Here is a great article on a simple idea: getting together to read the Bible with your non-Christian friends. In her article Back to the Bible, author Laura T. De Gomez shares how she got started:

I’d heard through the grapevine that two coworkers . . . had expressed some interest in spiritual things. So I dropped by their office one day and said, “Hi! I’ve been meaning to ask you both: Would you be interested in reading the Bible with me?” They looked at each other, then back at me, and said yes.

I was surprised by their enthusiasm. When I didn’t get back to them as soon as they expected, they called me to find out when we could start!

From the beginning, they loved it. Their initial nervousness evolved into excitement as they discovered the Bible is relevant to everyday life. By the second or third week, they were captivated by Jesus. Within about eight weeks, they had a clear understanding of salvation by faith. That was eight years ago. Both continue to walk with Jesus today and remain my friends. And it all started with a simple invitation to read the Bible together.

De Gomez goes on to share some of the main lessons she has learned about reading the Bible with her nonbelieving friends:

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Some churches have stopped using the word ‘Lord’ to speak about God or Jesus. This comes from the Arizona Daily Star:

“‘Lord’ has become a loaded word conveying hierarchical power over things, which in what we have recorded in our sacred texts, is not who Jesus understood himself to be,” St. Philip’s associate rector Susan Anderson-Smith said. [from St. Philip’s in the Hills Church in Tucson, Arizona] …

St. Philip’s isn’t the only local church to re-examine its language. Other local religious leaders already are eschewing the use of “Lord” for similar reasons. First Congregational United Church of Christ in Midtown even has a different name for The Lord’s Prayer. They call it “The Prayer of Our Creator.” “We do still use the word ‘Lord’ on occasion, but we are suspicious of it,” First Congregational pastor Briget Nicholson said. …

St. Francis in the Foothills United Methodist Church has been minimizing its use of Lord for two decades, senior pastor David Wilkinson said. “We usually change ‘Lord’ to ‘love’ or ‘soul’ or ‘light,’ ” Wilkinson said.

So, these churches do not want to use the word ‘Lord’ to refer to God or Jesus, because ‘Lord’ implies a hierachical relationship of power that they do not find in their sacred texts. When I read the Bible, I read about a God who is the all-powerful ruler over all creation. I think the word ‘Lord’ describes that very well. I just did a quick computer search of the word ‘Lord’ in the Bible. It is used 170 times in the gospels, 6,459 times in the Bible as a whole. (NIV) Not all of these occurrences refer directly to God or Jesus, but the vast majority of them do.

Here are just a few of those sacred texts that a church might want to reflect on before getting rid of the word ‘Lord’ with regards to God and Christ.

• “I am the LORD, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God.” (Isaiah 45:5)
• Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment.” (Matthew 22:37-38)
• “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” (Luke 6:46)
• “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am.” (John 13:13)
• Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28)
• “Therefore, God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2:9-11)
• “On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.” (Revelation 19:16)

(HT: PastorBlog)

We have been discussing two questions concerning the prophetical books in the Old Testament:

1. Why are we so unfamiliar with them?
2. Why are they important for us to study and learn?

In answer to the first question, I offered the following four reasons:

        1) Placement: at the end of the Old Testament

        2) Language: poetry rather than prose

        3) History: requires an understanding of historical events

        4) Theology: many messages of judgment and doom

Now we move on to the second question. Why are the prophets important for us to study and learn? Here are four reasons to consider:

1) We need the prophets to help balance out our unbiblical views of God.

We ended yesterday by talking about the messages of judgment that the prophets brought. And yet we saw that they also spoke words of comfort and hope. People often say things like, “The Bible says God is love. He doesn’t judge people.” But the same Bible that tells us that God is love also tells us that God judges and punishes sin. God is both loving and just. The prophets help us to develop a fully biblical picture of God.

2) The prophets deal with the weighty issues of life.

The prophets deal with the weighty issues of life – things like God’s character, God’s uniqueness, God’s sovereignty over the nations, God’s requirements for his people, the importance of justice and righteousness. Without the prophets our faith can grow shallow and weak, unable to stand up to the rigors and challenges of life.

3) The prophets point us to Jesus as the Messiah.

The whole Old Testament points forward to the coming of Christ, but as the time drew nearer, the prophetical books became more and more specific about the coming of the Messiah who would bring salvation for all the nations. Some of the most startling and clear prophecies of Christ in the Old Testament are found in the prophets.

4) The prophets help us understand God’s plan for the ages.

Without the prophets we could never make sense of what happened to Israel as God’s people. We would not understand God’s plan for his church in the present age. The prophets are critical for understanding God’s plan for the ages, including our own future.

Next week I will begin blogging through the Old Testament book of Habakkuk. Habakkuk is one of the Minor Prophets. It is a short book with a powerful message for today. I hope you will take advantage of this opportunity to practice “reading the prophets” with me.

Bible Belt. This story gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “Bible thumper.” A Minnesota jail guard is on leave after striking a prisoner with the prisoner’s own Bible.

PC Bunny. A Rhode Island public school thought the Easter Bunny was too Christian, so they changed his name to the more politically correct “Peter Rabbit.” But wait, that won’t work either. Peter was one of Jesus’ twelve apostles. Perhaps they should just call it the PC Bunny.

Getting a leg up on crime. A man with a prosthetic leg was apprehended by police after his leg fell off during the getaway. He and his partner had just hoisted a 1,500-pound ATM machine loaded with cash into their pickup truck when police gave chase.

Yesterday we began discussing the Old Testament prophetical books. We saw that although these books comprise much of the content of Scripture, many people do not or have not read them. Why are we so unfamiliar with these books? We looked at two reasons in yesterday’s post:

1) Placement: at the end of the Old Testament

2) Language: poetry rather than prose

Here are two more reasons:

3) History: requires an understanding of historical events

A third reason is history. Reading the prophets requires an understanding of the historical events that took place at the time of their writing. The prophetical books take place largely during the time of the kings of Israel, the exile, and Israel’s return from exile. If you are not sure what I mean by the kings, or the exile, or the return from exile, that is exactly my point. When we don’t know the historical context behind the book, it is difficult to understand what the prophet is saying.

And in fact, the prophets take in more than just the history of Israel during this time, but also interact with the history of many of the surrounding nations as well. This is why it is very helpful to have a good commentary on hand when you are reading through the prophets.

4) Theology: many messages of judgment and doom

And then there is a fourth reason why we are not as familiar with the prophets, and that has to do with theology. The prophets present many messages of doom and judgment. That was one of their functions. We don’t like to think about God as a God of judgment. We like to think of God as a nice God who forgives everybody. And so people often have trouble relating to God’s judgments in the prophets.

Let me say something about that for a moment. God does not change from book to book in the Bible, or even from testament to testament. He is the same everywhere. You do not find a different God in the Old Testament than you do in the New Testament. You find passages relating to God’s judgment in all the various parts of the Bible, both Old Testament and New. And you find passages relating to God’s love, mercy and forgiveness in all parts of the Bible, both Old Testament and New. In fact some of the most beautiful and profound passages in Scripture describing God’s love and mercy are found in the Old Testament prophets. It is not a matter of different pictures of God being presented, but different emphases.

The prophets were sent for a very specific purpose. They were sent to warn Israel and the surrounding nations of God’s coming judgment for sin and idolatry in hopes that they would turn from their sins and thus avoid judgment. Sadly they did not, and so God’s judgment fell in full force upon them.

This leads us directly into our second question about the prophets. Why are the prophets important for us to study and learn? More on that tomorrow!

Today we begin a short series on reading the Old Testament prophets. The prophets are perhaps the least read and understood of all the books in the Bible, and yet they contain twenty-two percent of the Bible’s message, over one-fifth of the Bible as a whole. I would like to explore two questions about these books over the next few days.

1. Why are we so unfamiliar with them?
2. Why are they important for us to study and learn?

There are 17 prophetical books in the Bible. The first five, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel and Daniel, we call the Major Prophets, and the final twelve from Hosea to Malachi we call the Minor Prophets. The words major and minor do not refer to importance or lack of importance. It does not mean that the Major Prophets like Isaiah or Jeremiah or Ezekiel are more important than any of the Minor Prophets. Rather it refers to length. The Major Prophets tend to be longer books than the books of the Minor Prophets, and that’s why we call them major and minor.

Why are we so unfamiliar with the prophetical books? Let me offer several reasons:

1) Placement: at the end of the Old Testament

First of all, their placement in the Bible. They are in the Old Testament, and let’s face it, more people are familiar with the New Testament than with the Old. Some people get the idea that we no longer need the Old Testament now that Jesus has come, but that’s not true. It’s not that we no longer need the Old Testament. It’s that we read the Old Testament in a new way now that Jesus has come. The Old Testament still contains three-fourths of the revelation God wants us to know. But most people do not read the Old Testament, and many pastors do not preach from it.

Not only are the prophetical books in the Old Testament, but they are also at the end of the Old Testament. So, if a person does start reading the Old Testament, they usually start at the beginning, which means they will get to the prophetical books last if they get there at all. So placement is one reason why we are so unfamiliar with the prophetical books. They are at the end of the Old Testament.

2) Language: poetry rather than prose

A second reason has to do with language. The prophetical books are mainly written in poetry. Most of us do not read poetry today. We are far more familiar with prose. And not only are the prophets written in poetry, they are written in Hebrew poetry, which even when translated is different from the English poetry we are used to. So we may find the language and the imagery of the prophets difficult to understand.

However, the Psalms are also written in Hebrew poetry, and for many people the Psalms are their favorite part of Scripture. So there must be some other reasons why we do not read the prophets as much. We will look at two more reasons tomorrow.

(This is from a series of posts on the Iron Sharpens Iron Men’s Conference in Hartford, CT on March 24, 2007. To view the whole series, click here.)

Here is a brief summary of George Sarris’ morning seminar called “Impacting the Culture – Changing the World.”

George shared one of the best presentations I have heard on wisely interacting with non-believers within the culture in order to make a difference for Christ. He shared from Proverbs 21:22 how God wants believers to impact the culture with the truth of God’s Word rather than retreat in a defensive posture.

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Have you ever come across a place name while reading your Bible and wondered where it was? OpenBible.info has plotted the locations of every identifable place mentioned in the Bible and coordinated the information with Google Earth to give you satellite images of Bible place names sorted by book and chapter. The process is called Bible Geocoding.

This could be a helpful site to have open while reading or studying a particular book of the Bible to keep track of each place on the map. But I am not very creative when it comes to these things. Let’s hear it from all our Google Earth techies out there. How else could you utilize this cool Bible Geocoding data site? What are the possibilities?

OpenBible.info is a website that is working on “collecting basic biblical data—such as the locations of all the places in the Bible—into an accessible format. The goal of this site is to make this useful but uncollected data available for you to use and remix however you want.”

HT: Between Two Worlds: Geocoding the Bible

So, have you ever thought about reading John Calvin’s four volume, 1734 page work, The Institutes of the Christian Religion? I am guessing probably not. I am a seminary graduate and a pastor, and I have not read the whole thing.

Calvin’s Institutes is a classic in Christian literature, and yet most Christians are completely unfamiliar with it. The size of the task is daunting. Not many of us feel we can read 1734 pages of theology. (Remember, Calvin had to write all those pages!)

What if you could get a taste for the book and its contents by reading 100 brief paragraphs which summarized the whole? What if you could do it for free online right at your computer? Well, you can. The Rev. William Pringle assembled his “One Hundred Aphorisms, Containing, Within a Narrow Compass, the Substance and Order of the Four Books of the Institutes of the Christian Religion.” Designed as a reference to the work, the aphorisms also provide a good summary and introduction to the Institutes.

If you are up for a little theology today, try reading them at one of the following links:

• Voice of the Reformation
• Christian Classics Library
• Book 1 (paragraphs 1-13)
• Book 2 (paragraphs 14-42)
• Book 3 (paragraphs 43-65)
• Book 4 (paragraphs 66-100)
• Scripture Index

Advice: Don’t try to read them all at one. Just read a few paragraphs at a time, then stop and think about them. Then come back later and read some more.

Do you ever struggle with regularly reading God’s word? I am currently reading John Piper’s book, When I Don’t Desire God, and found the following section helpful.

“A thousand interesting things compete for our attention to the Word of God. I confess that after fifty years of loving and reading and memorizing Scripture, I can be lured away from appointed times in the Word by something as insignificant as a new computer device. The illusory pleasure of newness can temporarily trump the far superior benefits of keeping my appointment with the Word of God.

“This is evidence in me of what Paul calls indwelling sin (Rom. 7:17,20,23). It is part of the remaining corruption lingering after the death of the old self (Rom. 6:6). I am not proud of it. It grieves me. At times it frightens me . . . I know this sinful inclination must be fought to the death . . .

“One of the ways we can fight against the inclinations that lure us from the Word of God to computers or television or any other substitute pleasure is to remind ourselves often of the immeasurable and superior benefits of the Word of God in our lives. We must put the evidence before us that reading, pondering, memorizing, and studying the Bible will yield more joy in this life and the next than all the things that lure us from it.” (John Piper, When I Don’t Desire God, pp. 96-97)

I love God’s Word and read it (most) every day, but I also can find myself distracted by the most inconsequential things. I need to remind myself often of the “immeasurable and superior benefits” of God’s Word in my life. How do you make God’s Word a priority in your life?