Today is/was the first CM team meetings where you are to start investigating your passage. The first step in the exposition process is background study. Hopefully everyone came prepared and ready to go.
Bloggers, your responsibility is to post a comment linked from my post about your time today. I want you to respond to two things: 1) generally, what were the highlights from your background study and discussion of your passage today? And, 2) How well did your group do in preparing and covering the key background issues? Related to this second question, is there any thing you still need to chase as you move forward in the process? Try to give a healthy paragraph for each question.
Now, the big question is “how am I supposed to do this?” Well, follow these instructions . . .
1) Look at the example I have linked here, this is from the class last spring, it gives you a good model to follow: Spring Class Blog Example
2) At the bottom of this post you will see a COMMENT button, click it and it will take you to a page where you can compose and leave a comment—in this case, your comment is to answer the two questions I have above. (Note: I will make a similar post each week to which you will respond.)
3) If you already have a Google/Blogger account, you can simply use your USERNAME and PASSWORD to register your comment.
4) If not—which is probably most of you—you need to create one. I thought you would be able to use your BBC G-Mail account, but apparently not (you could try). If not, follow the simple instruction to create your own Google/Blogger account, and of course, make sure you write it down somewhere to remember it.
5) To help me know who’s who, when you set up a new account, use your FIRST and LAST NAME as the USERNAME—or part of it. Also, type passage in full caps at the beginning of your comment so that I know what you are referring to (e.g., JOHN, JAMES, I THESSALONIANS, etc.)
6) You are welcomed, and encouraged, to offer comments and responses to the other groups’ posts as well—constructive ones, that is.
7) And remember that you should post after each Team/Group Meeting, if you don’t, your group will not get credit for meeting that week.
If you have any questions, you can contact me by email: bhigley@bbc.edu
Blessings
Bill H
12 comments:
1 CORINTHIANS 12-14 Group #1
Our group was short two members today, which led perfectly into our discussion of roles in the body of Christ. We discussed how the church is a "body" or network of believers each with different but equally important roles. Whether preaching from the pulpit or shoveling snow in the parking lot, we can all use our different spiritual gifts (another topic covered in our passage) for the glory of God.
The present members of our group came well prepared with excellent background knowledge and information about our passage. We discussed in particular how chapter 13 is often preached out of context instead of as part of the unit of chapters 12-14 pertaining to public worship and spiritual gifts.
1st THESSALONIANS 2:1-16
Our group was short one member today. We started off on talking about what God had been doing in each of our lives lately, which lead into our discussion on our background paper. We each took turns discussing our thoughts on why we thought Paul may have felt it necessary to devote an entire portion of the letter to talking about his happiness about the Thessalonian's faith. One of the reason's that our group concluded with was that maybe Paul felt it so necessary because he had not seen such a response of faith and understanding with a new group of believers since he had started his ministry of carrying the gospel. (this took up the majority of our time.)
All of the members that were present today came with well prepared background knowledge and information. We were able to successfully discuss the background of our paper.
GALATIANS
Our group came ready to discuss questions and issues that had come up in our individual studies. Specifically, we talked about the law, and how the Galatian believers were trying to attain righteousness through it. It was brought up that many commentators view Galatians as a mini version of Romans, since both are centered around justification by faith. We discussed the fact that while Romans talks about being sensitive to the weaker brother in regards to the law, Paul in Galatians is vehement about not being a slave to the law. We discussed how in Romans Paul was addressing a conscience issue and in Galatians he was demanding that the gospel not be distorted.
It was obvious that each member of our group had a good grasp of our passage's background from reading various commentaries. Anything we didn't understand, we brought up in our discussion to get group input on.
Our group went about business as simply as possible. We weren't quite sure how to run business, so we each talked about our findings in 1 Thessalonians 2. It was interesting that we all had different findings mixed in with all our similarities. Not that our differences made one or the other wrong, it was simply things we missed in our individual readings.
EPHESIANS 4
Our first group meeting consisted mostly of organizing our meeting times. We decided to cut Ephesians 4 into small sections that we will discuss in our meetings. At each group meeting we are to come prepared with some outside research for the given verses so that we will be able to intelligentlly discuss Eph. 4 together. When the project due date gets closer we will probably need to meet outside class depending upon how much research and preparation is still needed. We discussed the context, application, and interpretation of Eph.4. It is our desire as a group that we make sure that our application to this passage is strong and accurate since Paul was so accurate in his application of Eph. 4.
1 TIMOTHY 3
Our group dicussed the background of our passage. We discussed what Timothy's personalities traits were. We also talked about how often Paul talked about Timothy because He is mentioned in the majority of Paul's writings. That converstaion lead into dicussion of the qualities of Bishops and deacons and how they differ. We also tried to determine the meaning of the part that says they shoud be "the husband of one wife". We tried to determine if that meant all bishops should be married or just faithful. We also disscused if that excluded men that were divoreced or widowers.
We also reviewed our roles and how each one of us should function in the group.
ROMANS 12-15
This passage provided for a range of discussion related to the church. Romans 14 sparked a lot of discussion on where lines should be drawn on various issues as it relates to causing other Christians to stumble. Culture and motives were key elements in the discussion that involved a little debate about topics such as tattooed missionaries, booze, and bar witnessing. Romans 13 also caused some intense discussion, particularly at the (Biblical) suggestion that governments are put in leadership by God. It was clearly harder to swallow that at the prospect of even those who adhere to a politcal platform you disagree with can be put in a position by God.
We lastly discussed Romans 12:10. That discussion makes clear what we need to seek as we continue to study the passage. Context, original meaning, and specific words used in Greek were all issues brought up in discussing what exactly this passage was telling the believers to do. We have hit on some key background issues in our papers but in conversation I think we discovered a dozen more "key" background issues that we need to discover in order to fully grasp the message given by Paul in not only Romans 12 and in Romans 12-15 in its entirety.
ROMANS 12-15
We talked about why Paul wrote the book and then we talked about the context of the book. We also talked about how this section of Romans was the practical applications of the book. This section talks about how we should act in regards to others, including in the church, in the state, and with other believers. We are commanded not to make others stumble. We discussed questions ablout where we should draw the line with the issues addressed in Romans as well as other issues that have come up since the writing of the book.
Our group came prepared to talk about the passage. We all seemed to have almost all of the same findings on the historical background. If someone needed clarification the group would stop and discuss that part of the passage or the questions that arose.
John 1 and 17
Our group started off our discussion by following the sheet of questions that we were asked to answer in the paper we were each suppose to write. This lead into many different topic discussions. We all agreed that the main point of our discussion was the praise for the community of the church. We gathered this by looking at the context of the passage and the different views of the various commentators studied within our group.
One question that we pondered for a while and didn't exactly come to a conclusion was one dealing with the prayer of Jesus to the father in chapter 17. Does him praying to the father suggest a separation between the father and son? or is he being a mere example for the disciples? This lead to to other passages in the Bible in wich the Son again prays to the father. We plan to continue to study this topic to hopefully find an answer. Though we discussed many other things, these are what took up the majority of our meeting.
One last thing.... our facilitator also shared with us a "pep talk". He reminded us to view this project not only as a grade, but as a privilegde to dive into God's word. He shared this quote with us (I'm not sure who said it, some guy in history), "Don't let your education interfer with learning"
Philippians
In our group, we came to an agreement that there are many themes for the book of Philippians. The letter to the Philippian church was written as a personal note from a friend,updating about his life(Paul) and encouraging the church to stay strong in there faith. Two of themes that we spent most time discussing was joy and unity. Paul encouraged these people to have joy amidst trials and for them to stay unified in their faith. Paul truly cared about this church and was pleased with the way things were going.
Adding to Philippians,a verse that really stuck out was Philippians 1:21- "For me to live is Christ, and to dies is gain." Paul pointing out that no matter what, his aim and prize is Christ. This verse has shown us as a group that we do everything for Christ. Our group has to stay unified for His glory, and we need to remember joy if we begin to struggle. We are not just a "group", but brothers and sisters in Christ. We are unified by that.
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