Today was the fourth CM group/team meetings. I think today it should be easier getting into it as we are doing this one back-to-back, and you should also be gettitng a routine down -I hope.
Project? It is also at this point that many groups (or members) start to get frustrated that they don't know what that final project is suppose to be. Well, let me just give you a little direction on that: it will be about your passage, it will concern how your passage informs us about the church, and it will be a presentation to the rest of the class. But as said, your goal for right now is to know your passage, and to know it well. Until you do that, there really is no basis for applications or presentations, so keep after it!
Bloggers, you know the drill, so get it done (remember, you have 24 hours). If you have any questions, you can contact me by email: bhigley@bbc.edu.
Blessings
Bill H
18 comments:
1 Thessalonians 2:1-16
it's been another wonderful time as our group met today. Steven, the team captain, opened us up with a word of prayer and decided that it would be a good idea for each of us to share what God's been showing us through our daily devotions. The common denominator in what God had been teaching us was the question of "Who do we love more? God or the word? We discussed that so many times we claim to love God with all our hearts, yet we choose to act the world. We were able to relate this to our passage. We saw how the faithfulness of the Thessalonian's was totally evident through out the church. Their love for God was so clear to Paul. We know this based on what he told them in the letter. It was a true challenge to each of us to continue strive for things that are excellent and things that are pleasing to the Lord. We need to be living our lives in a way that the world can recognized that we have Jesus Christ living in us.
All of the members of our group today were present. hooray. :)
Today all of our group was present and we turned in our papers and tied some lose ends together. We discussed the roles of women in the church, and also the controversial issue of tongues. We came up with many inquisitive questions that we still would like to answer, and decided that we would like to bring in some experts for our next meeting.
Our group is still getting along well and enjoying being able to learn about the Bible simply for sheer enjoyment.
We had an awesome time today with eachother. We talked a lot about the unity of the body and how important it is that we try to get involved in eachothers lives the best we can. I think our passage talks a lot about unity as well. We all enjoyed what Dwight said in class and the challenge he brought to the table. We all recieved some exciting news when we found out one of our group members just bought her wedding dress.
We ended with prayer requests and a time of prayer. we all wish we could meet sooner than next friday
1 Thessalonians 2
Today everyone was present, and we started really diving into our passage and worked on an outline for our paper. We are starting with a contextual outline of the entire book, and then delving further into our specific passage. Things like Paul's thankfulness for the church's faith, his unwavering blamelessness and hard labor, the church's sufferings, and the end times, just to name a few. Some application that we found from simple observations was that we should preach the Word of God boldly and not flashy, its about the Gospel, not entertainment. We need to constantly be thankful of those placed under our care and to help them, not be a burden to them. Also we need to be aware that demonic forces are active around us standing in our way.
Next week, we intend on tying up the applications with how it relates to what we discuss in class as far as glorifying, edifying, and evangilizing.
Our group made a lot of progress today in our meeting. We started off by reveiwing for our facilitator (who was absent last meeting) what we discussed last meeting. Then we breifly talked a little more about how we want to present our passage to the class.
for the remaining time we broke john chapter 1 into sections and studied the meaning of each. This was very productive in that it helped our group understand the chapter much easier and enabled us to see exactly what John was intending to write about in the chapter. At the end of our meeting we all felt much more confident in our understanding of chapter one and concluded that next meeting will be a lot like this one, only we will be evaluating chapter 17.
I Timothy 3
Today my group dug deeper in passage. We used a lot of resources to help us better understand our passage. We decided to work alone in our study today and come together at the end with what we found. A couple went through commentaries to look up the meaning of a couple different topics in our passage. We treid to better understand what it means "to be the husband of one wife". We decided that it meant to only have one wife and they were not to divorce.
Another member made a list of the qualifications for pastors and deacons and compared. The results were that many were the same other than ones that were involved in the jobs. An example is that pastors have to be able to teach and have a good reputations with outsiders.
The time was very profitible for the group!
Romans 12-15
Today our group made a detailed outline of the passage. In doing this we got to see how well what Paul wrote flowed and how well all of the chapters went together. We talked about how we are supposed to submit to the authorities that are in place because God put them there, and if we don't then we are not fully submiting to Him. We also spent a lot of time trying to figure out what 13:11 meant, especially in the context and we could not come to a definitive answer. We talked about how often in the passage the word God was used and how often the word love was used. Love was tied to how we are supposed to act in all situations.
Our group was all there today. We all performed the roles that we were supposed to and things went smoothly.
Today's group discussion of Ephesians 4:14-16 went really well. Paul admonishes believers to abandon their childish thinking. Our goal should be maturity; the unity of the body is a process of growth and unity. The only way for the church to grow is when all the members use their gifts. Every member of the body of Christ is unique and has different gifts, which creates unity and growth.
GALATIANS
Our facilitator had to leave early today, and it was just three of us for the main discussion. We started out by reviewing the background to form a foundation for the text.
Then we decided on the main topics Paul addresses. We narrowed it down to justification, freedom in Christ, faith vs. the law, and Paul’s authority.
The remainder of our time was spent on an overview of each chapter. We noticed that Chapter 1, unlike other epistles of Paul’s, gave no commendation or praise for “a job well done.” Paul was writing to set them straight! Chapter 2 is about Paul: his relationship with the other apostles, his confrontation of Peter for hypocrisy, and his testimony as an example to the Galatians. Chapter 3 is about the purpose of the law, and about how we as Christians are sons of God through faith. Chapter 4 describes Paul’s heart for the Galatians, as he urged them to follow Christ and be free in Him instead of a slave. Chapter 5 talks about service through love, not the law. Chapter 6 is about doing good to others, and closes with Paul reminding the Galatians what truly matters – being a new creation.
All four members of our group were present today as we shared things that we studied on our own concerning the passage over the weekend. One of our main points of focus was that of chapter one and verse twenty six of James. The verse says that no matter how religious a person may seem, if they can't control their tongue then their religion is in vain. This occurs far too much in churches today. While some members may seem highly spiritual, they are really not concerned with the things of Christ at all. Christians like this are not only stumblingblocks to other members of the church, but also a turn-off to any unsaved people who they may come in contact with. The church needs less fake christians, and more real people who care about the things of Chrsist.
ROMANS 12-15
The central thing we covered this time was the main point put across in our passage. We really wanted to see what bridges the variety of topics together. There are a lot of commands for Christians and how we should live and act as a body but the central point that seems to bring it all together, the thing that enables us to do all of that seems to be to "put on the Lord Jesus Christ" as it says in the end of chapter 13.
We realized, however, that you can't just put Jesus on like a pair of pants. The question that dominated most of over conversation was what that even meant or implied. This seems so significant to the passage yet the only answers for what putting on Jesus even means were even more ambiguous. "Be filled with the Spirit", "live for Jesus", "don't walk in flesh", etc.
So we dug around in a few Scripture passages (specifically see Ephesians 4:17-24) and the conclusion we came to was that putting on Jesus simply meant to choose to do what's right and what God's Word commands us to do. Before we were saved we could not decide to obey God. Now that we are saved we can. In studying Scripture and making it key to everything in our lives, praying continuously, and overall having constant fellowship with God we are putting on Jesus. It's as simple as moment by moment making the decision to follow what He tells us to do.
So essentially what we seem to be learning right now is that Paul is telling the believers to make the conscious choice in their lifestyles and in their days moment by moment to love one another as the body of Christ and glorify God.
We finished our discussion on word studies. We focused on the words faith, Trials/temptation along with others.
Then we moved into themes of James. There was lots of discussion on: 1. Faith/joy/ and having them in Trials. 2. Taming the tongue 3. Works and faith and how they fit together. 4. how to be "doers" of the word and not just hearers.
Galatians
Monday we read through chapters 5 and 6 to look for personal applications to discuss. In chapter 5 a few things we briefly discussed were: submitting again to the yoke of slavery,- by putting yourself under the law, you are rejecting the work of Christ, and the grace of God. They did not lose their salvation, but they were not walking by the Spirit. And the meaning of "walking by the Spirit" -- we need to research that to come up with a concise meaning
In chapter six we discussed: verse 1, restoring transgressing brother; verse 2, bear one another's burdens; verse 5, each will bear his own burden. The difference between the first and second "burden"s is that the first Greek word focuses on weight, while the second emphasizes the object of that weight -- the burden itself. (So says John MacArthur)
Philippians 1:27-30 and review
JZ Attack!!!(John Zerbini)
On monday we decided to attack our facilitator since he wasn't here on friday. We updated him with what we went over, and we made John put in his two cents on what he thought about the passage. What our group also did was talk about what is going on in each of our lives. A couple of us our struggling with school, from grade expectations to financial reasons. We then also took time to discuss the ministries that we are in, the struggles we have with it, and the works that God is doing there. All of us in our group in some way help lead a youth group that has kids from troubled and broken families. We took time and prayed for each other. Our group is definitely becoming unified. Reading the philippians is helping us truly understanding encouragement.
We finished the small section of our text, Paul ending with his reasons to live for Christ. We thought of Paul and the many sayings(verses) where he speaks of him being crucified with Christ, where he says to imitate me, and being a servant(slave) of Christ. We realized that we are never at that point. We can never fully say that for ourselves. Paul had a deep intimate fellowship and relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul tells the believers that they will suffer, if they are following Christ. Suffering should be a great thing, but it's look down on negatively. Suffering is what brings us closer to Christ. We wouldn't truly understand Christ unless we suffered. Suffering is a reminder that this world will pass away, but our relationship with God will never.
Is our lives worthy of the gospel? Paul tells us to live a life worthy to Christ. We shouldn't worry about the opposition we're facing. What matters is our faith, and as it says in these verses: standing firm in the spirit.
Group #3-I Corinthians 11-13
We continued on the Exposition of the I Corinthians passage. The majority of our time was spent on discussing how these chapters fit with the book as a whole. Throughout Paul's writing he usually begins with doctrine then application. One of the Main points of I Corinthians is bringing them back into remembrance of Christ's work on the Cross as he is the Center of the Churches Ministry.
A.J. brought up the subject of tongues in the modern church and the need for clarification on biblical reasons why baptist feel they have ceased. We also agreed that it is important for members of the body to identifying what gifts they have as it is the first step toward effectively exercising them in the church.
Our next step will be digging into the grammar and language of the passage. Our focus will be word studies on 'Edify', 'Gifts', 'Love' and 'Unity' and on the verbs in ch13:9 (fail, pass away, cease, vanish).
The Book Of Philippians
Sometimes people in the church don't follow through with their commitments or responsibilities. If thats the case others must "step up to the plate" to make sure the job gets done! For example I am blogging today since our blogger has not yet. I as team captain have decided to present a summary everything we have dicussed so far. Hopefully, this will motivate him to begin fulfilling his current position more promptly.
In summary:
In our group meetings we are dissecting a different chapter of Philippians each time we meet. First we read the Chapter out loud as a group, then we seperate the passage into the three healthy attributes of the church. Glorifying,Community, and missional.From there we highlight what is being presented about the church and take note of how passages correlate with one another.
Other than the lack of blogging promptly our group has worked well with one another.
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