back to indexBCC 2018 Retreat - Improving Bible Observations
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So, we're talking right now about not just simple Bible inductive study, but because 00:00:11.440 |
that's going to be something more like a five part series. 00:00:14.320 |
Today we're going to be talking more so about, we're going to be talking more about observations. 00:00:22.780 |
How do you fine tune or just simply improve the method by which you do observation of 00:00:29.240 |
Now, I love doing things by my hand and like making things like little boxes or tables 00:00:37.520 |
And one thing about creating anything, making anything is that you never finish with one 00:00:45.080 |
Just like with cleaning, anything else that you want a nice fine finish, you don't just 00:00:51.280 |
As a matter of fact, recently my wife and I, we made a little table out of plywood and 00:00:56.320 |
all it is is cheap plywood, 20 bucks for a whole sheet. 00:00:59.960 |
All we did is put polyurethane right over it. 00:01:02.480 |
First coat, all bumpy, bubbly, looks disgusting. 00:01:06.240 |
Second coat, you sand in between, put another coat down and all of a sudden it looks a lot 00:01:11.440 |
Third and fourth coat, you go in with fine sandpaper and when you finish it, the grain 00:01:16.560 |
pops, it's reflective, it looks like mirror finish and it looks awesome. 00:01:21.760 |
Likewise, with Bible observations, one reading will never do, two readings won't do, but 00:01:29.200 |
on multiple layers what you find is there's a beauty that comes out from scripture as 00:01:35.400 |
Likewise, today we're going to go through a specific passage in Ephesians and we're 00:01:39.320 |
going to read it several times observing all the stuff that's in there. 00:01:44.200 |
And that's why with multiple layers of observation, people, you will find that the scripture is 00:01:49.560 |
so deep, scripture is so profound, you could spend your whole life observing the same passage 00:01:54.960 |
again and again only to glean greater riches. 00:01:59.640 |
If you look at your packets or your handout, there's a section that says just improving 00:02:04.160 |
observation with multiple, multi-layer observations through, and I give you a little list. 00:02:11.080 |
These are some of the steps that we'll be taking in order for us to improve. 00:02:15.800 |
Just running through it really briefly, we always have to start with our simple reading 00:02:21.600 |
If it's a specific text in the New Testament, what's the general picture, what's the narrative? 00:02:27.320 |
We do second layer by looking at the paragraph and outlining the topics, the major themes. 00:02:33.980 |
We do sentence diagramming or what you call syntactical diagramming to see the relationships 00:02:42.440 |
There's categorizing the different parts of speech, and lastly, getting a good feel of 00:02:50.760 |
Let's take a moment to pray and jump right in. 00:02:52.840 |
Our God, we thank you so much for your grace. 00:02:58.720 |
Just as Pastor Aaron mentioned this just earlier, God, it is your grace given to us for us to 00:03:05.160 |
be able to look and observe your precious word. 00:03:08.600 |
God, you say in your own words, Lord, that your word is bread to us. 00:03:14.720 |
And I really pray, Father God, that we would be a people who have enjoyed that, who have 00:03:22.440 |
And I pray for every single one of us, you continue just to inspire us and God, motivate 00:03:27.040 |
our hearts, Lord, that we would come to your word. 00:03:33.520 |
What I'd like to do first and foremost is just give you a challenge that when you do 00:03:37.640 |
your observations, you do want to make sure that you are looking at big picture. 00:03:43.880 |
So on layers of the observations, you want to sometimes do the close look, but you also 00:03:51.360 |
What I'd like to do is read with you guys together Ephesians. 00:03:57.760 |
What I'd like you to do on your own, not together, is read Ephesians chapter one and two. 00:04:08.120 |
And just to give a little sense of the pressure, you have six minutes to read it. 00:04:14.240 |
So this is not like all crazy, just like detailed observation, but just read chapter one and 00:04:20.720 |
And then when you're all done, go ahead and look up and I'm going to give you a minute 00:04:24.720 |
to just write a few observations on your own. 00:09:43.240 |
Okay, even if you're not finished reading the two chapters, 00:09:58.240 |
what I'd like you to do now is try to jot down any theme 00:10:06.240 |
or major teaching that you saw in the next minute. 00:10:10.240 |
But use not full-on sentences, but just about two to three words. 00:10:14.240 |
It could be "love of God," it could be et cetera, et cetera, right? 00:10:19.240 |
Take about a minute from what you just cursory read. 00:10:23.240 |
What themes or major teachings do you recall? 00:11:30.240 |
one of the first things we want to do, again, 00:11:33.240 |
is to read a large portion and then simply see the flow of thought. 00:11:37.240 |
And sometimes when you read, certain things pop out to you, 00:11:43.240 |
But is that the best way to feel like, "Oh, I understand this passage"? 00:11:47.240 |
No. That's maybe a good way just to have a moment of conviction or devotion, 00:11:52.240 |
but it's not a good way to sit there and say, 00:11:54.240 |
"This is what he, the author, wants me to understand." 00:11:58.240 |
So in so doing that, one of the very first things we do 00:12:02.240 |
is we read a big section, and then we start to outline 00:12:13.240 |
I have the heading "Paragraph Outlining" or "Topical Outlining." 00:12:17.240 |
And when we do that, what we're searching for are themes in the Scriptures. 00:12:22.240 |
Many times when people try to outline the Bible, 00:12:27.240 |
One method is simply to use the paragraphing in the Greek text, 00:12:32.240 |
because just like you guys learn in high school, 00:12:34.240 |
you write your thoughts in terms of paragraphs. 00:12:37.240 |
You have your topic sentence, and then you have your paragraph, 00:12:39.240 |
and you make a new paragraph, and you move into a new thought. 00:12:46.240 |
what they'll show you is, it'll show you a number in terms of the verse numbers. 00:12:51.240 |
It'll be bolded based on where the Greek text has a new paragraph. 00:12:59.240 |
Ancient Greek texts are actually written in Unicode, 00:13:04.240 |
However, much later on, as people, scholars, are looking at the text, 00:13:10.240 |
there are clear markers of where their new thought or transition was, 00:13:16.240 |
So in your Bibles, you have these bold numbers to show you those paragraphs, 00:13:20.240 |
and that way you can break up your sections to study them. 00:13:24.240 |
What I like to say is actually the best thing to do is look for process of thought, 00:13:28.240 |
and think where are the big sections of thought. 00:13:35.240 |
Again, even though you've already read it, we're going to do multiple, okay? 00:13:38.240 |
I'm going to read this for us here, and it says-- 00:13:44.240 |
It says, "Blessed be the God of thought and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 00:13:48.240 |
who has blessed us with every spiritual blessings in the heavenly places." 00:13:57.240 |
Because everything falling underneath it is simply an extrapolation of that theme verse. 00:14:03.240 |
It says, "Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, 00:14:07.240 |
that we would be holy and blameless before Him. 00:14:11.240 |
In love, He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, 00:14:19.240 |
To the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us and the beloved. 00:14:24.240 |
In Him, we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, 00:14:28.240 |
according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished on us. 00:14:32.240 |
In our wisdom and insight, He made known to us the mystery of His will, 00:14:36.240 |
according to His kind intention, which He purposed in Him. 00:14:40.240 |
With a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, 00:14:44.240 |
that is the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens, things on the earth. 00:14:49.240 |
In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined, 00:14:54.240 |
according to His purpose, who works all things after the counsel of His will. 00:14:58.240 |
To the end, that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory. 00:15:05.240 |
In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, 00:15:10.240 |
having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, 00:15:15.240 |
who was given as a pledge of our inheritance with a view to the redemption of God's own possession, 00:15:23.240 |
Now, what's really interesting is when certain passages of Scripture like this we observe, 00:15:30.240 |
you find a level of repetition and redundancy, right? 00:15:33.240 |
What I find is that typical pattern when people read sections like that, 00:15:37.240 |
what they remember is just simply the stuff that pops out. 00:15:41.240 |
For example, I remember reading just a Bible help tool that gives you major chapter headings, 00:15:47.240 |
major chapter maybe memorable things, so that you kind of know what's contained in each chapter. 00:15:53.240 |
I asked you guys to read chapter 1 and 2, that Bible tool, it basically said chapter 1, predestination, 00:16:03.240 |
And I'm not sure if some of you guys wrote that in terms of your observations or what you recall. 00:16:07.240 |
Chapter 1 seems like it's all about He chose you, okay? 00:16:11.240 |
Well, obviously the case I'm going to make to you is there's so much more than that. 00:16:15.240 |
If we take a look at the theme, thematics, and then unpack it, there's so much more. 00:16:24.240 |
Well, the reason why I'm saying verse 3 is the thematic verse is because everything else supports it, 00:16:32.240 |
and you can tell because it says at the very beginning, "Just ask." 00:16:40.240 |
This is a theme verse where it says, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 00:16:45.240 |
who has blessed us with every spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ." 00:16:50.240 |
You take a moment to think, and in verse 4, he begins by saying, "Just ask," 00:16:55.240 |
and all he's doing is extrapolating and giving you examples of what? 00:17:02.240 |
So, we key on this idea of the spiritual blessings right here, 00:17:07.240 |
and we realize we can simply ask the question, "What are these spiritual blessings?" 00:17:11.240 |
Well, we can walk through it really closely and realize there's so much more than just predestination. 00:17:17.240 |
For example, verse 4, "Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world," 00:17:23.240 |
verse 5, "He predestined to adoption as sons," 00:17:27.240 |
verse 7, "In Him we have redemption through His blood," 00:17:32.240 |
comma, "the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of His grace." 00:17:36.240 |
What's more, you have in verse 9, "He made known to us the mystery of His will." 00:17:43.240 |
He counts it a spiritual blessing that He will disclose to you information. 00:17:54.240 |
Because I make known to you what I'm going to do. 00:17:59.240 |
What's more, verse 11, "And we have obtained an inheritance having been predestined according to His purpose." 00:18:06.240 |
Over in verse 13, "You are sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit." 00:18:11.240 |
So, when you make certain of these observations, you realize this is the theme 00:18:15.240 |
because everything He says contributes to extrapolating what He first said in verse 3. 00:18:22.240 |
So, by quick summary, you have these points and you can make a list. 00:18:28.240 |
I want to challenge you guys, whenever you see repetition in the Scriptures, 00:18:32.240 |
don't get bogged down and say, "Oh man, he's just being overly redundant." 00:18:37.240 |
I want you to take a piece of paper and start jotting it down. 00:18:44.240 |
Here, you have four just from the first half and another four in the second half. 00:18:50.240 |
That's a total of eight different blessings that Apostle Paul wants the people to recognize. 00:19:01.240 |
He is talking about the incredible, vast, deep array of blessings that God has given to you in the name of Christ. 00:19:11.240 |
So, at this point then, when we do observations of thematics, it helps us see these sections. 00:19:21.240 |
What I'd like to do then is move forward to sentence diagram. 00:19:26.240 |
We're going to take one verse and we're going to diagram it. 00:19:30.240 |
What I've done for you is just sentence 3 is your thematic verse, which yes, you should diagram, 00:19:41.240 |
That I have laid out for you on your piece of paper, the handout. 00:19:45.240 |
The way I typically diagram things is by grammatical categories. 00:19:50.240 |
What I mean by that is, you guys remember way back when you learned this is the subject, this is the predicate. 00:19:58.240 |
You're just like, "Oh, so boring," but it actually comes so handy to Bible study. 00:20:02.240 |
So, thank the Lord for all your English teachers. 00:20:06.240 |
What's really important is, actually, I started to learn and in seminary I struggled hard. 00:20:14.240 |
It was not your Greek class or your Hebrew class, but it was your basic English class. 00:20:19.240 |
I had to sign up for it because once I started studying Greek, I was like, "I don't know what they're talking about." 00:20:24.240 |
They were talking about subjunctive clauses, independent clauses, dependent clauses. 00:20:43.240 |
You know what's so funny is he failed the class. 00:20:50.240 |
But the class taught us everything from not only do you have to understand your subject and predicate, 00:20:56.240 |
but your verb tenses, your commands, your indicatives, all that kind of stuff because it's super important. 00:21:02.240 |
Here, what you have is just simple, the main independent clause is, "He chose us." 00:21:10.240 |
And so, sometimes I just automatically do that when I do my Bible study. 00:21:17.240 |
I just circle the main verb in the sentence because that's going to be your starting point. 00:21:31.240 |
But there are these dependent clauses that begins either with some kind of preposition, right? 00:21:37.240 |
And what we find is it says, "In Him, He chose us." 00:21:41.240 |
Then he says, "Before the foundation of the world." 00:21:45.240 |
And then he says, "That we would be holy and blameless before Him." 00:21:50.240 |
And all I've done is just broken up those small phrases into these sections, okay? 00:21:58.240 |
If you were to do this for the whole Bible, yes, it would take a long time. 00:22:01.240 |
And I encourage you though, couple this with your other ways of studying. 00:22:05.240 |
This is not how you, you know, you have to do every single day. 00:22:09.240 |
But couple this with your Bible study, your Bible reading. 00:22:14.240 |
Because now, I have to, once I diagram it, categorize and identify. 00:22:22.240 |
In our layers, I said there's going to be categorization. 00:22:26.240 |
this is where you sit down and you say, "Okay, He chose us." 00:22:31.240 |
Clearly, "In Him" is describing how He chose us. 00:22:35.240 |
So I'm sitting here and I've got to ask myself the question, 00:22:40.240 |
I could just read it and move on. Or I could ask the question, 00:22:43.240 |
"Is this just simply the context by which He chose us?" 00:22:49.240 |
But that's pretty crazy because if you think about that, 00:22:53.240 |
What does it even mean that He would choose us in Christ? 00:22:59.240 |
And so, we have to ask that question as well. 00:23:09.240 |
So I could just chalk it up as, "It just describes how He chose us." 00:23:12.240 |
But in greater detail, it describes to us the timing. 00:23:16.240 |
It describes to us the chronology of how He chose. 00:23:19.240 |
So it's just simply a description of the timing. 00:23:24.240 |
The next phrase, "That we would be holy and blameless." 00:23:37.240 |
He chose that we would be holy and blameless. 00:23:43.240 |
recently I had a discussion with some individuals about free grace theology. 00:23:49.240 |
The simple fact is you need to believe Jesus and you're saved. 00:23:57.240 |
all you're doing is just looking at works, works, works, works, works, 00:24:03.240 |
There's going to be people who are saved and then they never show it." 00:24:09.240 |
They're like, "Yeah, Romans says it's not by works. 00:24:13.240 |
You have to know that you just saved and that's it." 00:24:16.240 |
I'm going to look to Ephesians and say, "You know what? 00:24:24.240 |
So you can tell me what you want, but look at this passage. 00:24:35.240 |
and choose you to be holy and blameless before Him. 00:24:41.240 |
So even in theology, some of this helps a lot 00:24:44.240 |
because it shows you that kind of relationship. 00:24:57.240 |
So here, lastly, the little phrase before Him, 00:25:03.240 |
the holiness that we are to be is in reference, okay? 00:25:12.240 |
So what I did just right there is I did sentence diagramming 00:25:17.240 |
to show you the relationship between the main subject 00:25:22.240 |
And then every phrase that comes afterneath it, 00:25:31.240 |
What is the relationship between these things?" 00:25:36.240 |
He is focusing on this choosing and telling us 00:25:39.240 |
maybe the means and the source and the person of Christ, 00:25:45.240 |
and the context and reference that we should have." 00:25:50.240 |
What I'd like you guys to do, just take a moment, 00:26:20.240 |
And in that, it really helps your observation. 00:26:24.240 |
What I'd like you guys to do is just take four minutes. 00:26:29.240 |
Just take four minutes and take a look at verse 5. 00:26:46.240 |
And then do your best attempt to answer the question, 00:31:36.480 |
to get in the practice of these kind of observations. 00:31:47.800 |
I needed to, again, just find profound things. 00:31:58.040 |
But then, once I started studying the Bible this way, 00:32:03.520 |
I'm never gonna run out of stuff that's profound. 00:32:06.600 |
Because take a look, this is how I prepare my sermon. 00:32:23.400 |
Now, if I don't understand, I put question marks 00:32:25.160 |
'cause that could be theologically pretty huge. 00:32:29.200 |
God, I know that we have to be, in Christ, genuinely chosen. 00:32:33.840 |
I know that preparation for us to be united with Christ 00:32:39.800 |
comes because our identity is one with Him, right? 00:32:52.000 |
You could just gloss over that, but, oh my goodness. 00:32:56.040 |
This is revealing of the nature of our God, right? 00:33:03.200 |
who's thought of me for a long, long time is my parents. 00:33:07.520 |
And as I'm a parent, I know that parents think 00:33:14.200 |
They prepare the child's room before the child ever arrives. 00:33:19.400 |
and even purchase car seats to take home the child 00:33:32.160 |
of before even your existence, you know, He thought of me. 00:33:37.720 |
That we would be holy, the purpose behind it. 00:33:40.600 |
So I could just, title of the next point of the sermon, 00:33:47.880 |
The scripture is dictating how my outline goes, okay? 00:33:51.360 |
So now, we look at the next verse, verse five. 00:33:55.720 |
It's again, He has one topic in His main verb, 00:34:00.080 |
the predestination, and He says, "He predestined us." 00:34:13.840 |
And then it says, "According to the kind intention 00:34:25.480 |
And then lastly, it says, "To the praise of the glory 00:34:32.840 |
This is where you have to sit and start wrestling, 00:34:38.640 |
how does it contribute to the concept of predestination, 00:34:51.120 |
This is through Jesus Christ, this is the means 00:34:56.840 |
In this way, we find that there is an incredible amount, 00:35:12.560 |
You recall, right here, as you start reading, 00:35:27.320 |
And so, you start seeing the extrapolation of that. 00:35:33.560 |
"in love He predestined us to adoption as sons 00:35:41.040 |
"which He freely bestowed on us in the beloved." 00:35:44.680 |
In Him, we have redemption through His blood. 00:36:00.340 |
"that is, the summing up of all things in Christ." 00:36:04.600 |
"In Him also we have obtained an inheritance." 00:36:10.720 |
"to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ 00:36:15.220 |
"In Him you also, after listening to the message of truth, 00:36:20.380 |
"having also believed, you were sealed in Him." 00:36:23.880 |
So actually, given the fact that we've just highlighted 00:36:29.020 |
the concept of our blessings being in Christ, 00:36:33.240 |
this section is not primarily about predestination, is it? 00:36:38.760 |
that the blessings we have is completely in our seat. 00:36:51.320 |
and you've kind of meditated upon the elements, 00:37:07.040 |
before it even began to the very end, is in Christ. 00:37:19.060 |
Once we have the first observation of reading through 00:37:27.100 |
and then we do an observation of that outline, 00:37:29.620 |
what's the thought process based on these paragraphs? 00:37:56.020 |
what is Apostle Paul emphasizing to you, right? 00:38:00.020 |
Clearly, Apostle Paul wants you to understand something, 00:38:20.220 |
and then he's gonna surround that with the source, 00:38:22.820 |
the means, the purpose, you see what I'm saying? 00:38:25.940 |
So through the literary device of repetition, 00:38:31.980 |
And that's where we have to ask the question about, 00:38:57.700 |
prepositional phrases, in love, according to, 00:39:03.540 |
But I think there's an element of intentionality 00:39:06.780 |
behind that, because there's an emphasis there. 00:39:11.720 |
and I'm gonna read this time without skipping anything, 00:39:32.760 |
And I'll just, in front of me so I'm not turned around. 00:39:41.200 |
"who has blessed us with every spiritual blessings 00:39:46.540 |
"Just as he chose us in him before the foundation 00:40:01.720 |
listen to this, "according to the kind intention 00:40:04.980 |
"of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, 00:40:08.120 |
"which he freely bestowed on us in the beloved. 00:40:12.020 |
"In him we have redemption through his blood, 00:40:16.100 |
"and again, according to the riches of his grace, 00:40:19.340 |
"which he lavished on us in all wisdom and insight, 00:40:23.700 |
"he made known to us the mystery of his will, 00:40:35.420 |
"that is the summing up of all things in Christ." 00:40:41.040 |
"In him also we have obtained an inheritance, 00:40:44.200 |
"having been predestined according to his purpose, 00:40:47.800 |
"who works all things after the counsel of his will, 00:40:51.380 |
"to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ 00:40:57.140 |
"In him you also, after listening to the message of truth, 00:41:02.160 |
"having also believed, you were sealed in him 00:41:07.360 |
"who was given as a pledge of our inheritance, 00:41:09.760 |
"with a view to the redemption of God's own possession, 00:41:15.980 |
You notice I highlighted in green some of these words, 00:41:21.660 |
Oh, sorry, there's one more little section here 00:41:27.720 |
"I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, 00:41:30.700 |
"so that you will know what is the hope of his coming, 00:41:33.540 |
"what are the riches of the glory of an inheritance 00:41:36.520 |
"in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness 00:41:50.180 |
"and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places." 00:42:03.600 |
of the manner by which God has blessed us, yes? 00:42:07.940 |
And there is clearly an emphatic repetition about this 00:42:12.220 |
because he uses the same exact terminology multiple times. 00:42:16.960 |
And what's more, if I read chapters one through three, 00:42:27.240 |
I pray you understand his grace to you, right? 00:42:31.700 |
I pray you understand the width, the height, the breadth, 00:42:55.860 |
he's done in accordance with his kind intention. 00:43:05.080 |
But what he's highlighting is how he freely gave that to you. 00:43:09.300 |
What he's highlighting is how he lavishly poured out upon you. 00:43:13.060 |
What he's highlighting is how incredibly wise he was 00:43:17.580 |
What he's highlighting is how much he loved you, 00:43:20.180 |
that he would do this according to the power of his might. 00:43:26.100 |
And I recall, like, when you start thinking about that, 00:43:52.740 |
with his mind, with his soul, with his heart. 00:44:05.180 |
a woman and a man who's involved in a romantic relationship, 00:44:26.260 |
And, you know, sometimes when we think about, 00:44:52.700 |
The reason why I've highlighted these weird concepts of, 00:44:55.980 |
in view of the plan for the fullness of times, 00:44:58.500 |
with view of the redemption of God's own possession. 00:45:01.100 |
God is not a God who, as he was accomplishing his plan, 00:45:12.020 |
as people were super sinful, and they rejected him, 00:45:18.060 |
But rather, he is a God with immense intentionality. 00:45:24.260 |
But what's more, he's a God with perfect power. 00:45:26.700 |
And through all those means, he's blessed us, 00:45:40.100 |
this passage is about the immense way in which 00:45:48.100 |
And that's what we're gonna do in this passage. 00:45:50.300 |
We're gonna talk about the commandment of Christ. 00:45:53.300 |
So what is Apostle Paul's command in chapter one? 00:46:00.900 |
Chapter one is actually a command for every single Christian 00:46:13.500 |
of what he's gonna talk about in chapter two, 00:46:15.860 |
and I'm not gonna go into the work and stuff, no. 00:46:17.940 |
Chapter two is all about how he has taken you 00:46:20.820 |
who are far off, who are far from the commonwealth of Israel, 00:46:27.900 |
And you who are dead, he's given you life, right? 00:46:35.260 |
what Apostle Paul is doing in his train of thought. 00:46:43.940 |
a Bible study, but it's about giving careful attention 00:46:50.660 |
By way of review, look broadly at the whole context 00:46:58.580 |
Sometimes it's already given to you by paragraphs. 00:47:03.660 |
Thirdly, take each sentence and break it down 00:47:08.740 |
How does one phrase relate to another phrase? 00:47:20.780 |
or whoever is writing, especially with these letters, 00:47:23.780 |
are going to emphasize certain things to you. 00:47:28.980 |
you have to categorize, hey, I'm not gonna be able 00:47:31.300 |
to break it down like this, but I will be able 00:47:41.740 |
Is there a climax of the conflict in the story? 00:47:44.540 |
And you get to categorize different parts of the narrative. 00:48:00.420 |
I think I understand what he's driving you towards. 00:48:17.860 |
The point of him telling you he's predestined you 00:48:22.100 |
is to show you how much he's lavished his love on you. 00:48:33.480 |
Okay, with that said, I hope that was an encouragement 00:48:37.260 |
and a challenge to you of how to make better observations 00:48:42.500 |
If you guys have questions, please let me know. 00:48:45.740 |
in terms of takeaways in thinking about that, okay? 00:49:09.940 |
Berean is not the one expecting you to observe scripture. 00:49:18.460 |
But sometimes I feel a timidity within people 00:49:26.620 |
the vast majority of scripture is not hard to interpret. 00:49:31.260 |
Are there very difficult portions of scripture 00:49:37.260 |
But the vast majority of scripture is repetitive, right? 00:49:42.180 |
and we believe in the perspicuity of scripture, 00:49:56.340 |
And the reason, and the encouragement I want to give to you 00:50:03.540 |
I have to be, like, you know, a scholar in this, 00:50:06.980 |
and I'm gonna have to read all these commentaries, 00:50:15.020 |
I have to read this over and over and over again, 00:50:19.300 |
and all I'm doing is summarizing my observation, right? 00:50:33.540 |
What I saw was that in every blessing that we have, 00:50:44.820 |
And therefore, whatever you argue with another individual 00:50:47.420 |
is derived from your observation of the text. 00:50:52.740 |
not just on a church-wide level in preaching, 00:50:57.020 |
in the individual level in your own Bible study. 00:51:00.140 |
Everything needs to be from your own observation 00:51:06.800 |
And since Pastor Aaron gave us a great message 00:51:23.020 |
there's been this kind of weird, I don't know, 00:51:33.740 |
this word, epiphemia or whatever, means this, 00:51:49.740 |
not only the syntax, but the paragraph to paragraph, 00:51:58.100 |
and emphasizing what the passage emphasizes to you. 00:52:12.020 |
of expository preaching as it needs to make sure 00:52:14.780 |
that every single word is accounted for, and that's it. 00:52:20.600 |
Good expository preaching should emphasize to you, 00:52:26.540 |
sometimes it'll break you and make you cry, right? 00:52:36.260 |
you'll just be like, coming out with a smile on your face. 00:52:48.780 |
because I feel like within Bible teaching churches, 00:52:52.020 |
there is a misconception that expository sermons 00:52:59.140 |
Expository sermons should actually reveal to you 00:53:07.460 |
Let's take a moment to pray and wrap up our session. 00:53:17.300 |
that today we got to take a look at Eden's chapter one. 00:53:38.380 |
because we just don't see what we weren't alive for. 00:53:46.300 |
But God, as you reveal it to us in the scripture, 00:53:49.700 |
we believe it and we want to thank you so much. 00:53:53.300 |
I pray, Father God, that as you have given us then 00:54:07.900 |
we give you all of ourselves and we love you. 00:54:11.340 |
And although, Father God, we repent of the fact 00:54:19.340 |
by carefully searching for you in your scripture.