back to index1 Thessalonians Bible Study – PRE-INTRODUCTION
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All right, Bering Community Church, this is a pre-study of the first Thessalonians. 00:00:11.080 |
I wanted to just kind of go over and test out this new format. 00:00:16.000 |
And so I'm just going to give you a brief introduction. 00:00:18.200 |
The real introduction is going to happen next week when we formally start, but this is to 00:00:21.920 |
kind of get you ready for that first session. 00:00:29.440 |
We're going to try to work out the kinks as we go. 00:00:32.400 |
Again, this is an inductive Bible study through first Thessalonians. 00:00:39.240 |
And so again, the goal of the inductive Bible study that we're trying to do is to, one, 00:00:51.600 |
The goal of it is not for me to do the study and then to present to you what I found. 00:00:55.920 |
So this is very different than what we do on Sunday. 00:00:59.200 |
It's really to kind of, my role here is to guide you through how to study the Bible. 00:01:03.400 |
So if you don't study the Bible for yourself, you're not going to get as much out of it. 00:01:08.360 |
In fact, I would say the study is going to be very frustrating. 00:01:14.960 |
You're going to be frustrated in the small group that you're with because you're expected 00:01:21.160 |
to bring and contribute and not just to listen. 00:01:25.000 |
And so no matter where you are in your stage of studying the Bible, we're trying to help 00:01:30.080 |
you to learn how to do the study for yourself. 00:01:33.840 |
And so as we do that, again, one of the goals that we have is so that you may not be tossed 00:01:44.240 |
Again, if you've been a Christian for any period of time, you know that there's a lot 00:01:49.460 |
A lot of people say different things about different texts and different theology. 00:01:54.480 |
We want you to be able to have a good enough grasp of the Word of God for yourself that 00:01:59.320 |
you don't ask, you know, five years, ten years, twenty years down the line, you know, what 00:02:07.720 |
I think if you're a maturing Christian, one of the key components of being mature is that 00:02:13.260 |
you have a growing grasp of what the Word of God says. 00:02:17.560 |
And so you will be able to discern when bad doctrine, you hear bad doctrines, that you 00:02:21.200 |
don't need us to tell you that it's bad, that the Word that you know will be able to guide 00:02:28.600 |
Thirdly, we want you to be able to make applications in your life based upon the proper understanding 00:02:35.680 |
So again, where Christianity is being practiced unbiblically is because they don't know what 00:02:43.880 |
So we want the sanctification that you and I are striving for to come from a careful 00:02:51.100 |
And then fourthly, to be able to teach other people how to study the Bible. 00:02:55.120 |
So if you've been a Christian here at our church for two years, three years, five years, 00:03:00.240 |
that we're hoping that you'll be equipped enough to be able to teach other people also. 00:03:05.280 |
But not only that, as you and I know, we live in a biblical, illiterate, not only world, 00:03:11.120 |
but even the Christian world, where the Word of God is not highly valued in our generation. 00:03:17.420 |
So we want you to be able to be a light within the light. 00:03:21.360 |
We want you to be able to be the light where you can even guide other people in saying, 00:03:27.920 |
And to be able to point to Scripture instead of discussing the Bible. 00:03:32.520 |
Now in the priority of how we study the Bible, first of all, again, this is something that 00:03:36.880 |
I try to go through every time I teach the Bible, because I want our church to understand 00:03:46.080 |
Exegesis basically is the verse by verse, chapter by chapter, book by book study through 00:03:51.060 |
the whole Old Testament and the New Testament. 00:03:55.080 |
And to ask the question, to actually study the Word of God, right? 00:04:01.740 |
And that's what inductive Bible study basically is. 00:04:06.640 |
And that has to be at the foundation of everything that we do. 00:04:13.980 |
Now if we have enough grasp of the different texts in the Bible, we have systematic theology. 00:04:20.180 |
The systematic theology is a collection of our understanding of different parts of the 00:04:24.300 |
Bible and to be able to ask the question, not just what does this text say, but what 00:04:31.540 |
So the best example of that would be the doctrine of Trinity. 00:04:36.900 |
The Trinity is not taught in one particular text. 00:04:40.020 |
It's a collection of things that Jesus said, things that are stated in the Old Testament, 00:04:44.620 |
things that are stated about God, things that Jesus says about God. 00:04:48.060 |
And so when you collectively put that together, it teaches the doctrine of Trinity. 00:04:52.420 |
And so in a nutshell, that's what systematic theology is. 00:04:55.560 |
What does the Bible teach about the end time? 00:05:04.220 |
And you can't have systematic theology until you have enough exegesis. 00:05:09.740 |
And then if you have systematic theology and growing, you're able to compare with historical 00:05:17.180 |
Historical theology basically is what did our church fathers, what did the historical 00:05:32.040 |
And so we're able to wrestle and to compare the doctrines that were passed down to us 00:05:40.480 |
But when we don't have exegesis and when we don't have systematic theology, we just become 00:05:46.560 |
So there's a lot of people who are in the habit of coming to conclusions based upon 00:05:53.900 |
Now reading books is better than not reading books. 00:05:57.200 |
But if you read books about theology without knowing the Bible itself, you end up picking 00:06:04.400 |
and choosing based upon what makes sense and doesn't make sense to you. 00:06:08.740 |
And not necessarily through a biblical filter, but through your own filter. 00:06:14.260 |
But again, there's nothing wrong with historical theology, but we need to make sure that exegesis 00:06:21.360 |
And then that will automatically lead to systematic theology. 00:06:23.980 |
Then we can wrestle with historical theology. 00:06:26.980 |
And then we have discussions about philosophical theology. 00:06:31.020 |
Philosophical theology is how do we reconcile certain things that are taught in the Bible. 00:06:35.340 |
If God is sovereign, like the Bible teaches, and man is responsible for his own sins, how 00:06:45.700 |
Philosophical theology basically is reconciling that so that it helps to make sense. 00:06:53.940 |
So when I give sermons, I try to take what the Bible teaches and then try to apply that 00:07:03.940 |
But if we are not careful, we can make philosophical theology our priority, where we have a lot 00:07:09.900 |
of discussions about what makes sense and doesn't make sense. 00:07:13.200 |
So when people say about certain issues that are going on, saying like, "I think this is 00:07:22.260 |
It's based upon what they think the Scripture says, but not necessarily based on Scripture. 00:07:27.020 |
And so whenever we study the Bible, it needs to be in this order. 00:07:31.660 |
We spend most of our time in exegesis, which will lead to systematic theology. 00:07:37.900 |
Then we can compare with historical theology. 00:07:40.360 |
Then we can learn how to apply this in philosophical theology. 00:07:44.540 |
So again, just to kind of get our priorities in order, and this is what we're doing. 00:07:50.220 |
So the first thing that we need to do in inductive Bible study is to have a larger grasp of the 00:07:58.120 |
So these five chapters in Thessalonians, we need to know what it says before we jump into 00:08:03.300 |
chapter 1, verse 1, 2, and 3, because it'll kind of give us a broad outline of why he 00:08:11.500 |
How does this relate to other things that he is saying? 00:08:17.160 |
And so just like if you were to watch a movie, you don't jump in in the middle and try to 00:08:23.960 |
You need to kind of have a grasp of what's going on. 00:08:33.060 |
You need to have a good grasp of the totality of what this letter is about. 00:08:38.460 |
So in order to do that, we want to read the letter as often and as much as you can. 00:08:49.400 |
You can read maybe once or twice and get a broad outline. 00:08:52.620 |
And so you can see how the thoughts are connected. 00:08:55.300 |
I think for most of us, you need to read it at least three or four times and you kind 00:09:01.660 |
How does chapter 1, the argument he's making 1, how does that connect to chapter 4? 00:09:06.220 |
And so in order to do that, we want to start out by giving an outline. 00:09:10.760 |
So read about two or three times and then possibly on the fourth time, start to outline. 00:09:18.100 |
So I would say from verses 1 through 5, and I'm just going to write it over here, would 00:09:23.180 |
be obviously the introduction of Paul's ministry. 00:09:38.100 |
Then I would say 6 through 10 would be the response 00:09:56.440 |
And then we get to chapter 2 and I would say probably chapter 2, 1 through 12. 00:10:06.740 |
And I would say Paul's defense of his gospel ministry. 00:10:26.500 |
And then I would say verses 13 through 16 would be response in opposition to the gospel. 00:10:53.620 |
You don't need to write it the way I write it, but this is just to kind of give you an 00:11:00.140 |
It doesn't have to be verse 1 and 2, 4 to 6, and 8 to 9, but you can just broad outline 00:11:07.220 |
so to kind of give you a good grasp of what's going on in each chapter. 00:11:10.740 |
So I'm not going to do it for all five chapters, but again, I'm asking you that you would take 00:11:15.800 |
some time to do that this week before you come to Bible study next week. 00:11:20.900 |
And so the goal of it is that first of all that you would answer the who, what, why, 00:11:33.660 |
Obviously Paul says in the beginning, Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, they wrote the letter. 00:11:53.420 |
And so we want to try to answer this as much as possible. 00:11:57.060 |
And then once you've done that, you can ask big questions of what is the major theme? 00:12:09.460 |
Try to find about two or three of them if you can. 00:12:17.100 |
The term gospel comes out quite a few in this letter. 00:12:22.220 |
And what do you think is a key verse in this letter? 00:12:27.220 |
One particular verse that if you memorize that, it'll kind of give you a good grasp 00:12:33.540 |
So you don't want that to be more than one or two verses. 00:12:37.660 |
It's just to kind of help you understand the theme so that next time that verse comes up, 00:12:41.940 |
you kind of have some idea of the outline and what Paul is talking about. 00:12:46.240 |
And then finally, to come up with your own title. 00:12:50.660 |
And that kind of captures the purpose of this letter. 00:12:56.260 |
It could be the boldness in the gospel, love, faith, and hope. 00:13:02.700 |
And again, all of this is a background study so that you yourself can have some understanding 00:13:08.960 |
of the letter before we actually jump into the specific verses. 00:13:13.140 |
And so for your assignment would be before you even get into your small group, before 00:13:19.820 |
So if you come prepared for this, I think you'll be able to get more out of it.