Peter Krol | Knowable Word

Making Sense of Deuteronomy

March 11, 2015 By Peter Krol

Deuteronomy is a difficult book. It’s old. It’s long. It’s full of super-specific laws that don’t exactly fit our historical situation. For example:

You shall have a place outside the camp, and you shall go out to it. And you shall have a trowel with your tools, and when you sit down outside, you shall dig a hole with it and turn back and cover up your excrement. Because the Lord your God walks in the midst of your camp, to deliver you and to give up your enemies before you, so that he may not see anything indecent among you and turn away from you. (Deut 23:12-14)

How do you lead a Bible study on that? What must God think about my infant daughter’s intestinal blowout in the middle of church a few weeks ago?

At Reformation 21, Bruce Baugus’s excellent article will help you get your bearings in Deuteronomy. A few key points help those of us in the 21st century to understand why this book would have been so foundational and exciting for ancient Hebrews:

Moses structured Deuteronomy just like an ancient treaty. This book ratified the covenant treaty between God and Israel before Moses departed and handed things off to the next generation.
Ancient treaties always contained a section for the terms of the covenant (what was expected of each party to this treaty).
The long section of laws in Deut 4-26 describes those terms in painstaking detail. It begins with the summary: the Ten Commandments. Then it proceeds to explain what each of those commandments should look like in the lives of the people.
We’ll best understand the specific case laws if we see them as commentary on the Ten Commandments, in the very order of the Ten Commandments.

Baugus then takes up the particular question of where exactly the commentary on the 9th commandment begins and ends, which is a fine question to ask. But I think the best value of the article is in the overview of the larger framework.

With these tools in hand, you’re ready to tackle Deuteronomy.

Check it out!

The Best Way to Grow Your Bible Study Group

March 6, 2015 By Peter Krol

I don’t lead Bible studies just to make myself feel better; if that were the case, I could find many other ways to spend my time. No, I do it to help grow the kingdom of God. I want God to use me to influence others and draw them closer to him. If you’re leading a Bible study, I imagine you have similar motives.

So if we want to influence others to know God through Christ, we’ll want to have this influence on as many people as possible, right? That means we’ll want the group to grow. If we’re content with the group and never want it to change, perhaps we should reconsider our motives for having the group in the first place.

Grisel D’An (2015), Creative Commons

But this leads us to ask a valuable question: How do we grow the Bible study?

I could answer this question in many ways, depending on your cultural background, environment, unique strengths and weaknesses, and the makeup of your current group. But this post will highlight what is certainly the most important technique you must master if you want to expand your reach for the Lord’s sake.

You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. (2 Tim 2:1-2)

Before you can master this technique, you must be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus (2 Tim 2:1). You will always feel unworthy for what you’re about to do. Except for those times when you feel eminently worthy for this task, at which times it’s even more urgent that you be strengthened by the grace of Jesus. Draw your sustenance and power from the lavish mercy and free forgiveness of your Master and King. You are approved to study the Bible. And you are approved to lead others to study the Bible.

And what is this most important technique for growing your Bible study? “What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also” (2 Tim 2:2). Take what you’ve learned and teach it to someone else.

Pick someone with godly character in your group to be your assistant leader. Give that person some responsibility in the group. Follow a plan for progressively entrusting both the good deposit of the gospel and the skills of leadership to your assistant. Your plan could look like this:

Come and see (John 1:39), aka “I do, you watch.” Invite this person to become your official assistant leader. Meet with your assistant before the group meeting to go over the passage. Teach that person how to do OIA Bible study. Practice it with that person over the course of a few months.
Come and follow me (Mark 1:17), aka “I do, you help.” Ask your assistant to evaluate your leadership and make suggestions for improvement. Give your assistant particular assignments to carry out during the meeting. “Please help me to draw out the silent person.” “Please feel free to ask a key question if you think the discussion is lagging.” “Please come early and be ready to help welcome people.” “Please let me know what you hear that will enable me to make the next study more relevant to them.”
Go out and come back (Luke 10:1-24), aka “You do, I help.” Let your assistant lead one of the meetings, and then meet to give that person feedback on how it went. You now play the support role during the meeting, helping with difficult situations or participants. Encourage your assistant with what went well and offer suggestions for improvement. Avoid correcting every minor mistake; focus on broad patterns that might hold back this person’s leadership ability.
Go and make disciples (Matthew 28:18-20), aka “You do, I watch.” Right when your assistant starts being truly effective, you’ll need to send that person out to start a new group without you. This is painful, because it will feel like your own group is moving backwards. You’ll lose the momentum and excitement of forward movement. But where there had been one group, now there are two. This is worth it.

After your assistant starts a new group, you’ll probably want to continue meeting for a time. You’ll want to discuss how the meeting goes as it gets off the ground. You’ll discuss the new challenges and opportunities faced by this fledgling leader. But most of all, you’ll want to make sure the new leader wastes no time in looking for a new assistant to train. And you’ll be looking for another assistant yourself. And before you know it, you’ll have four groups going.

I didn’t invent this model for growth. Jesus instituted it from the start of his ministry, and it has been changing the world ever since. It’s not flashy, and you’ll rarely be able to wow people with your dramatic growth figures. (“I trained one new person this year!”) But the power of multiplication is like a silent infection, wreaking havoc on the forces of darkness. Don’t neglect this best way to grow your Bible study group.

The Bible Project Videos

March 4, 2015 By Peter Krol

It is difficult to overemphasize the value of strong book overviews when we study the Bible. If we don’t know what the book is about, we’ll have trouble discovering what a chapter within that book is about. That’s why I was delighted to recommend overviewbible.org to you a few weeks ago. Jeffrey Kranz has done some terrific work in writing solid book overviews and making them visually appealing.

I recently discovered a similar resource, which overviews books of the Bible in a short video format. The guys at The Bible Project are doing a bang-up job at creating high quality, textually-sensitive videos that overview each book of the Bible. They’re also making videos explaining various topics and concepts in the Bible, but I’m sure you can understand I’m more interested in the book overviews.

These videos are sensitive to the text. They explain each book according to the literary structure and themes of the book, and not by stringing together random but memorable stories.

These videos are fascinating. I’m no graphic artist, but I’m often repelled by low quality Christian productions. The production level on these videos rises well above the crowd.

These videos are short. They pack a lot of material into 5 or 6 minutes without cheating or cheapening the subject.

These videos are free. As they complete each video, the creators post it on YouTube for wide consumption.

I can’t wait to show these first few videos to my children. The next time I lead a study on Genesis or Exodus, we’ll make sure to watch these videos to kick things off (after the usual assignment of reading the book 4 or 5 times to develop our own overview).

So far, they’ve completed 2 videos on Genesis and 2 videos on Exodus, and they’re looking for help with the rest of the project. This appears to be a project well worth supporting.

Check it out!

HT: Andy Cimbala

How to Tell if Someone Knows God

February 27, 2015 By Peter Krol

At a church dinner on Sunday, I was discussing last Friday’s post with an older, wiser gentleman in my congregation. We reflected on the main measure of success for any Bible study: Do people know God better through his Son Jesus Christ? And this good man asked a great question: How do we know whether someone knows God (or knows him “better”)? How does one observe and evaluate such a thing?

The question was neither aggressive nor condescending. This kind brother intentionally stimulated further meditation and consideration of the Scripture. Thank you, Denny!

Easy but Unacceptable Answers

Of course, some answer the question in clearly unbiblical ways:

People can’t know God unless they are members of our church.
People can’t know God unless they adhere to every specific of a certain extra-biblical creed, doctrinal statement, or code of conduct.
People can’t know God unless they use a certain translation of the Bible.
People can’t know God unless they are baptized.

Now I’m no hater of church membership, historic Christian creeds, decent Bible translations, or baptism. But reacting against unbiblical abuses of such things is right and true. (For example, consider Paul’s reactions to abuses of circumcision and law in Galatians 5:2-12, 6:14-16.) And it’s not hard to come up with exceptions that disprove each proposed rule.

However, let’s not over-react with equally unbiblical conclusions, such as “I’m not God, and I can’t see people’s hearts. Therefore, I can’t know whether someone truly knows God or not. I won’t play God by even asking the question.”

Though a question as personal and invasive as this can inspire fear in the stoutest heart, let’s not hesitate to speak clearly where God has spoken clearly. What can be more helpful than to have a clear way to observe and evaluate the presence or absence of true faith and knowledge of God?

So what has God spoken on this topic?

Three Clear Tests

Chiceaux Lynch (2007), Creative Commons

God gave us an entire book of the Bible to answer this very question. Consider this explicit purpose statement for John’s first epistle:

I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. (1 John 5:13)

While John intended his Gospel to stimulate faith leading to eternal life (John 20:30-31), he intended his first letter to promote assurance of eternal life for those wondering whether their faith is true faith. As a result, the teaching of 1 John helps us test not only ourselves but also other people, including professing Christians. John doesn’t hesitate to apply his principles to the spirits and teachers within the church to call out the false prophets, devil’s children, and antichrists among the membership (or former membership). The letter’s tagline is “We know.”

John gives three clear and objective tests of genuine faith. He states them early and returns to them repeatedly throughout.

Keeping God’s commandments: the test of personal change.
Loving the brothers: the test of personal affection.
Confessing Christ: the test of personal witness.

The first exposition of the tests occurs in chapter 2: Change (1 John 2:3-6), Affection (1 John 2:7-11), Witness (1 John 2:18-25). But John repeats and develops the three tests repeatedly through the letter, climaxing with his closing statements.

Change: “We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him” (1 John 5:18).
Affection: “We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.” (1 John 5:19). See 1 John 4:7 for John’s definition of what it means to be “from God.”
Witness: “And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. Little children, keep yourselves from idols.” (1 John 5:20-21).

Applying the Tests

As you evaluate whether your Bible study (or any other ministry) was a success, you’ll want to observe attendance figures, participation levels, and the faithfulness of the leaders. But please don’t neglect to ask the most important questions.

As a result of the study, do people know God better through his Son Jesus Christ?
How do we know?
- Are people changing to become more like Christ?
- Do they have more affection for each other, and are they acting on it?
- Are they more empowered to confess Jesus as the Son of God? Do they firmly believe it, and do they boldly declare it?

John doesn’t expect anyone to be perfect (1 John 1:8-10); neither should we. These questions aren’t concerned with people’s position as much as with their direction. We know that those who head in the right direction in all three areas have eternal life.

Do You Interpret the Bible Literally?

February 25, 2015 By Peter Krol

When helping ordinary people learn to study the Bible, the question is inevitable:

Do you interpret the Bible literally?

This is a hard question to answer, and Justin Taylor explains why. He taps into some insight from Vern Poythress—who, coincidentally, endorsed Knowable Word—to list 5 different ways one could interpret a passage “literally.”

Determining the meaning of the words in isolation.
Accepting obvious and explicit figures of speech, but taking a literal meaning if possible.
Discerning the meaning intended by the original author.
Reading the text as if it were written directly to us.
Discounting any possible figurative use of language.

It’s not easy to answer the question of whether we interpret the Bible literally without knowing what the questioner is actually asking. Because of this complexity, Justin Taylor would like to do away with the word literally in discussions about the Bible. What do you think?

Check it out!

How to Know Whether Your Bible Study was a Success

February 20, 2015 By Peter Krol

I want to believe that what I do matters, especially when I’ve put in much time and effort. Don’t you?

And when we lead Bible studies, our common temptation is to measure success in all the wrong ways:

Did a lot of people come? Is the group growing? (Acts 19:29-41)
Was the meeting exciting? (1 Kings 18:28-29)
Did I faithfully speak the truth? (Job 5:8-16, quoted approvingly by Paul in 1 Cor 3:19)
Did I follow all the steps and have the right interpretation? (Luke 10:25-29)
Do people feel close to each other? (Gen 11:1-9)
Are defenses being lowered? (Gen 3:1-7)
Are people learning? (2 Tim 3:6-7)

Bernard Goldbach (2011), Creative Commons

When I call these the “wrong ways” to measure success, I’m not suggesting any of them are bad things. Merely that they are not the main things. If these things happen, then praise God! But unless the main thing happens, the study was not yet a success.

The main measure of success

What is the main thing? I addressed it early in this series when I explained the main reason to attend a Bible study. I now return to the same goal for evaluating success:

As a result of the study, do people know God better through his Son Jesus Christ?

If you remained faithful to the truth, there’s a good chance you led them to the one who is the Truth. But if you didn’t incarnate love in the process, you made much noise without making an impact. That’s not success.

If a lot of people came and felt comfortable with each other, but their affections and lives weren’t conformed further to Christ’s image, you may have merely accelerated their slide into hell.

If very few people came and you’re patting yourself on the back for standing fast as one of the only truly faithful ones in the land, it might be time to work on sweetening your speech and adding persuasiveness to your lips.

If people learned a lot, terrific. Did the increased knowledge increase their love for God and bolster their commitment to submit to Christ the Lord?

Yeah, but how do you measure it?

You may commit yourself to helping people know God through his Son Jesus Christ. It feels great to make such a commitment, but it still feels vague and idealistic. How do you know whether it’s happening? What is the visible evidence of such success?

In his book Growth Groups, Colin Marshall gives the following diagnostic indicators of a healthy small group. These indicators are most helpful when we remember they are secondary. That is, they don’t define success; they show that success is possible. If these indicators are present, the group might be healthy, and we can get close enough to people to evaluate their progress in knowing God. If these indicators aren’t present, the group is probably not healthy, and we probably can’t get close enough to people to know.

Ownership: each member belongs to the group. People have commitment to the group and concern for the group’s welfare.
Participation: high levels of involvement in discussion. People prepare for the meeting, engage with the discussion, and/or interact deeply with the text.
Openness: honesty in self-disclosure. People feel safe to celebrate success, confess failure, and commit to personal change.
Service: each member using their gifts. People trust each other and all pitch in. They don’t rely on the leader to do all the work.
Achievement: the group goals are being achieved. People pray and work to the end that they would know Christ more and that others would come to know Christ.

I appreciate Marshall’s diagnostic, because it gives me a way to measure the overall health of the group. But, as with a healthy human body, it’s possible to look healthy on the outside without truly being healthy. But with ownership, participation, openness, service, and achievement, our chances are good of peeling back the layers and captivating people’s hearts.

50 Observations of John 3:16

February 18, 2015 By Peter Krol

I was so proud yesterday when this photo showed up on my Facebook timeline.

Some students, who lead Bible studies for DiscipleMakers Christian Fellowship at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, have been reading Knowable Word together, and they took my challenge from page 42 to make 50 observations of John 3:16. They sent me a photo of this autographed white board to show the fruit of their labors.

My favorites are:

#2: “God” is the subject
#6: “Whoever” – excludes no-one
#11: “Love” is past tense
#16: “For” – connector (back to Moses & serpent in verse 15)
#22: “God gave” = a choice
#28: “Believe” = theme of John
#41: Simplicity

Great job, Huskies! Does anyone else want to flex those observation muscles and give it a try?

(Almost) How the Bible was Meant to be Read

February 13, 2015 By Peter Krol

I’m a reader, and I love the Bible. So I was thrilled when I saw Crossway’s announcement for the new ESV Reader’s Bible last summer. I knew I had to get one in time for my annual Bible read-through to begin on January 1. I’m glad I did, because the Reader’s Bible lived up to my expectations.

Some folks don’t realize how much stuff on the pages of their Bibles isn’t part of the inspired text. Of course, there are obvious mechanisms like page numbers and reference headings that aid navigation. But there are also section headings, footnotes, cross-references, chapter numbers, and verse numbers. Sometimes, there’s also commentary at the bottom of the page.

In addition, we don’t realize how typography (the page layout of the text) impacts the way we read the text. Does each page have one column of text or two? Is the text broken into paragraphs, or does each verse start a new line? How large is the font? Is poetry divided into stanzas, or does it run on and on without a break? Is the poetry set apart with indented lines, or is it printed in a block of text just like prose?

The ESV Reader’s Bible cuts out most of the extraneous conventions and gets most of the typography just right. The result is a Bible that—though it looks just like any other book we read in this generation—doesn’t look very Bible-like to most Bible readers, and thus represents a significant risk on the publisher’s part. Will people buy a Bible that doesn’t look like the Bible they grew up with? Will sales be enough to cover the investment? We should celebrate Crossway’s courage for pushing this venture as far as they did.

After reading the entire book in about 5 weeks’ time, here are my impressions.

Reading the Bible was more fun than usual. I usually enjoy the Scripture. I always enjoy my annual saturation in it. But honestly, some of the sheer fun wears off by the end, and I push forward more because I believe in the vision for a quick read than because I’m having fun in the process. But this time, I simply couldn’t put it down because it didn’t feel like reading “the Bible”; it felt like reading a good book. And I love reading good books.
I read the entire Bible more quickly than usual—partly because I combined actual reading with listening to an audio version, but also partly because the page layout gave me permission to keep going. In fact the page teased me. It taunted me, suggesting that more plot tension, climax, and resolution lay just around the corner. Without all those huge chapter numbers, verse numbers, and section headings interrupting me and giving me a feeling of arrival, I felt like I could keep reading another section; no—another section; no—another section.
The context stood out much more than some of the content. I would pass over some of my favorite verses like an angel of death at midnight, almost forgetting they were there, because I had gotten swept into the bigger picture of the author’s rhetoric. For example, 1 Corinthians 13 came and went before I realized what had happened. I wasn’t so focused on hitting “the love chapter”; I was far more conscious of the clarion call to unity within the church, which is more the point, I think.
Using this Bible in discussion groups is a little funky. When I want to observe something, the best help I can give others is, “Look at the sentence in the third paragraph, somewhere around verse 16.” Honestly, though, I’m not sure that’s a bad thing. How great would it be if we all stopped thinking of the Bible as a collection of 31,102 separate sayings (verses), and instead thought of it as a collection of 66 short books?

This edition, of course, is not perfect.

The paper is way too thin, so the back-side ink shows through and the pages are difficult to turn. However, I’m not sure how else they could have fit 1825 pages into a single volume. This page formatting holds fewer words per page than typical Bible typesetting, and something has to give to manage the physical thickness.
For some reason, Crossway decided to keep chapter numbers in the margins. It’s nice that they moved them away from the text block, and that they altered the color. But, as Mark Ward said in his review, “It feels like Crossway made it about five minutes from the summit of Mt. Everest and then decided that was good enough.” I imagine they thought it would be not just difficult but impossible to navigate through the tome without them, but the reference headings at the top of the page would have been just fine.
For another strange reason, they decided to keep the suggestive “He,” “She,” and “Others” headings in the Song of Solomon. I wish they had trusted us with the plain text and allowed us to wrestle through exactly who was speaking when.

I commend this Bible to you. I’m a proud owner of the imitation leather, TrueTone edition. But as soon as I finish composing this review, I plan to order a copy of the cloth over board (hardback) edition to serve as my new markup Bible. I’m eager to begin a new season of study with a fresh text, independent of the usual conventions that ~~clog~~ assist study.

Cloth over board: Buy it at Amazon or Westminster Books.

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Disclaimer: The Amazon and Westminster links are affiliate links, so if you click them and buy stuff you’ll help to pay for my new markup copy of the ESV Reader’s Bible.

Look at the Book: Romans 8:28

February 11, 2015 By Peter Krol

If you’d like a real treat, watch a skillful student of Scripture in action. Desiring God continues to release a series of videos showing John Piper in the study, examining God’s word in great depth.

He’s working through Romans chapter 8 bit by bit, and spent 3 10-minute sessions on a single, crucial verse: Romans 8:28. This verse is not only one of the most famous verses in the Bible, but also one of the most commonly misunderstood. Piper unpacks the verse, phrase by phrase, explaining the meaning of each phrase in the context of the paragraph.

What to look for: Piper has a keen eye for observation of the text. In these videos, he shows how to notice repeated words, comparisons, contrasts, and connectors. He demonstrates what to do with these observations. He asks terrific questions (“Why does the verse begin with ‘we know’?” “Who are those who ‘love God’?” “What is the ‘good’ that all things work together for?”). He shows how to answer such questions from the text at hand, including the surrounding context. He pulls it all together beautifully in a way that celebrates Paul’s main ideas and honors God’s word. There are many, many things to commend. If you struggle with any of these skills, watch these videos to see how it’s done.

What to look out for: Piper does so much so well, but I think he jumps a little too quickly to many cross-references. Right when his questions get good, he bails from the text at hand and looks for help in other Pauline passages. But the church in Rome wouldn’t have had access to those other letters of Paul’s, and I wonder how they would have wrestled through these questions. And, how do we avoid making unhelpful cross-references (importing meaning from passages that use the same terminology in different ways)?

In the end, I don’t disagree with any of Piper’s conclusions. But I wish he had left a few questions unanswered, being content simply to make statements such as: “This passage doesn’t answer the question of what exactly “God’s calling” means, so we’ll just leave that question for another study in another passage.”

Despite this minor criticism, Piper’s videos have much to commend them. If you’d like to see good observation and interpretation in action, you would do well to check them out!

Community-Building Ideas for Your Bible Study

February 6, 2015 By Peter Krol

At the risk of sounding falsely humble, I must admit I don’t have this community-building thing figured out. I have co-laborers in my church and in my ministry who are far better at fostering healthy community than I. (Though I’ll also admit I’m better than many of them at knowing the previous sentence should end with “I” and not “me.”) However, none of them were available in time for publication, and you’re stuck with me. Here are a few helpful ideas I’ve picked up over the years:

Jeff Helsel (2012), Creative Commons

1. Love must reach beyond the timeframe of the Bible study meeting. If people think I care about them only during the 90 minutes allotted to our meeting, they’ll learn to limit their care for one another to the same time slot.

2. Take initiative. Ask people how they’re doing. Remember what they tell you so you can ask them again later. If someone is disengaged from the group, ask a direct question to draw that person back.

3. Ask people to participate. When people are good at something, find ways to ask them to keep doing it for the group. Give them jobs, and with them will come a greater sense of ownership in the group.

4. Have fun together. If you don’t yet have a sense of humor, buy one. People get exhausted when their conversation with you is always very serious and deep. You’ll seem more human when they can lower their defenses and simply have fun.

5. Ask them to observe. If someone is struggling, ask others (without breaking confidences, of course) how they think that person is doing. Ask those people what they think would best serve the struggler.

6. Give them real people responsibility. Ask people to play a part in each others’ lives. “Could you get lunch with Robert for a few weeks to encourage him through this difficult time?”

7. Serve together. Find tasks or service projects that need to be done in your church or community, and work on them together with your group. Nothing lowers defenses and grows relationships more than a little sweat and shared service, especially when you get outside of your normal routine together.

8. Celebrate criticism. My former pastor Tedd Tripp once told me that when someone criticizes him or the church, it means God has gifted that person in that area. (If you’re gifted at something, you’re likely to think the people around you aren’t very good in that area.) So he always thanks them and thanks God for them. Then he asks them to help fix it. Perhaps God put them here for that very purpose. This advice is good for leaders of all stripes. Don’t get defensive; choose to celebrate any and all criticism of you or your leadership.

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