All right, Bering Community Church, this is a pre-study of the first Thessalonians. I wanted to just kind of go over and test out this new format. And so I'm just going to give you a brief introduction. The real introduction is going to happen next week when we formally start, but this is to kind of get you ready for that first session.

And I also want to test this thing out. So be patient. We're going to try to work out the kinks as we go. Again, this is an inductive Bible study through first Thessalonians. And so again, the goal of the inductive Bible study that we're trying to do is to, one, learn how to study the Bible.

So learn how to study the Bible. That's the first thing that we want to do. The goal of it is not for me to do the study and then to present to you what I found. So this is very different than what we do on Sunday. It's really to kind of, my role here is to guide you through how to study the Bible.

So if you don't study the Bible for yourself, you're not going to get as much out of it. In fact, I would say the study is going to be very frustrating. You're going to be frustrated for yourself. You're going to be frustrated in the small group that you're with because you're expected to bring and contribute and not just to listen.

And so no matter where you are in your stage of studying the Bible, we're trying to help you to learn how to do the study for yourself. And so as we do that, again, one of the goals that we have is so that you may not be tossed back and forth by every wind of doctrine.

Again, if you've been a Christian for any period of time, you know that there's a lot of opinions. A lot of people say different things about different texts and different theology. We want you to be able to have a good enough grasp of the Word of God for yourself that you don't ask, you know, five years, ten years, twenty years down the line, you know, what does our church think about this?

I think if you're a maturing Christian, one of the key components of being mature is that you have a growing grasp of what the Word of God says. And so you will be able to discern when bad doctrine, you hear bad doctrines, that you don't need us to tell you that it's bad, that the Word that you know will be able to guide you through that.

Thirdly, we want you to be able to make applications in your life based upon the proper understanding of the text. So again, where Christianity is being practiced unbiblically is because they don't know what the Bible says. So we want the sanctification that you and I are striving for to come from a careful study of the Word of God.

And then fourthly, to be able to teach other people how to study the Bible. So if you've been a Christian here at our church for two years, three years, five years, that we're hoping that you'll be equipped enough to be able to teach other people also. But not only that, as you and I know, we live in a biblical, illiterate, not only world, but even the Christian world, where the Word of God is not highly valued in our generation.

So we want you to be able to be a light within the light. We want you to be able to be the light where you can even guide other people in saying, "Well, this is what the Word of God says." And to be able to point to Scripture instead of discussing the Bible.

Now in the priority of how we study the Bible, first of all, again, this is something that I try to go through every time I teach the Bible, because I want our church to understand the priority of the exegesis. Exegesis basically is the verse by verse, chapter by chapter, book by book study through the whole Old Testament and the New Testament.

And to ask the question, to actually study the Word of God, right? Not just skim through it. And so that's our priority. And that's what inductive Bible study basically is. It is the exegesis of the Bible. And that has to be at the foundation of everything that we do.

Verse by verse study of the Word of God. Now if we have enough grasp of the different texts in the Bible, we have systematic theology. The systematic theology is a collection of our understanding of different parts of the Bible and to be able to ask the question, not just what does this text say, but what does the Bible say about this subject?

So the best example of that would be the doctrine of Trinity. The Trinity is not taught in one particular text. It's a collection of things that Jesus said, things that are stated in the Old Testament, things that are stated about God, things that Jesus says about God. And so when you collectively put that together, it teaches the doctrine of Trinity.

And so in a nutshell, that's what systematic theology is. What does the Bible teach about the end time? What does the Bible teach about Israel? What does the Bible teach about itself? And so that's systematic theology. And you can't have systematic theology until you have enough exegesis. And then if you have systematic theology and growing, you're able to compare with historical theology.

Historical theology basically is what did our church fathers, what did the historical church believe about a particular subject? What did they think about the Trinity? What did they think about inerrancy? What did they think about end times? And so we're able to wrestle and to compare the doctrines that were passed down to us from generation to generation.

But when we don't have exegesis and when we don't have systematic theology, we just become dependent upon what other people say. So there's a lot of people who are in the habit of coming to conclusions based upon books that they read. Now reading books is better than not reading books.

But if you read books about theology without knowing the Bible itself, you end up picking and choosing based upon what makes sense and doesn't make sense to you. And not necessarily through a biblical filter, but through your own filter. But again, there's nothing wrong with historical theology, but we need to make sure that exegesis is where we spend most of our time.

And then that will automatically lead to systematic theology. Then we can wrestle with historical theology. And then we have discussions about philosophical theology. Philosophical theology is how do we reconcile certain things that are taught in the Bible. If God is sovereign, like the Bible teaches, and man is responsible for his own sins, how do we reconcile that?

So we already agree what the Bible says. Philosophical theology basically is reconciling that so that it helps to make sense. And so a lot of times sermons will help us. So when I give sermons, I try to take what the Bible teaches and then try to apply that in a way that makes more sense to us.

So that's where philosophical theology is. But if we are not careful, we can make philosophical theology our priority, where we have a lot of discussions about what makes sense and doesn't make sense. So when people say about certain issues that are going on, saying like, "I think this is right.

I think this is wrong." But it's not based upon Scripture. It's based upon what they think the Scripture says, but not necessarily based on Scripture. And so whenever we study the Bible, it needs to be in this order. We spend most of our time in exegesis, which will lead to systematic theology.

Then we can compare with historical theology. Then we can learn how to apply this in philosophical theology. So again, just to kind of get our priorities in order, and this is what we're doing. So the first thing that we need to do in inductive Bible study is to have a larger grasp of the letter itself.

So these five chapters in Thessalonians, we need to know what it says before we jump into chapter 1, verse 1, 2, and 3, because it'll kind of give us a broad outline of why he wrote this letter. How does this relate to other things that he is saying? Who is he writing it to?

What is the context in which he writes it? And so just like if you were to watch a movie, you don't jump in in the middle and try to figure out what the story is about. You need to kind of have a grasp of what's going on. Like, oh, this is about this, right?

Anyway, I mean, you know what I'm saying. You need to have a good grasp of the totality of what this letter is about. So in order to do that, we want to read the letter as often and as much as you can. So some of you can understand it quickly.

You can read maybe once or twice and get a broad outline. And so you can see how the thoughts are connected. I think for most of us, you need to read it at least three or four times and you kind of get an idea on the flow. How does chapter 1, the argument he's making 1, how does that connect to chapter 4?

And so in order to do that, we want to start out by giving an outline. So read about two or three times and then possibly on the fourth time, start to outline. And so this is what I do. So I would say from verses 1 through 5, and I'm just going to write it over here, would be obviously the introduction of Paul's ministry.

Then I would say 6 through 10 would be the response of the gospel by the Thessalonians. And then we get to chapter 2 and I would say probably chapter 2, 1 through 12. So just a large outline. And I would say Paul's defense of his gospel ministry. And then I would say verses 13 through 16 would be response in opposition to the gospel.

You don't need to write it the way I write it, but this is just to kind of give you an example what to do in these five chapters. It doesn't have to be verse 1 and 2, 4 to 6, and 8 to 9, but you can just broad outline so to kind of give you a good grasp of what's going on in each chapter.

So I'm not going to do it for all five chapters, but again, I'm asking you that you would take some time to do that this week before you come to Bible study next week. And so the goal of it is that first of all that you would answer the who, what, why, how, where, when of this letter.

And who wrote it. Obviously Paul says in the beginning, Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, they wrote the letter. Well, who did they write it to? Were they the Jewish community? Was it a Christian community? Were they believers? Were they elders? The congregation? Who did they write it to? Why did they write it?

Why did he write it? Where was this letter written? When was it written? And so we want to try to answer this as much as possible. And then once you've done that, you can ask big questions of what is the major theme? Is it about the gospel? Is it about church life?

Is it about end times? What are some major themes? Try to find about two or three of them if you can. What are some repeated phrases? And I've already written some of it. The term gospel comes out quite a few in this letter. And what do you think is a key verse in this letter?

One particular verse that if you memorize that, it'll kind of give you a good grasp of what this letter says. So you don't want that to be more than one or two verses. It's just to kind of help you understand the theme so that next time that verse comes up, you kind of have some idea of the outline and what Paul is talking about.

And then finally, to come up with your own title. And that kind of captures the purpose of this letter. So it could be the model church. It could be the boldness in the gospel, love, faith, and hope. So whatever it may be. And again, all of this is a background study so that you yourself can have some understanding of the letter before we actually jump into the specific verses.

And so for your assignment would be before you even get into your small group, before we do, I do my introduction. So if you come prepared for this, I think you'll be able to get more out of it. Okay. All right. (laughs)