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On Monday night, December 17th, we’ll take the evening to explore what has become a pressing topic for Christians to understand.  In many conversations with all kinds of people, it is very common to discuss these questions:

• Who chose the books in the New Testament?
• Why do we have those books, and not others?
• Why do we have only four Gospels? Weren’t there other Gospels?
• Did the church suppress other views and other writings?
• Why did it take 400 years for the church to decide what books were scripture?
• Why should Christians claim the Bible as their authority, if we can’t even know what books should be in the Bible?

We’ll look at answers to these questions for ourselves, since knowing that we have the right books is essential for our own ability to have confidence in the Gospel. We’ll also take some time to think through how to communicate effectively about these issues when we share the Gospel in our daily lives. And we’ll finish the night with an open Q&A.

Hope to see you there.

This Monday night we’ll take a break from studying 2 Peter to have a night of worship and communion. See you there!

In case you haven’t heard, our Monday night meeting is cancelled tonight (because of the storm), along with the rest of church activities.

On Monday night we’ll be beginning our study through the first letter of the apostle Peter. There are some distinctive things about both Peter’s writing and subject matter, and I’m looking forwards to exploring them as we move towards another winter. And in the spirit of Pastor Joe, who regularly exhorts us to read ahead, I wanted to list some ways you might study 1 Peter on your own to enhance what we discuss on Monday nights.

It’s a great thing to make a habit: studying yourself what we are studying together in church. So as we get started, here are some ideas to help you do your own self-study, either to get prepared before we begin or to study along as we go.

1. Visit a Bible website like biblegateway.com and use it to copy, paste, and print out the the letter for yourself. Make wide margins on the page, put your print-outs into a binder, and then grab a pencil and start studying along by making notes in the margins, circling (squaring, starring, etc…) things and drawing lines to connect ideas, blocking or underlining main ideas, making visual outline notes, and anything else that helps you see things in the letter. The idea is to be able to mark it up without worrying about having trouble reading that page in your Bible later. You can get the whole letter in the New King James Version here.

2. Get a journal to take notes in, and as you read give yourself questions to answer. For instance, you could read the letter all the way through and write out the main message of the letter in one sentence. Then try to rewrite the letter into one paragraph in your own words.

3. Look for any quotations from the Old Testament or from Jesus. Where are they from? Why does Peters use them? You could use this document to work off of…

Here’s the list of places Peter quotes the Old Testament:

4. Create your own outline of the letter. Making an outline is always a good way to help yourself understand a book of the Bible as a whole.

5. If you never have before, check out one of these free online Bible websites: Blue Letter Bible or Great Treasures. They both take a little practice to use well, but they are both pretty powerfule study tools. And they’re both free.

6. If you’ve never used a commentary before, maybe you’ll want to go to the bookstore and see what we have in stock. You could follow along and read it straight through.

6. Pick key passages and memorize them. This is one of the most fruitful ways for you to study and meditate on scripture. And, while you’re at it, why not consider something that you may think is impossible, but isn’t? Why not try memorizing the whole letter? If you think you can’t, check out our resources pages for ideas on how you might do it, and if you really want to try it, come talk to us for help. 

Have you got any other ideas? Let me know and I can share helpful here.

Peter’s letter is intensely practical and challenging. Let’s take this Autumn to seriously seek God in His word together and let Him shape our lives on Monday nights.

Don’t forget… There’s no Young Adults study at church tonight…

 Two quick updates on next weekend:

1. I know $65 is not a small amount of money. As one help, if you’re registering for the Women’s Seminar next weekend, you can take $25 off the registration for our Weekend in the Word. That’s the cost of the Women’s Seminar, so it offsets…
2. We need to know if you’re planning on coming. Our numbers are low so far, and I want to make sure this is a go. And if we are going, there’s food planning, etc. You can email me your info and download a regsitration form below.

In case you’re not sure what this is all about, here’s the original blog post:

And

On Friday April 20 we’ll return to the site of our Autumn Weekend of Prayer for a whole weekend to study God’s word together. We’ll study through an entire book during the weekend (most likely a shorter one, like a New Testament letter). You can expect a variety of different formats for our study, from typical large-group studies to Q&A sessions to discussion groups to individual time to read on your own.

I’m really excited about this opportunity to experience the blessing of Christian community centered around God’s word for. Of course, prayer and worship singing will be a large part of our gatherings, as we let God’s revealed truth lead our hearts to talk to Him, ask Him for things, seek His presence, and praise Him. The weekend will take place at the Camp at Old Mill in Brandamore, PA.

You can download a registration form here.

Let me know if you have any questions!

Last Monday night we finished our look at what it means to walk in the Spirit, focusing especially on Galatians 5:16-25. After praying about where we should head next, thinking about different conversations with many of you, and talking with Chuck Chandler on a train from Temple, it seems like I have a direction. For the next few weeks (maybe 8? 10?) we’re going to go through our lives, one perspective at a time, and see what it means for us in each area that Jesus Christ is the Lord. This seems to follow naturally from our study of walking in the Spirit, because now we’ll look, practically, at every area of life and see direction of the Spirit in each one.

I hope to see, with you all, how comprehensive the authority of Jesus is in all the nooks and crannies of our ordinary, every day lives. We’ll need to keep looking at foundational, big-picture kind of truths to stay on God’s page, but we should be able to stay very practical as well. After all, those things go together–practical wisdom from God flows from the “big truths” about who He is, and big truths only take on power and meaning as they actually make a difference in the lives we live every day.

So here’s the basic outline of the studies, which (obviously) will change as we go along and discover how it goes.

Christ is Lord of:

• Our Bodies
• Our Minds
• Our Relationships
• Our Church
• Our Work
• Our Speech
• Our Possessions
• Our Entertainment
• Our Time & Future

 For each of these ideas, we’ll apply these two truths

1. Christ is Lord of everything.
2. The Gospel changes everything.

    …and see all the implications for how we can (and should) live as those who know the one true God.

Let me know if there are any other areas you’d like to cover. I’ve already been so challenged and blessed studying what scripture says about God’s authority over our bodies. I can’t wait, Lord willing, to start looking into these things with you all on Monday night. See you tomorrow at church!

A few years ago Tiffany Doran invited me to a dinner with Chuck and Janice Walton,  who are former missionaries in the Philippines. They spent many years involved in Bible translation for people groups with no copies of the scriptures in their languages. Recently Chuck orbited back into my path here at church, and I had lunch with him Friday. He and Janice continue to do those dinner nights at their home, and I asked Tiffany, who regularly attends them, to write a little about what they’re like, and to invite you all out. The next one happens this Saturday night. If you think you may be called to foreign missions at all, or just aren’t sure what the next step of your life might be and want to talk over God’s leading, I recommend checking this out. Here’s Tiffany:

For the last four years I’ve had the privilege of attending Chuck and Janice’s “Supper Nights” in Newtown. Chuck and Janice Walton were Wycliffe Bible Translators in the Philippines for many years and translated two New Testaments for Bibleless people groups. Now they live in Newtown and work as recruiters for Wycliffe. Their heart and ministry is to encourage those who have sensed a call from the Lord to missions work in that period of waiting between their call and their actual going to the field (which they’ve told me on average is around 10 years). Also they have a heart to make people aware of the Bibleless peoples groups around the world  (“today about  340 million people do not have any Scripture in their language” –wycliffe.org) and the different ways we can be a part of bringing them the Word of God in their mother tongue- whether it’s through prayer, supporting other missionaries, or going ourselves (which doesn’t necessarily mean being a Bible translator–there are airplane mechanics who are Wycliffe missionaries!).

Anyway, Chuck and Janice have these nights not to guilt you into being a Wycliffe missionary, and not to push you to foreign missions work at all. What I have gleaned from these nights is that they want to create an environment for those who have a heart for missions to come together and eat, pray, discuss different aspects of missions and what’s going on in the world, answer questions, and discuss ways to be missionaries wherever we’re called- whether it’s Langhorne, PA or Cameroon, West Africa. 

 So if that is you, I would encourage you contact Chuck and Janice and let them know ASAP if you can attend (because Janice makes amazing wonderful food–usually some awesome ethnic dish–but she wants to make sure she has enough for everyone!). 

I’m reasonably sure that, Lord willing, we’ll be starting a new direction of study in our Monday night gatherings, starting this Monday night. I want to take a few weeks and look at Paul’s description of the Christian life in Galatians 5:16-25. Specifically, I think we’ll all benefit by meditating on what the Holy Spirit is indicating about how to live a fruitful Christian life that does not “fulfill the lusts of the flesh” and does bear “the fruit of the Spirit.”

How do these things actually happen? How do they actually work in our lives? What is it like to experience these things and live them out? That’s where I hope to go with you all starting on Monday.

If you want to get ready, I suggest a couple reads through the whole letter. Maybe take a few minutes a couple times this weekend and read straight through in one sitting, a few different times. (That’s the best way to read the New Testament letters.) It would be great if we were all reading up and well acquainted with the letter, and the passage.

You might also try working through the passage yourself. Have you ever diagrammed?

Just to get you started, here’s a word document of a rough diagram I did of the passage, which I’ll start to use to prepare the studies. I just printed it out so I could start drawing all over it.

1 John was great, and I’m excited to see where the Lord’s going to be taking us, together, this year.

Tiffany put this on the Facebook page. If you’re not on Facebook, here it is:

We’ll be having our girl’s study this Thursday (the 28th) at 7:30 pm in the prayer room here at Calvary. We’re continuing to go through Hebrews 11 together. We would love for any girls looking to get more involved in the group to come on out- it’s a great time to make friends, pray together, and to encourage each other in the Lord through His Word!