Daily Devotions: Five Reasons

In a post at entitled “Devotions Aren’t Magic” Jon Bloom writes,

We know that [devotions aren't magic]…But still, we can be tempted to think that if we just figure out the secret formula—the right mixture of Bible meditation and prayer—we will experience euphoric moments of rapturous communion with the Lord. And if that doesn’t happen, our formula must be wrong.

He then lists five reasons daily devotions are crucial to progress in the Christian life even if our devotional experiences seems rather ordinary.

1. Soul Exercise
2. Soul Shaping
3. Bible Copiousness
4. Fight Training
5. Delight Cultivation

I encourage you to read the entire post for Jon’s explanation of each point.

Preaching from the Fourth Gospel

In the introductory material of his commentary on The Gospel According to John, D.A. Carson includes a helpful section on preaching from the fourth Gospel. Carson reminds preachers and Bible teachers that John’s Gospel is about Jesus; his person and work and “his place in the sweep of redemptive history”. He then remarks,

“…John’s stated purpose in composing the Fourth Gospel is not that his readers might believe, but that his readers might believe that the Christ, the Son of God, is Jesus, and that in believing they might have life in his name. To hammer away at the urgency of belief without pausing to think through what it is John wants his readers to believe and whom it is he wants them to trust is to betray the Gospel of John. Preaching from the Gospels is above all an exercise in the exposition and application of Christology (102, emphasis in the original).

Standing Firm in the Grace of God

Recently one of our church’s interns, Matthew Seymour, a student at Westminster Seminary California, preached an excellent sermon on suffering from I Peter 4:12-19. Matthew helpfully summarized how we’re to understand passages that deal with suffering and persecution.

We may not face trials and suffering on the same level of physical intensity that our brothers and sisters do around the world. However there is a wider sense in which Peter’s words apply to every situation in our lives. We experience a trial any time when our faith is tested and proved true. We suffer when we feel the effects of sin in our work, relationships and our own bodies.

Peter wants to prepare these believers to stand firm in trials and suffering and so he gives them a ‘vaccination shot’ of a biblical theology of trials and suffering. Whether or not we are facing trials and suffering at this present moment, we need right thinking now so that we will respond with right responses in the future.

You can listen to or download the sermon here. It will be well worth your time.

Tools for Studying the Text of Scripture

One of my goals this year is to study the book of Ephesians in-depth (I’m beginning to think I’ll need/want to continue the study beyond 2009). After having done some background reading on the author, recipients, and historical setting, as well as familiarizing myself with the epistle as a whole, I’m now at a place where I’m ready to examine actual paragraphs or units of thought.

One of the crucial steps in studying a portion of Scripture is analyzing the structure or flow of the text. A great way to do this is by creating a “sentence flow” schematic. It’s a method for visualizing the flow of thought in your text by means of aligning, indenting, and subordinating the phrases/clauses in the text. I’ve found Gordon Fee’s New Testament Exegesis: A Handbook for Students and Pastors to be very helpful on this topic. The chapter on structural analysis, with plenty of sentence flow examples, can be found on Google Book Search here.

A related method for examining the structure of a biblical text is called “arcing”. BibleArc.com is the place to go on the web to learn about arcing. The site contains some great tutorials and even has tools to enable you to create, save, and share your own arcs with other users of the site.

I’ll be sure to post links to more resources as I come across them.

Recommended: Paul and First-Century Letter Writing

I recently finished reading Paul and First-Century Letter Writing: Secretaries, Composition, and Collection by E. Randolph Richards. The book challenges a number of common assumptions about Paul as a letter writer by drawing on what is known about letter writing in the first century as well as evidence internal to Paul’s letters. As the title indicates, Richards spends a considerable amount of time addressing the role of secretaries in the composition of the epistles of Paul.

I found the book to be interesting and well written. Richards’ arguments and conclusions have aided and enhanced my understanding and appreciation of a large portion of the New Testament. If you’re at all interested in New Testament and Pauline studies I recommend getting a copy of Paul and First-Century Letter Writing.

Reading and Study Plans for 2009

2009 is here and there are a few reading/study projects I plan to engage in throughout the year.

Reading

• The Bible – I’ve attempted to read through the entire Bible each year for the last 10 years. Some years I was successful and others I was less so. I’ve discovered that I don’t do well with most of the Bible reading plans I’ve tried. Some of the plans require too much reading per day while others require too little. This year I’m using the Bible Reading Record (download PDF) from bulletininserts.org. I first tried this tool in 2008. It’s simply a list of each book of the Bible along with the chapter numbers. I find that it provides an easy way for me to keep track of what I’ve read. I typically work through both the Old and New Testaments at the same time.
• Institutes of the Christian Religion (John Calvin) – I’ve read various parts of the Institutes in the past, but never the entire 2 volumes. I’ll be following the reading plan made available at Reformation 21.
• A few books in the New Testament studies category – I’ve already started Paul and First-Century Letter Writing by E. Randolph Richards. Jesus and the Eyewitnesses by Richard Bauckham is also on my list.

Study

• New Testament Greek – I want to work my way through A New Testament Greek Primer by Dr. Steven Baugh of Westminster Seminary California. I worked on the first several lessons a few years ago, but this time around I plan to complete the entire primer.
• The Book of Ephesians – I’ve studied Ephesians numerous times, but plan to spend the entire year mining its depths.

There are other books I want to read and topics I would like to study, but the items listed above should keep me sufficiently busy in addition to my family, church, and work responsibilities.