Bible Study (August 30th)

I just decided that instead of keeping a little notebook with all my notes and whatnot from my bible studies that I would just post all of them on my blog.

Nehemiah 1 - Nehemiah's Prayer

1 The words of Nehemiah son of Hakaliah:

1 In the month of Kislev in the twentieth year, while I was in the citadel of Susa, 2 Hanani, one of my brothers, came from Judah with some other men, and I questioned them about the Jewish remnant that had survived the exile, and also about Jerusalem.
3 They said to me, "Those who survived the exile are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire."
4 When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven.
5 Then I said:
"Lord, the God heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and keep his commandments, 6 let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer your servant is praying before you day and night for your servant, the people of Israel. I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my ancestral family, have committed against you. 7 We have acted very wickedly toward you. We have not obeyed the commands, decrees and laws you have you servant Moses.
8 "Remember the instruction you gave your servant Moses, saying, 'If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations, 9 but if you return to me and obey my commands, then even if your exiled people are at the farthest horizon, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place I have chosen as a dwelling for my Name."
10 "They are your servant and your people, whom you redeemed by your great strength and your mighty hand. 11 Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of this your servant and to the prayer of your servants who delight in revering your name. Give your servant success today by granting him favor in the presence of this man."

I was the cupbearer to the king.

Nehemiah : Author: The words of Nehemiah, but believed to be recorded by Ezra.
Date : 445 BC - Nehemiah goes to Jerusalem to be governor and lead in rebuilding walls.

Meditation :
What I focus on when reading the passage: The simplicity of the prayer, however, the lifting of God's name throughout. Also, the dedication to deal with the problem in a Godly manner(fasting and prayer)

In Nehemiah 1:4 it states, "When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven."

• This implies that he just got away from everyone and for DAYS he was waiting for instruction from God about what to do about the broken down walls of Israel.
• That's really hard for me to grasp. Days of praying and fasting and just going before God. Not minutes, not hours, not just skip a meal or so to study a little extra. But for days.

Then the rest of the chapter (Nehemiah 1:5-11) states the prayer that Nehemiah prayed after the days of meditation.

• The prayer starts out with "Lord, the God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and keep his commandments"

1. This signifies humbleness, and glorifying Him who saved us.

• Next, is a confession, "I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my ancestral family, have committed against you. We have not obeyed the commands, decrees and laws you gave your servant Moses.

1. This is one of the most important parts of any prayer, because without this confession we can't effectively communicate and be face-to-face with our creator because of these unconfessed sins. We must be pure and white as snow before our Heavenly Father.
   

• Last, is a calling out to God to show you He is there and to give guidance, "Remember the instruction you gave your servant Moses, saying, 'If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations, but if you return to me and obey my commands, then even if your exiled people are at the farthest horizon, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place I have chosen as a dwelling for my Name."

1. This part of the prayer isn't as much as asking for anything; however, somewhat of a clarification that God will be faithful to what He says.

This passage leads into more of what the book of Nehemiah is about and is a guide for prayer for those lost and in need of maybe not something as much as a reminder that God is holy.

Sola Scriptura

I just finished a book called How To Study the Bible; it is a very, very simple title compared to the content of the book. In it it talks about the term "Sola Scriptura" first developed during the Protestant Reformation. "Sola Scriptura" is a latin term which interprets to "the Bible alone" in English. Being that I love to read and study, I have a great appreciation for such beliefs.

However, there is a problem to this viewpoint. If taken out of context in any way, shape, or form a verse could be seriously misunderstood. In example take this little phrase. Each time you read this put emphasis on the word that is bold.

"I can do everything through him who gives me strength"
"I can do everything through him who gives me strength"
"I can do everything through him who gives me strength"
"I can do everything through him who gives me strength"
"I can do everything through him who gives me strength"
"I can do everything through him who gives me strength"
"I can do everything through him who gives me strength"
"I can do everything through him who gives me strength"
"I can do everything through him who gives me strength"
"I can do everything through him who gives me strength"

If you put the correct emphasis on the the words in the sentences above, then each sentence has a completely different meaning. And your just gonna have to ignore the bold text for the rest of the blog because I can't get the font to go unbold.

This is why you can't always just depend upon the Bible to get the correct context through and through. Sometimes you need to look at the historical value of different words and different meanings of Hebrew and Greek words. Unless your a walking history book and culture guru you might need a reference book to go along with your studies.

Therefore, I strongly believe you can't depend upon the writings of popular authors for your full Bible experience, but you also have to sometimes get information that isn't easy to remember.

Looking Deep Into the Mirror

There are many people that I salute to on the subject of being great writers. However, there are more that I find unappealing writers. Rick Warren is a great writer to my concerns. He goes into concepts that maybe have been discussed alot, but he brings deeper definitions and new perspectives to go about improving on different topics.

Right now I'm borrowing his book, Bible Study Methods from The Bunker. So far I have found nothing about this book that I could ask more of. It's simple to understand, but when you looker deeper into what he says it's a whole new whole world of thought.

When you don't stop to think about it, when you are reading the Bible, you are studying it, right? Wrong. If you are simply reading the Bible, you are obviously just reading the Bible. It takes feedback written down and going deeper into scripture than what is on top to classify as studying the Bible. This statement alone blows my mind as I sit here. If everyone would really study the Bible, instead of just reading it I would be willing to guess that the church and the viewpoints of Christianity wouldn't be in the shape it currently is in.

To justify actually studying the Bible, the book calls for 2-4 hours of intense prayer, meditation, one-to-one with our heavenly Father. Don't freak out about this. It also says, to properly study and get full application out of this gesture to only do this once or twice a week. Which you still might be weary about; but look at how much time you spend in front of the computer, me including and compare that to how much time you spend in front of your Bible and time you spend in deep prayer. Now it doesn't really seem like a big deal.

So this is my own little calling for writers and Christians in general to find a study method(refer to Bible Study Methods for further description) that works for us and spend time a few times a week meditating, praying, asking questions about, searching for answers in small or larger portions of the Bible.

Yes, this might cause you to give up a show or two on tv or a small talk conversation on Facebook but look at what could result in this. Our ultimate goal to become closer to God everyday in our relationship with God.

Pray about it. I'm excited to get this puppy rollin'.

The Master of Puppets

There are many analogies that you can use when you are speaking of the way something controls somebody. My personal favorite is to look at as if you are a puppet and the puppet master, or devil, controls you with the little things in your life that are not of God, or the strings leading to each part of your body. This little analogy came to me one while I was in deep thought. To my knowledge it is original. Please note if you know any different.

As it states somewhere in the bible, Satan masks himself as an angel of light. However, for the extent of time in my blog, I will state Satan masks himself as a master of puppets. It's maybe not something that you would typically think of the devil doing. But hey, everyone needs a night job. Right?

So there are tons of little things that can keep you from not being controlled like a puppet, such as: anger, lust, idolatry, coveting, and maybe flat our laziness. The stated categories are pretty vast, I would say. So between these five, all of us have at least one, but probably more strings that the devil has a grip on and is holding us back from being completely in submission to our Creator; which in the end is exactly what he deserves.

By being connected to one the characteristics, we are giving the devil a chance to trip us up and become sinful under any conditions less than perfect. Just one of these strings enhances our chances of sinning tremendously.

So, in order to live a life that is pure through and through, we need to be constantly in prayer that God, our perfect heavenly father, to aid us in disconnecting our lives with the string, or strings holding us back from where He wants us.

Seven Nation Army

Ah, my title; what do you think of when you see my title? Maybe you have some music culture behind it and you just burst out in song; something to the extents of, "a seven nation army couldn't hold me back". Well I can't say that I didn't get my inspiration for the choosing of my title from this song. It did play a part in choosing it, but what is my title relating to, what lays behind just the first layer of detail? I can tell you that it isn't from the original meaning of this song; seeing how Jack White, the lead singer of the band White Stripes, got the inspiration of this title because he used to call the Salvation Army, the seven nation army.

Now that you know this interesting little tid-bit that I picked from a little thing called Wikipedia, we shall move on to bigger and better thoughts. Aside from the meaning in the context that the song VH1 proclaimed as the 75th greatest hard rock song of all time did, also learned on Wikipedia, put the phrase "seven nation army" in, what does it mean to you? How do you picture a seven nation army? I personally see thousands after thousands of well-trained, well-disciplined, and well-equipped men that are marching across battlefields with one purpose, to mow over any contender that dares rise up to such a nightmare. You may see some image from personal experience, such as our friend Jack did. As everything else in the world seems to be, you can look at this simple phrase in countless ways.

However, say the world was perfect and everybody looked at everything with the same meaning and context; we are finally on the same page, maybe, depends upon how you look at it. TEHE. Moving on. So, say you do see a literal seven nation army coming towards you, many people would say "See ya" and then scram like a few cowardly muts, but say you are feeling brave and have a mind for inquiry on this particular day. Now your standing there examining the faces on them, you become scared because you see they all have straight faces, much too like robots; they approach and accomplish the goal, to mow you over. They had a conformed goal that they all wanted to accomplish it and went about the right way to do so. Let's do a REMIX to this same situation. As you look is their faces this time you see them laughing at the thought of them coming up against you; as they approach this time, somehow you grow a sword in your hands and you proceed to mow them all down. Somewhat of "300" thought, yes?

Well, most people in the world wouldn't stand up to a seven nation army. All to the thoughts of that well, there are thousands of them, and one of you. Well now do a 180 degree turn to this. *WICKA WICKA WHAT????* Actually, if I was in this situation, I'm not alone. I have my Almighty Creator. So therefore, that makes two of us. Even though I probably wouldn't make it through the battle, WE still win, anyway it turns out WE win. How do I figure? Well David was one person, and he might as well should have fought a seven nation army, because the dude he was fighting was BAD to the BONE. With such force, comparible to a seven nation army, if not, then six. But he stood up to him anyway and ended up winning in the end. Also say that Goalith wasn't an actual man, which he was, he was in fact a bump in the road.

Now we really are on the same page, I'm hoping at this point. So this seven nation army I've been babbling on about for a few paragraphs now is simply a rough patch. It doesn't seem so intimidating now, we've broken down something much more simple. However, as a Christian and well, someone who resides on this planet, I know that a small rough patch can get me out of my groove and onto thin ice. Where I can easily fall through and distort my values and make some mistakes that can ruin my life and my purpose.

We look at this battle and see the aspect as a whole, we don't see the little things in the middle that could make us break. If we look at a seven nation army and see the thing as a whole, it doesn't seem as intimidating; when you look at it close, you see what each man can do and the individual stregth that comes together as a whole and who could end up taking you down.

Today at church, a man, who's name I do not quite yet know, took the place of my dear friend Pete and delivered a devotional-type presentation on spiritual warfare. Yes, now you can clearly see the roots of my thoughts.* dun dun dunnnnn* He did a wonderful job of compiling and explaining numerous verses on what spiritual warfare encompasses, what Satans role is in it, and then how God helps you through such times. He was the contractor to my house of thoughts for the time-being, I move alot.

Well anyway, one of my favorite parts of the Bible came up in the midst of all these verses. Where the Bible stimulates more of mental image for those "suiting up" for "battle". This of course is the armor of God. I love the thought of putting on each individual peice and heading off to war, in the Army of God. It somehow pumps me up to go throughout my day building myself and others to Christ. I hope now you experience this same sensation because I don't know much better; it's as good as it gets.

I guess for someone my age that is in the same situation as I am, our war is about to start. School is rolling up to the events on the calendar. I love learning. It's one of my favorite things to do. I'm constantly in search of something for me to learn. However, school is my biggest source of Earthly troubles. There are kids everywhere, that just thrive on being disrespectful to teachers and rebbelling against all authority. This I find ironic because the definition of rebel is to go against something and be different basically. Well now that now that everyone if rebbelling, nobody is different anymore. So basically anyone who is respectful to this authority are the ones who are actually rebbelling. Congratulations, population of the World.

Anyway, the people that strive to acheive this, which is nothing, drive me to slip and do something out of character. This causes me to lose all grip on any chance of talking to people about Christ and what I believe because they want nothing of what I'm obviously doing because it's exactly what they do in this situation. This is not anywhere close to what I personally want to achieve. So I have to make sure that I am spiritually ready for such occurances. Which, with all the homework and trying to get sleep, while also trying to have somewhat of a life, I can easily just skip my regular time of day when I study and just ponder different aspects of Christ. Little by little, skipping this time will lead me to stray from my path. Ruining my base of my relationship with God. This being my defeat in my war.

Now to put some good to this. If I do remain in my time alone with God, receiving what he wants me to, my armor doesn't fall off. It recieves upgrades as I grow in my relationship. So I guess what this really leads down to is as you go on about your life, you run into these little bumps or seven nation armies cling to God, keep on praying, and trust in the Lord, your God. You will be awarded with a rewarding life and the joy of praising Him. and hopefully strong enough armor to make your way through a seven nation army.

Being a Mature Believer

I'm currently reading this book that has insight on how you should go about studying the Bible. In this book, one the first things that it explains is that sometimes you have to rely on more mature believers to understand passages of the Bible. At the time my brain registered this statement, it created a freeway of thoughts exploding through my mind at a million miles an hour; all creating the question of, what makes a believer mature?

Now that I have you on my freeway of thought, I shall explain what I believe to be a secure answer to this somewhat vast category.

There are many people out there that will tell you a mature believer is someone who has studied the Bible more than you; therefore, when it comes down to it, someone with more knowledge on the Bible than yourself is a mature believer. Other people will tell you a mature believer is someone who has experienced more than you; therefore, a mature believer has had more experience.

As I sat there and thought both of these viewpoints through I came to a conclusion that they were both wrong.

In defense of those who believe more in the Bible category, you must know the Word to fully know what you believe. However, a number of the stories in the Bible have more of an applied meaning to them, rather than listing rule after rule for the duration of the books within. Therefore, you must be able to apply something to that passage to fully utilize it; which helps if it's in the personal realm.

I realized this then, that to be a mature believer you must be able to reveal the glory of God through experience and apply it through your life with the Bible. AKA both of these categories I have explained. Wahlah.

P.S. If you have any other categories or insight to this, please leave me a comment explaining.