Ephesians: Introduction for Reals

Guess what, we are finally starting to go through Ephesians! I'm pretty excited, and I think that the Middle School guys who going through it with me are excited too. We met on Friday afternoon, hung out for a while, climbed some trees, ate some nachos, played some frisbee, the boys decided it would be fun to tackle me, and we talked about the Bible. It was fun.

I had two things that I wanted to focus on during this meeting. I wanted to first talk about our goals as a group. And I wanted to talk introduce Ephesians to the guys.

First our goals (these aren't just mine):

• "Bro Time"
• Bible Study
• Leadership
• Fun!
• Accountability
• Encouragement each other.
• Prayer
• Growth
• Eventually, each one is going to actually lead the Bible study.

Those are most of our goals. I'm really looking forward to watching these grow this year!

And then I introduced Ephesians. I'm going to put a few details on here.

• It was written by Paul when he was in prison most likely in Rome around AD 62.
• Paul wrote it to the church in Ephesus.
• Ephesus is the home to one of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World, the Temple to Artemis.
• Ephesus shows up in Acts in chapters 18,19, and 20.
• Paul needed to remind the church in Ephesus of the gospel and that their lives should and need to change.
• A couple of main themes (these came from the ESV study Bible):
• Christ has reconciled all creation to himself and to God.   
• Christ has united people from all nations to himself and to one another in his church.
• There are some awesome pictures of the Gospel throughout the book.
• And there are really good passages about how to live the Christian life. Really applicable.

Those are most of the points that I mentioned. I think that it went pretty good. I think that this will be a fun study. I know I've said it before, but Ephesians is one of my favorite books. In the next installment we will be actually getting into the actual text; we'll be going over Eph. 1:1-14. It'll be good.

Anyway, thanks for reading!
~Than

Ephesians: Introduction

For quite a while now Ephesians has been one of my favorite books in the Bible. I love reading through it and seeing the progression of the gospel through this book.

I love to see how Paul presents the story of salvation. It is amazing to think about what Jesus did for us! The topic of grace is just astounding. And how those whom God has called are now one together as the church. It is cool to think about how we have brothers and sisters in Christ all over the world throughout all time. Just imagine the joy it will be to worship God together in heaven!

I also love to see the practical and applicational second half of the book. We have new life in Christ! So live like it! Jesus is our great example, he walked in love, so should we! He humbly submitted to God, so should we! And then we have the great picture of the union of Christ and the Church. And we have the awesome image of the armor of God. He is our guide, protector, and strength. He has not left us empty handed!

Anyway, I am going to be leading a small Bible study going through the book of Ephesians with a couple of the Middle School guys. And I am going to be posting my thoughts about the different sections as we come upon them. I think, hope, and pray that it will be fun, encouraging, challenging, and above all else, bring us closer to our loving, gracious Creator.

Oh, just to let you all know, I would love your feedback and thoughts. I am by no means an authority on Ephesians, not even close! So come along with me for a little trip through the Epistle to the church in Ephesus! I hope it will be humbling and challenging for us all.

--Than

Lamentable Ignorance

Hello everyone,

The guys from the Pryomaniacs Blog have a weakly dose of Spurgeon that they put out. Today's thought really sank in deep. It is about people being boastful about knowledge. And how those people are fools. Here is the post.

http://teampyro.blogspot.com/2012/04/lamentable-ignorance.html

In my pride I too often fit the description of the person who sneers are others for their lack of knowledge. When in all reality, I know so very very little.

I was reminded of this by my mom this past week when I was listening to something online about people not knowing the definition of justification. A fairly basic theological term, that everyone should be able to talk about. The people in this podcast were interviewing random people and asking them how they would define Justification, and of course no one had a reasonable answer. And I was sitting there thinking to myself how amazing all these people are, by the way, all these people that were being asked this question were professing Christians according to earlier questions. I asked my mom how she would define Justifcation, and of course she had a very logical, articulate, correct definition. And then she asked me how I would define that word, and I stumbled pitifully through a poor definition that was mostly wrong. Ah, what pride! What audacity!

So I hope and pray that I will not be like these men that Spurgeon is talking about. I do not want to sneer at other's lack of knowledge when I am the one that should truly be sneered at. Pray for humility. Because Heaven knows that I lack it. Oh, and if you ever do see me acting all high and might, knock me down a bit. Humble me. I need it!

Nathan Snook

Our Spiritual Food: Hope

I came across this insightful post by Jon Bloom on the Desiring God blog. It is about the importance of hope. It talks about the importance of meditating and rejoicing on God's promises. Here are a few quotes that I thought especially insightful:

When your soul is troubled and you feel overwhelmed, sometimes you need to just stop stewing and praying and tell yourself to eat, for God’s sake.

Hope is to our soul what energy is to our body.

So God designed the Bible to be a storehouse of nourishing soul food for his saints.

Here is the original post:

If You Feel Overwhelmed, Eat!

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:7

Here Goes Nothing

So, I decided to start a blog. Yeah, I know I'm way late to the party, but hey better late than never, right? Anyway, I don't know how often I'll post new things up here. Hopefully they'll be interesting, thoughtful, and worth your time.

So, I'll talk to you soon!