For
roughly the past two years, I’ve been involved in an intense study of the
Bible. This study, Disciple, is
extremely structured and organized in its format and presentation. Daily scripture reading is required, as is a
weekly class that lasts about two and a half hours. Class time itself is also fairly structured
(at least it is intended to be, I must confess that our small group of
Disciples, having been together for as long as we have, have tended to “do our
own thing” from time to time!) In any
event, we just wrapped up Disciple II, which was a detailed study into the
books of Genesis/Exodus and Luke/Acts.
In addition to delving deeper into The Word, this particular Disciple
class took us one step further, asking with each class session, “Now that you’ve
gone into The Word, what will be your response out in The World?” In other words, The Message is meant to be
shared, there are many ways in which to do so, how are YOU going to share The
Good News?
I
believe there are some Disciples who gush forth with light and pure enthusiasm in
sharing The Good News. It comes natural
to them, not sharing would be akin to not breathing. I’ve known a few such souls; one who comes to
mind was our wonderful neighbor Ralph, who recently passed away from pancreatic
cancer. Even while in the midst of
dying, Ralph was purposefully living out the act of bringing others to life and
salvation in Christ. Ralph was not
hesitant, or unsure of himself. He knew
he could do all things, through Christ.
There
are others, however, much like me, who, after hearing and finally “getting” The
Good News, find themselves a bit unsure of what, exactly to do next. It can be, frankly, daunting; even though it
is, truthfully, one of the most important things we can ever do. And we shouldn’t be afraid, or worried, about
carrying this news, because He’s got our backs, so to speak; and if we
sincerely are in awe of and trust in God, then nothing or no one else should be
able to thwart us.
That’s
the way it should be, it’s not the way it always is.
But,
I take heart, because most of us, myself included, find opportunities to
witness and share when there is a natural opening to do so. For me, I’ve found
chances to talk about my faith have arisen simply out of people’s curiosity
about my involvement in Disciple Class; my reading, studying and discussions of
the Bible with others. I’ve heard things
like, “I could never get through the
Bible, it’s so boring!”, or, “I
tried, I really did, but I couldn’t get past Genesis. I mean, seriously? People actually believe that stuff happened?” or, “What about science? I would
love to believe in God, but I’m a scientist!” or, “Leviticus? Really? That is SO
out of touch with my reality!” And
so on. “Hey, I’ve been there, too,” I tell them. “Fairly recently, too.”
About
three years ago, right around the time we returned to church, I decided, having
never done so, that it was time to read the Bible. Yes sir, I was going to pick up one of the various
versions I had stuffed in our bookshelf (kind of ironic, in hindsight, that two
people who had not had anything to do with God in the past thirty years still
had quite the collection of Bibles in their house!) and get busy! My first attempt was with a King James
Version. Not, mind you, a NEW King James
Version, but the OLD King James Version.
Not surprisingly, I couldn’t get past Genesis 1. After putting that down with some
disappointment, I recalled there was a version out there called The Message;
the Bible in plain, modern day language.
That sounded good to me, so I purchased one through Amazon.com. When it arrived, I eagerly opened it up,
raring to get going on my quest to read the Bible. Guess what?
I couldn’t make it through the book of Genesis. Although the language was easier to
understand, I fell into one of the thought process mentioned above, that this
stuff just couldn’t have happened. I was
taking things entirely too literally, and, as such, was discarding the message
itself.
Thankfully,
a few month later, our church offered a Disciple I class (the first in the Disciple
series). Although it was a major
commitment of 36 weeks of class and
daily reading (sometimes amounting to an hour a day, depending on that week’s
lesson), both Mark and I signed up for it in September of 2012 and our lives
began to change.
Having
gone through this transformation (which, by the way, is still in process), I am
now convinced that a Bible novice should never attempt to read the Bible on
their own for the simple fact it can be flat out discouraging. Some people will fail with the Old Testament but
find comfort in the New Testament; you know, along comes Jesus to make everything
better. Plus, much of the New Testament is more familiar to most of us. But, having gone through reading the Bible in
a guided, structured and purposeful way, I can see that, by skipping the Old
Testament and getting to “the good stuff”, too much can be lost in translation.
We may find ourselves giggling or rolling our eyes through all the debates of
circumcision vs. no circumcision of the gentiles in Acts, because we don’t understand
the importance or the symbolism of the argument. Or, if you’ve not muddled through the
Prophets, the importance of what is cited in the later Gospel and the references
to Jesus can be totally missed. Not to
mention, understanding who wrote what, the time in which certain books were
written, the history of the Israelites and of their country; is really needed
to put everything into perspective.
Circling
back to sharing The Good News, I’ve found most folks are pretty fascinated when
I tell them what I’ve learned by studying the Bible. I’m not preaching at them, I’m sharing my
experience, and that is a big difference.
A huge difference.
As
we wrapped up our study the other night, we were discussing what our next class
might be. Disciple III (which is an
intense study of the Prophets)? Or,
maybe a new study entirely entitled Covenant?
What would get others interested?
We joked that perhaps we should suggest an offering of Disciple Lite or,
maybe even (thinking of the popular yellow self-help books) Disciples for
Dummies!
Although
I know there is still much for me to learn about the Bible (there’s no wonder
some people spend their entire life studying it), if someone who’d never heard
of the Bible said to me,
“Wow, I’ve never heard about the Bible, what’s it
about?” I’d say,
“It’s
the story of God and His never-ending love
for us.”
“Really? And what did you get out of it?”
“Love
God. Love one another. The End”.
Mrs.
B
Next
Up: Love God
