Crazy World
I try to stay away from commenting on current events here at Bible Study Bites. There is enough commentary and media coverage and you don’t need my input on matters. With that said, the world has lost its mind in March 2020. Instability that our present generations have never known.
A simple task like going to the grocery store became something like a Mad Max experience.
I don’t know anyone who has tested positive for the virus but just in my sphere, I have children who have lost jobs and will not have a way to pay for rent here in a bit. I know a single mom who lost her two jobs in one day. A couple I know is having marital trouble but cannot get the counseling they need because counseling would be face-to-face. More counseling is needed for a precious and surly child in another family. And yes, in our day there are digital formats for such things. However, do you trust the cameras and microphones on all our digital devices?
Uh. I know I don’t.
So as unemployment heads for the 30% mark in our nation and the panic-demic the world is in rages, the question comes up in my head “What the heck am I doing writing all this stuff?”
Why Not Topical?
This is a great question and one I was circuitously asked yesterday. As opposed to topical studies, why would I take 6 months to go through 3 chapters of Ephesians?
“You haven’t even covered why I shouldn’t sleep with my girlfriend.”
True. I haven’t. But if I had, would you listen to me? There are pretty pictures and verses posted on them all over the internet aplenty. There are articles on Gospel Coalition or some other Christian site that cover topics better than I can because some of those folks who write have more experiences than I have. Speaking the language of their audience will help them perhaps more than I can.
Knowing There are Bible Study Tools
My true hope is that someone like you, you who loves the Lord Jesus with all your heart, mind, and strength, will desire to know him better. With that desire, you might be inspired to dig into the Word. Maybe not in one full-on plunge, but over time you will recognize there are tools to accumulate.
There is a story of which I’m fond in our marriage to illustrate.
Who Knew?
Once upon a time, Jeremy and Kristi were watching a movie in some November in the 90’s. Kristi was a stay-at-home mom who felt isolated because the children at home could either cry quietly or cry loudly. No words. No conversations. All day.
In the movie was a character with a hands free headset that was corded to a cordless phone. Do you understand the magnitude of amazingness that was? HANDS FREE! I didn’t know there was such a thing in the world. I could fold laundry and talk on the phone! Oh the possibilities!
Sitting bolt upright in delight and hope, Kristi said to Jeremy, “I need one of those!” Jeremy’s response was a flat and dull, “Nah. That’s a dumb device.”
Before you judge my beloved as harsh and unfeeling, he said that because he already had one in the closet-stash of gifts waiting to go under our tree the next month for Christmas. I didn’t know there were such tools in existence or that one could be within my financial reach. But once I saw that it was available, I wanted one!
Exposure to Tools
My hope for us is that the “movie” of this blog will expose you to tools that perhaps you don’t know exist. Or ways of thinking about the text that might fire your imagination about Bible study. Maybe if you know about some tools, you will let the idea of them roll around in your head, then realizing they are within your reach. Then you too will sit bolt upright and say, “I need one of those!”
Still Wondering Why Verse-by-verse?
Between the question I got asked yesterday and the fact that I’m currently in a passage that talks about suffering, I realized that God can give me exactly what I need as I roll through a book. Do I believe that God is in control? Then as I study, he has opportunity to teach me right where I am.
I cannot tell you how many times I have been working my way through a book of the Bible when calamity has struck and my Dad (yes, he is my personal, providing, loving, teaching, encouraging Dad like no earthly father could be) has reached down and turned my eyes to see what he had for me. Pertinent to my circumstances.
Right now? Suffering? Seriously?
There are lines where there have never been lines before. Like outside a Costco. Pallets wound around like the queues in Disney World.
Ephesians 3:1-13 is Where I’m Studying
So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory. (Eph 3:13)
Paul was suffering as a prisoner in his house in Rome. Is that relatable right now? Ha. Dumb question. Additionally, as we study and find the meaning of what Paul says, we also determine implications. Implications are not necessarily what Paul specifically meant when he wrote the text, but if he’d known of the situation, he would have included them in his text.
Some Implications
I’m not kidding, as someone who thought they were an introvert, this isolation business is painful. Basically, a form of house arrest is what the government is currently mandating. So the only voice I hear with regularity in my long days are the ones in my head. And sometimes they are stupid awful voices. That is real suffering.
In some families who have at-risk members, there is fear so thick it obscures everything else. That is real suffering.
There are people who are sick with this and are not the no-symptom folk. They are sick, sick, sick. Not only to be sick but to be the one caring for the sick. That is real suffering.
Then not just us ordinary people but people who are making decisions in the government. The ones who aren’t just concerned for their own necks but actually have the welfare of the nation at heart. (I choose to believe there have to be some of them.) I can’t imagine trying to wade through the information and the non-information, trying to discern the difference. That is real suffering.
Fill in whatever suffering there is in your world that I can’t even imagine right now. Paul is speaking to us. Right where we are in the text. I haven’t finished studying it yet to make full-on application, but considering that Paul suffers and he asks his audience not to lose heart, I can take that to my heart.
Not to lose heart.
Study through a book, verse-by-verse that speaks right where I am right now. I am watching people, including myself, suffering. “Please don’t lose heart,” says Paul.
Wrap Up
I ask and encourage you to consider studying through a book of the Bible. You don’t need to do everything I do. Maybe you should do it completely differently than I do. But please consider that studying through a book, even though it sounds like the long way round, is making yourself available to what the Holy Spirit wants to say to you in any given moment. Studying the Word, which is how God specifically reveals himself to us, is the best way to know our Dad.
For me, right now, I’m being asked this:
“Please don’t lose heart.”
Because I’m studying right here in Ephesians right now, when I’m tempted to lose heart watching the world suffer. I will actively pursue not losing heart because Paul has asked his audience (which eventually includes me) not to under inspiration of the Holy Spirit some 2000 years ago.
I wouldn’t have this request made of me at this time and in this place if I hadn’t been studying through this book that I started 6 months ago without any knowledge that I’d need this request made of me today.
Please know that I’m praying for you in this time as well. Even if I don’t know who you are, you are on my prayer list. Cling to our Savior. He is stable, able to help us not lose heart, and able to redeem all that is wrong in the world.
