I Cry from the Miry Pit

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Though Friday posts normally cover some topic on Bible study method or leadership, I’m compelled this week to bare a piece of my soul before you. Please hear my plea, and do not close your ear to my cry for help.

The Problem

I need a new author photo.  Apparently, thisPeter is boring.

Now I’m not one to shun innovation. I won’t sit here and say, “Why were the former days better than these?” for it is not from wisdom that I would ask this (Ecc 7:10).

No, I want to move forward (Ex 14:15). It’s a new day (Gen 32:31), and sophisticated bloggers have more interesting author photos than this. I have no problem with appearing to be sophisticated. It makes my wife laugh, and I prefer to hear that happy sound as often as possible.

How can you help?

We’ve got a few contenders for the gold medal. You are on the panel of impartial, expert judges. The hopes and dreams of a generation depend on your decision. Which one will it be?

Number 1

Peter 1I like this one, but my wife thinks it makes me look too boyish.

Number 2

Peter 3The charming smile of a man enamored with Christ.

Number 3

Peter 4The sophisticated pose.

Number 4

Peter 5The action shot.

Call me a sucker, but I’m interested to know what you think. We chose our last 2 baby names with help from a Facebook poll. Why not do an author photo with a poll, too?

Question: Which photo do you like the best? Which one most inspires you to study the Bible?

God’s Word is Powerful and Undefeatable

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Check out this reflection from Erik Raymond about the Word of God:

Because it is God’s word, it is an undefeatable word. The Bible has all the essentials of the life and power of God to do his work! Isaiah says that the word of God does not return void; it does his work, powerfully so. The Word of God is powerful.

Just think with me about a couple of implications here:

From the standpoint of your own sanctification or spiritual growth, you need this book every single day. You need to read it, meditate on it, memorize it, and delight in it. You need it preached each Lord’s Day and you need it singing in your head all day long. It is a powerful book.

Erik goes on to give further implications for evangelism and apologetics. Sometimes we’re so careful to defend the Bible that we fail to unleash its power in people’s lives. I say, let ‘er rip.

Check it out!

10 Reasons to Avoid Sexual Immorality

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Easy sex will keep you from being wise.

To make this point, Solomon lists ten consequences of sexual immorality in Proverbs 6:24-35. Before reading my list, I urge you to read the passage yourself and see how many consequences you can observe. Perhaps making your own list will help you to remember these things when you face temptation.

1. You’ll participate in evil

To preserve you from the evil woman,
from the smooth tongue of the adulteress. (Prov 6:24, ESV)

Immorality is evil, and temptation is an invitation to do evil. But wisdom preserves the wise from evil. When you believe the smooth and deceitful promises of immorality, you choose guilt by association: You are now evil as well.

2. Your desire will take you captive

Do not desire her beauty in your heart,
and do not let her capture you with her eyelashes. (Prov 6:25)

Victor Casale (2012), Creative Commons

Victor Casale (2012), Creative Commons

It was for freedom that Christ has set you free, but immorality seeks to enslave you. Capitulation will become easier and easier. Resistance will become more and more difficult. Far better for you to rid your heart of these fantasies while you can.

3. You’ll lose everything

For the price of a prostitute is only a loaf of bread,
but a married woman hunts down a precious life. (Prov 6:26)

The cost begins low: only a loaf of bread. But with diminishing returns, you’ll need to give more and more until your very life is forfeit. Immorality hooks you while it’s cheap. A glance here, a touch there. But before you know it, you can’t sleep without sexual release. You simply can’t keep your hands off, and you’ll lose everything in the process.

4. Your punishment is inevitable

Can a man carry fire next to his chest
and his clothes not be burned?
Or can one walk on hot coals
and his feet not be scorched?
So is he who goes in to his neighbor’s wife;
none who touches her will go unpunished. (Prov 6:27-29)

You can’t tinker with immorality and hope to escape. You may be able to cover it up for a time, but you will eventually be found out. God sees everything, and he is a consuming fire.

5. You can’t repay what you’ve stolen

People do not despise a thief if he steals
to satisfy his appetite when he is hungry,
but if he is caught, he will pay sevenfold;
he will give all the goods of his house…
[A jealous husband] will accept no compensation;
he will refuse though you multiply gifts. (Prov 6:30-31, 35)

The point is not to justify theft, but to condemn sexual immorality. People can understand a thief’s motives, though they still make him repay what he stole. How much less will they understand you when they find you out?

Perhaps you rob your present or future spouse of your best love and attention. Maybe you steal someone’s innocence. Or perhaps you continue supporting the horrific porn industry, which destroys young women and holds them captive. Pictures are never harmless; we must not lie to ourselves.

6. You’ll lack sense

He who commits adultery lacks sense. (Prov 6:32a)

There goes wisdom and, along with it, life and peace and satisfaction and joy.

7. You’ll destroy yourself

He who does it destroys himself. (Prov 6:32b)

We do it because it feels good. But, like an alcoholic who destroys his liver, or a smoker who disregards his lungs, we kill ourselves with good feelings. Easy sex is all about self-gratification, but Jesus said that he who loves himself loses himself. Wisdom pierces these feelings to find the truth.

8. You’ll create your own wounds

He will get wounds… (Prov 6:33)

It’s like touching a hot stove. Or using credit cards to spend money you don’t have. Or picking a scab. Or playing hopscotch on the interstate. You’ll hurt for it later, and you’ll have brought the hurt on yourself.

9. You’ll find dishonor and disgrace

He will get wounds and dishonor,
and his disgrace will not be wiped away. (Prov 6:33)

You set yourself up for constant reproach and a bad name. You’ll always be that guy who ran off with the girl and ruined a good thing (family, ministry, career, etc.).

10. You’ll lose every time

For jealousy makes a man furious,
and he will not spare when he takes revenge. (Prov 6:34)

Sexual immorality rightly infuriates. Jealous husbands will not spare on the day of revenge.

But what if your immorality doesn’t involve seducing a married person? Then there’s no jealousy to fear, right? “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord” (Rom 12:19). Remember that God, the Great Husband, has a special place in his heart for those with no human protectors. Can you watch your back when it comes to him?

If, like me, you have already failed in the sexual realm, take heart and remember there’s always hope in Christ. He provides a way out. This list is not to consign you forever to guilt and punishment, but to warn you from future folly.

Next: Why We Choose Immorality

Ask Good Observation Questions

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This is a guest post by Ryan Higginbottom, Associate Professor of Mathematics at Washington & Jefferson College in Washington, PA. When he’s not solving differential equations or blogging at A Small Work, he loves spending time with his wife and two daughters. He also leads a small group Bible study for his church. If you’d like to write a guest post for Knowable Word, please see the guidelines page.

When reading the Gospels, have you noticed how often Jesus asks questions? His disciples must have been incredibly frustrated. They wanted answers; he served up another round of questions. Why? Through intentional interrogation, he often showed them to be asking the wrong questions entirely.

Tim O'Brien (2006), Creative Commons

Tim O’Brien (2006), Creative Commons

Because Jesus bound up so much of his ministry with inquiries, Christian faith and discernment will lead us to develop the ability to ask good questions. Such questions (and willing answers, of course) are a key part of healthy marriages, vibrant classes, joyful homes, and thriving mentorships. But in particular, good questions are the engine that chugs effective small group Bible studies into the station.

The Function of Good Questions

Perhaps you’ve been in a Bible study with a skilled and wise leader, whose questions guide the group through the critical parts of a passage. You may not even remember these questions, however, since good questions are almost invisible. But without them the group would function like a legs-up turtle. These are not the clever, witty, eloquent questions of the orator or debater. They don’t draw attention to themselves.

Bad questions, on the other hand, are as subtle as a fire alarm. Instead of encouraging discussion, they shut it down. They interrupt the flow of dialogue and produce silence, while the leader squirms and the group members wonder what’s for dinner.

What is the difference between a good question and a bad one? What are some characteristics of good questions?

Observation Questions for Small Groups

The foundation of any Bible study lies with careful observation of the text. This is no less true for group study than it is for individual study. So how do we ask good observation questions?

Let’s take Acts 19:1–10 as a sample passage. Imagine you are preparing to lead a discussion on it, and you want to draw people out by drawing them into the text. Your questions will make all the difference.

Bad Observation Questions

  1. What baptism did the Ephesian disciples receive?
  2. What was the first thing Paul did when he arrived in Ephesus?
  3. When did Paul move to the hall of Tyrannus?

Good Observation Questions

  1. What experience of Christianity did the Ephesian disciples have before Paul arrived?
  2. How does Paul interact with the Ephesian disciples?
  3. How is the passage structured?

Though the bad questions require observations for answers, the dialogue goes no further. These queries focus on a single detail, and the group members serve only to fill in the blanks left by the leader, who diligently steers clear of the conversation highway. Let’s be honest: While this approach offers a safe and easy way to create an appearance of participation, it also safely avoids the powerful, spontaneous, and unpredictable work of the Spirit in the minds and hearts of others.

The good questions, however, encourage meaningful discussion and interaction, while still drawing out specific observations. They are more open-ended, enabling group members to pick up on the important features of a passage and leave the smaller details alone. These questions simultaneously engage the group and open the door to interpretation.

What about you? What are some examples of effective observation questions you’ve asked (or answered!) in a small-group setting?

Have You Forgotten How to Read the Bible?

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Last week, The Gospel Coalition posted an article by professor Dan Doriani entitled “The Danger of Forgetting How to Read the Bible.” In the article, Doriani traces the common path for leaders who become leaders out of excitement for the Scripture, but who then lose this excitement as they focus on technical and academic study of the word.

He writes:

Leaders stumble for many reasons, and while I could argue that a zealous seminarian has little in common with a vain or depressed middle-aged leader, there is at least one common thread: My peers and my students can both stop reading the Bible as we should.

Ultimately, “Students and pastors need, therefore, to become technical, devotional readers. Here every exegetical skill remains, yet we also read like children, letting the word speak to our hearts again.”

These things are not just for pastors. As we learn to study the Bible and teach it to others, let us not stop letting it speak to our own hearts again and again.

Check it out!

Easy Sex Will Keep You from Being Wise

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A student newspaper at my alma mater once published a set of ABC’s for first-year students as something of “a 26-step instructional guide on how to get the most out of higher education.”

Jirka Matousek (2011), Creative Commons

Jirka Matousek (2011), Creative Commons

Along with A for Alcohol, E for Energy drinks, and Q for Questions, came the following:

H is for House Party Weekend. Three parts live music, four parts indiscriminate alcohol abuse, two parts non-prejudicial fornicating. Mix well; serve warm. That’s House Party Weekend.

S is for Sexually transmitted diseases. See letter H.

W is for Walk of shame. Alternatively known as the “stride of pride.” That long walk home wearing the same thing you went out in last night, which inevitably followed a very awkward introduction earlier that morning. When you see the steady stream at 10 a.m., just remember, “Let he who has not woken up spooning a stranger cast the first stone.”[1]

There’s a reason “higher education” and “wisdom” aren’t synonymous.

Lots of Sex

This week, I reinstate my long-running Bible study of Proverbs 1-9. As we hit Proverbs 6:20-35, we ought to notice that Solomon has said a lot about sex already, and he’s not yet done with the topic. Foolish and ungodly sexual activity was common long before universities developed such a strong reputation for it.

But what makes Proverbs 6:20-35 unique? What does Solomon say here that he hasn’t covered elsewhere? Though many ideas overlap, we can observe a primary focus for each of the “sex sections” of Proverbs 1-9:

  • Prov 2:16-19 explains how easy sex hinders wisdom.
  • Prov 5:1-23 unveils God’s surprisingly intoxicating alternative.
  • Prov 6:20-35 enumerates immorality’s terrible consequences.
  • Prov 7:1-27 unmasks immorality’s seductive tactics.

We must hear wisdom on these matters, so we can find life (Prov 6:23) and avoid death (Prov 5:23). In keeping you from being wise, easy sex holds nothing for you but pain and destruction. But there was one who endured pain and destruction to give us wisdom. So there’s always hope.

The Plan

Over the next few weeks, I’ll tackle this passage somewhat out of order. First, I’ll explain ten terrible consequences of easy sex (Prov 6:24-35). Then, I’ll go back to offer four steps for fighting it (Prov 6:20-23).

Question: How do you see easy sex hindering wisdom in our day?

Next: 10 Reasons to Avoid Sexual Immorality (Prov 6:24-35)

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[1] Scott Gosnell, “The BU ABC’s,” The Counterweight, Volume 7, Issue 1, August 24, 2007, pp.8-9.

How to Lead A Great Bible Study

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A few nights ago, our church small group met in our home, and we had one of the most engaging and encouraging Bible studies in the history of the group. Since I didn’t lead the discussion, I was able to reflect on what made the discussion so effective.

Steel Wool (2009), Creative Commons

Steel Wool (2009), Creative Commons

I now offer you the fruit of my musings.

1. Know Your Point

The leader came to the study with a clear grasp of the text’s main point. He knew exactly where he wanted the group to end up.

2. Ask Good Questions

There’s a place for lecture, and there’s a place for interactive instruction. The key to fostering constructive interaction is to ask good questions. When have you experienced such leadership before? What kinds of questions encourage you to engage in the discussion? And you know what sort of questions shut down the discussion, don’t you?

3. Set a Direction

The leader led. He didn’t let the group meander through the conversation. He didn’t just wing it. He set a course, and he began moving along it.

4. Respond to the Group

Though the leader set a direction, he did not drag the group with him. He didn’t leash the discussion or get insecure when it swerved unexpectedly. He kept us moving toward the main point, but he didn’t control the group’s pathway toward that main point. I’m sure we ended up exactly where he wanted us, but we felt all along like we had gotten there ourselves.

5. Stay in the Text

Here’s the silver bullet. The text provides self-corrective measures to a group prone to tangents. A leader who keeps the people in the text doesn’t have to fear unpredictable discussion. As soon as the discussion gets off-topic, the leader can ask, “So how do you see that in the text?” and get things back online.

6. Clarify the Point

The leader took us to the text’s main point, and then he camped out there. He didn’t pursue every possible theological or interpretive quandary. He got us to the main point, and he had us restate the point numerous times. Then he took us to Christ and on into application.

7. Broaden Application

The leader had more than one application in mind. He had prepared a series of questions about our thinking, character, and behaviors. He had considered applications for both individuals and the group. He had considered how the text should impact our engagement with the world around us. In the end, he didn’t ask every question he had prepared, but he had a broad range of ideas in place so he could respond to whichever topics connected best with the group.

8. Specify Application

The leader didn’t let us get away with clichés or vague principles. He asked good follow-up questions that made us get more specific.

These are not the only eight things leaders can do; they just stood out to me after this week’s study. And my intention is not to ignore the impact of character or knowledge on one’s leadership.

But if we had more leaders who practiced these skills to the glory of God, people would be far more interested in going to Bible studies.

What Makes a Good Commentary

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Image-CommentaryMatt Smethurst at The Gospel Coalition recently interviewed New Testament scholar D.A. Carson about what makes a good commentary. Carson pointed out a few things to look for and a few pitfalls to avoid.

As far as what to look for, Carson begins, “Good all-round commentaries help readers think their way through the text.” He gives some helpful details on what that looks like, but notice what he considers most important: The best commentaries serve our study of the text. They never replace it.

Carson mentions the following pitfalls:

  1. Turning to commentaries too soon in your study.
  2. Turning to commentaries too late (or not at all).
  3. Relying on commentaries instead of developing a robust understanding of biblical, historical, systematic, and pastoral theology.
  4. Allowing commentaries to supplant close study and desperate prayer (trusting the commentators more than the Lord).

I wrote a post a while back about four mistakes to avoid when using commentaries, where I had some similar ideas. But Carson puts it better than I did.

These concepts are not just for full-time preachers, but also for Sunday School teachers, Bible study leaders, and leaders of all stripes.

Check it out!

Beware Unpleasant Harmony

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Have you ever tried singing unaccompanied hymns with a group of tone-deaf people? It presents a unique challenge: Can we hold the tune? Will we end in the same key in which we began? Is the melody recognizable, or would an eavesdropper assume we’re trying one of those new-fangled old-hymn-with-new-music arrangements (and one that wasn’t done very well)?

Vancouver 125 (2011), Creative Commons

Vancouver 125 (2011), Creative Commons

With such a group, you’ve accomplished something special if you’ve gotten the group to sing in unison. Usually, you get harmony whether you want it or not. But the harmony is unpleasant if the original tune isn’t clear.

Biblical Harmonization

I just finished a series of Bible studies on the feeding of the 5,000. My goal has been to show that the Gospels recount the same event, but each with a different point. Last week, I summarized the unique intentions of each Gospel’s account.

In this final post, I’ll step back from the study’s content to reflect on the methodology behind it. In particular, I’d like to make explicit what was implicit all along: the dangers of harmonization.

Harmonization is the process of taking multiple accounts of the same event and combining them into a unified whole. So, we harmonize when we teach a lesson on “The Feeding of the 5,000″ without looking at a specific passage.

Harmonization is not necessarily a bad thing. It’s very helpful when we’re reconstructing a historical event or building general biblical literacy. For example, most children’s Bibles won’t have a separate chapter for each of the four feeding accounts. They combine the accounts into a single chapter to help children become familiar with the event itself.

But harmonization can be unhelpful when it clouds the text’s message.

Some Dangers

While harmonization is not always bad, here are some dangers of not doing it carefully:

1. Divorcing the event from the text.

We’ll think of the event as a historical abstraction, which can lead to the second danger.

2. Assigning our own meaning to the event.

In the absence of a particular text (with a particular main point), we might assign any point we want to the event. Such abstraction can lead people to use the Bible to prove anything they want to prove. This approach is not submissive to either the text handed down to us or the divine Author who handed it down .

3. Dulling observation

We think of the little boy’s lunch as being central to any discussion of the feeding. We fail to notice that only John mentions this boy. Similarly, only Luke mentions the disciples’ concern with not only food but lodging for the multitude.

4. Hindering interpretation

Why does only John mention the little boy’s lunch? Why does only Luke mention the disciples’ concern to find the people not only food but lodging? Such questions simply don’t matter if we harmonize the accounts.

5. Flattening application

If I harmonize the feeding accounts, I might always land on the same application (probably something about giving up what little I have and trusting Jesus to multiply it). I’ll lose the rich variety of applications that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John make to different audiences.

A Way Forward

Let’s hear the text—each text within its context. Once there’s a clear tune, we can see how it fits together with others.

The key is to learn to sing before you try to harmonize.

Big Bible Words: Atonement

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Stephen McGrath (2009), Creative Commons

Stephen McGrath (2009), Creative Commons

I have a dream. Not a compelling-vision-for-the-future sort of dream, but a sleeping-in-my-bed sort of dream. And I have this dream often.

In my dream, I am my current self (married with children), but I’m also a full-time college student. The semester is half-over, and I come to realize that I’ve forgotten a class. I’ve been faithfully attending most classes, but there’s one course I completely forgot. I never went to class. I haven’t taken any exams. I haven’t read the books or written the papers.

And I missed the deadline for dropping the class. So I’m now stuck with an abysmal grade.

But that’s not all. In my dream, when I discover the neglected class, I try to rectify the situation by attending the next scheduled class period. And when I arrive, something else comes to my attention.

I’m wearing nothing but my underwear.

We Need Covering

I cannot overstate the relief I feel when I wake from this dream. Few things are worse than an I’m-neglecting-significant-areas-of-responsibility dream. One such thing is an I’m-utterly-exposed-and-can-do-nothing-about-it dream.

When Adam and his wife ate the forbidden fruit, they knew their guilt and felt exposed. Their gut instinct was to cover up. So they tried fig-leaf briefs, and they ran and hid (Gen 3:7-9).

The Lord exposed them further so he could help. He coaxed them out from hiding and talked through the problem. He promised to deliver them. Then he covered them. He took their pitiful fruits of the loom and replaced them with his own fur and leather body suits (Gen 3:21). He uncovered their coverings that couldn’t cover and covered them instead with coverings that truly covered.

And so began humanity’s need for divine covering. Because of sin, exposure brings shame. But the Bible paints picture after picture of God’s merciful act of covering.

  • Noah’s sons cover the shame of their senseless father (Gen 9:23).
  • God allows Moses to see his glory, but only after covering him with a protective hand (Ex 33:20-23).
  • David didn’t cover his own sin (Ps 32:5) but trusted God to cover it for him (Ps 5:12, 27:5, 32:1).
  • One mark of a loving friend is the covering of offenses (Prov 10:12, 17:9).
  • Those who reject Christ will feel so exposed that they’ll seek any covering they can find (Luke 23:30, Rev 6:16).
  • True believers are clothed with Christ (Gal 3:27).

The primary Old Testament word for this covering is “atonement.” Can you explain atonement in plain language?

We Need Atonement

The Old Testament uses the term “atonement” often to describe the covering of sin and shame or guilt. Sometimes we use “atonement” interchangeably with “reconciliation” or “restoration,” but its primary meaning has to do with covering (though reconciliation is the general result of atonement).

The best place to look at the concept is Leviticus 16, which describes the annual Day of Atonement.

On the Day of Atonement, the high priest would take a bull to “make atonement” for himself. He would kill the bull for his own sin (Lev 16:11), burn incense (Lev 16:12-13), and splash the bull’s blood on the ark of the covenant in the most private room of the tabernacle (Lev 16:14). The incense would create a cloud to cover the ark, so the priest would not be exposed and die (Lev 16:13). The splashed bull’s blood substituted for the priest’s own blood. When there’s sin, someone must die. But the priest was covered.

Then the purified priest would get two goats. One would live; one would die.

The dead goat would also be taken into the private chamber and splashed on the ark of the covenant (Lev 16:15). Then the priest would go back to the outer room and splash the blood on the altar where he burned the incense (Lev 16:16-19). This ceremony would “make atonement for the Holy Place, because of the uncleannesses of the people of Israel” (Lev 16:16). With everything sufficiently covered, he’s ready for the live goat.

He’d put his hands on the live goat and confess all the sins of Israel. This goat, figuratively covered with the sins of all the people, would be taken out and set free in the wilderness (Lev 16:20-22).

All throughout, the priest must be very careful about his clothes (Lev 16:4, 23-24). The priest must not be improperly covered.

What is the point?

  • Atonement involves the covering of our impurity so we can be reconciled to God.
  • This covering must come from God and not ourselves. Even the Old Testament priests needed to be covered themselves before they could help to cover the people.
  • This covering requires a substitute.
  • This substitute must be both dead and alive (thus requiring two goats).

Jesus Our Atonement

All these things teach us about Jesus. Jesus came and took our place. He both died and was raised. He now covers us with his righteousness so our sin won’t ever be held against us.

And he didn’t need his own covering (Heb 7:27). No, he was stripped naked so he could provide our covering (John 19:23-24).

Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness (Heb 9:19-22). And those who have been covered by Christ’s blood wait for him to return and bring their final salvation (Heb 9:27-28).

Trust in Jesus, and his promise of atonement is: “I’ve got you covered.”

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Other posts in the Big Bible Words series: