool as you dig deeper in the Scripture.

I am very encouraged with our current study - Read the Bible for LIFE.  I have had many great testimonies shared with me, and to hear people talking about the Bible everyday with others is a blessing. My prayer is that as you grow in the Word God will place a passion, an excitement, and a hunger for the Word in you, and ultimately in the overflow, you will have to share it with someone.

The Word is alive and active, and it also imparts life to those who hear it, understand it, and respond to it.  The LORD is looking for people who will love Him, serve Him, and obey His Word.  May we get into the Word, and may the Word get into us!

LIFE: God's Gift

Taken from a blog post by Russell Moore from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.  Check out this blog and be blessed.

Why I Hate Sanctity of Human Life Sunday (and Why I Love It Too)

— WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 16TH, 2013 —

As we approach next week’s fortieth anniversary of the infamous Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, churches in my tradition will observe Sanctity of Human Life Sunday. I hate that we have to. Let me explain why.

Don’t get me wrong. I think it’s a joy to preach the whole counsel of God. And I love the truth of human dignity and the image of God in all persons. But it makes me sad.

I don’t hate Sanctity of Human Life Sunday because I think it, somehow, unbiblical. No, indeed. The entire canon throbs with God’s commitment to the fatherless and to the widows, his wrath at the shedding of innocent blood.

I don’t hate it because I think it’s inappropriate. Just as every Lord’s Day should be Easter, with the proclamation of the Resurrection of Jesus, and Christmas, with the announcement of the Incarnation, so every Lord’s Day should highlight the worth and dignity of human life.

I hate Sanctity of Human Life Sunday because I’m reminded that we have to say things to one another that human beings shouldn’t have to say. Mothers shouldn’t kill their children. Fathers shouldn’t abandon their babies. No human life is worthless, regardless of skin color, age, disability, economic status. The very fact that these things must be proclaimed is a reminder of the horrors of this present darkness.

One year on Sanctity of Human Life Sunday, as I opened the Bible to preach, I looked out and caught the eye of my sons. I prayed that their children wouldn’t have to hear a sermon against abortion and euthanasia. I prayed that my grandchildren and great-grandchildren would grow up in an age when abortion is, as the Feminists for Life organization put is some years ago, not just illegal but unthinkable.

I prayed for my (yet to be conceived but not yet to be conceived of) great-grandchildren that a Sanctity of Human Life Sunday would seem as unnecessary to them as a Reality of Gravity Emphasis Sunday.

I hate Sanctity of Human Life Sunday because I’m reminded that as I’m preaching there are babies warmly nestled in wombs who won’t be there tomorrow. I’m reminded that there are children, maybe even blocks from my pulpit, who’ll be slapped, punched, and burned with cigarettes before nightfall. I’m reminded that there are elderly men and women languishing away in loneliness, their lives pronounced to be a waste.

But I also love Sanctity of Human Life Sunday when I think about the fact that in our churches there are ex-orphans all around, adopted into loving families. I love to reflect on the men and women who serve every week in pregnancy centers for women in crisis. And I love to see men and women who have aborted babies find their sins forgiven, even this sin, and their consciences cleansed by Christ.

We’ll always need Christmas. We’ll always need Easter. But I hope, please Lord, someday soon, that Sanctity of Human Life Day is unnecessary.

A version of this article originally ran on January 18, 2009.  Check out this blog by Russell Moore from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY.  Why I Hate Sanctity of Human Life Sunday (and Why I Love It Too)

Bible Study Tools for iPhone, iPad, and Computer

For my personal study, I use Logos Bible Study Software which allows you to continually add to your library.  This is a paid program that works on a computer as well as tablets and iPhones.

They are offering a free download for iPhone along with 69 free books.  You can check out this link:  http://www.logos.com/iphone

Other free options are available.  Let me encourage you to check out the links on the right.  They will enrich your Bible Study.

Ed Stetzer - How Many Read the Bible Daily?

As you check out this article from Lifeway ( Ed Stetzer - New Research: Less Than 20% of Churchgoers Read the Bible Daily ), think about getting into God's Word ... Hear, Read, Study, Memorize, and Meditate.  How deep are you getting into the Word?

What can you do to get a little deeper?

Listening to God's Voice

What Does it Take to Get Your Attention

Acts 7:30b-31

"…an angel appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai. When he saw this, he was amazed at the sight. As he went over to look more closely, he heard the Lord's voice…."

Thoughts for Today:

Moses had spent 40 years in the desert during his period of self-imposed exile. Now the Lord decided it was time to get Moses attention -- to place him back in service. Notice the sequence of Moses' experience: he saw the burning bush, he was amazed at the sight, and he went over to look more closely.

Many times when we are in our own desert, we don't hear the Lord's voice because we are too consumed with our own thoughts -- so the Lord needs to get out attention. In Moses' case it was a burning bush -- something ordinary (a bush), that became extraordinary. It was amazing to him (after all it's not every day you see a burning bush in the middle of the desert), so he went over to check it out (the Lord got his attention).

Watch what came next: "he heard the Lord's voice." Once the Lord had Moses' attention -- Moses then heard the Lord's voice. This is a really important point to me. Many people think the key to this story is the burning bush (the miracle); I think the more important point is that God is always speaking to us -- it's just sometimes He needs to use rather dramatic means to get our attention so we hear him.

When I am watching a sporting event on television, my wife believes the house could be on fire, and it wouldn't be until the heat melted the remote control that it would get my attention. We men certainly have the ability to concentrate (my positive spin on her critique), and block out all distractions. Unfortunately, this same ability to insulate ourselves can also hurt us when God is trying to talk to us.

Questions to Ponder:

How does God get your attention? Does the house have to burn down? Sometimes the life changing events we experience (loss of a job, health issue, financial setback, family problem, etc.) are only necessary because we haven't been listening to God -- we've blocked Him out. Are you at all blocking God out of your life? Does He currently have your attention? What is He trying to tell you?

(Check out this great resource) 

Taken from a  The Pocket Testament League Devotional

Welcome to LIFE 2013 at Rocky Face

Welcome to a grand and new adventure as we explore the Word of God in the coming months!  Our theme and focus for the coming year at Rocky Face is LIFE ... Living In Fellowship Everyday.  The implication of LIFE is that it has a beginning.  As we understand the Bible, we know that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the LIFE and that no one comes to the Father but by Him.  As we enter into a personal relationship with Jesus by grace through faith, we are "born again" - we receive life and life abundant.

To learn more about Jesus and LIFE through Him, check out this website -- LIFE.

In the coming nine weeks, we will be exploring how to read and study the Bible.  At Rocky Face, we are offering a Teaching Time and Group Interaction on Sunday Nights at 6pm.  During the week, you can choose to use the Read the Bible for Life Workbook, which will provide you with five days of devotional and instructional material, and you can also choose to follow this blog for additional resources and questions.

These are the tracks you may choose for the next nine weeks:
Gold:    Teaching and Group/ Workbook/ Blog
Silver:   Teaching and Group/Workbook
Bronze: Teaching and Group

On Sunday, March 17, Dr. George Guthrie from Union University (the author of the material) will be with us at Rocky Face.  He will teach during the Bible Study hour at 9:45am (All the student and adult classes will meet in the sanctuary), preach during the 11am worship, and will participate in a lunch Question and Answer after the worship in the Fellowship Hall.  As you read and study, write down your questions -- this will be a great time and opportunity to ask.

The BIG Day is Easter when we kick-off reading the Bible together as a congregation.  Again, we will offer three tracks from which to choose.  We just ask that you take a step-up in your devotional life.