The problem of false teachers comes up in several New Testament books. Christ predicted them, and they quickly became a plague on the early church. One book gives very practical guidance on how to respond to this situation, but it can be easy to get lost in the weeds and not really see what we’re getting.
When we talk about Bible study, I think we usually picture digging deep into the text, looking at the minutia like verb tenses or repeated terms or doing a word study. Taking a microscope to scripture is important. But so is getting a macro view. I recently shared several resources that talked about outlining. Outlining is not cool, and you don’t need high powered tools to do it. But I want to share an example of how it can open up a passage to us.
You don’t have to be an astronomy buff to love the stars. Most people, when they take the time to look at the night sky, are grabbed by the beauty and the scale. We now know there are billions of stars in each of billions of galaxies. Some, though, are put off by that. Why so much? What’s the purpose of all that empty space? If there is no other life in the universe — or even if there is — why do we need so many stars?
We look around at this world and see so much sickness and heartache. It’s natural to ask, where is the power that was so active in the Bible? Miracles were happening left and right back then. What changed?
Let’s take a look at a blink-and-you’ll-miss it passage that may shed a little light on this and give us a new perspective.
You ever have one of those dreams where your friend turns into a monster and attacks you? Um, yeah ... me neither.
We go to the scriptures for comfort and guidance and to know our Lord better. When we study the Bible, our problem is usually things we don’t understand. But sometimes the scriptures seem to turn on you. What do we do with passages we think we understand but seem to call our cherished beliefs into question?
Today I’d like to share some things I’ve come across that help you dig into the scriptures while getting a bird’s eye view of the scriptures.
