Choosing a Family Devotion Passage, Strange New Evangelical World, and Meaning In Suffering
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Enough jibber-jabber—let's go.
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AN IDEA FROM ME
“Now, how should you determine which passage of Scripture to read and discuss together? This can feel intimidating—there are over 31,000 verses in the Bible!—but it doesn’t have to be...
“In 2020, the year Aliza and I really got serious about family worship, I wanted to choose a section of the Bible that the kids would find engaging and exciting. I asked myself what the “Narnia” or “Lord of the Rings” of the Bible would be, and I settled on the Book of Joshua. Tell me you can see this comparison. Joshua has armies, “magic” (miracles), heroes, battles, villains, conquest, and all the elements that make for an epic tale.
“That summer we finished Joshua and kept on going, through Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, and into 1 Kings, at which point we finally lost steam and moved to another section of Scripture.
“When our children were young, we mostly stuck to books with a lot of narrative (like the Gospels and Acts in the New Testament, and Genesis and the Historical Books in the Old Testament), and we began to move to the Epistles when they got older. If you’re having family devotions before bed, Psalms is an excellent choice. As I write this, we have recently finished Romans and are back in John again.
“Reading through the Old Testament, we would always discuss how the passage pointed forward to the coming of Jesus Christ.
Source: from my forthcoming book, Bible Based Family Discipleship. The men of the Hammer & Anvil Society are studying this together for the next seven weeks. Membership is closed now and will reopen Monday, March 4th. Learn more at: https://thethink.institute/society.”
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A QUOTE FROM SOMEBODY ELSE
“In the world at large, not just the church, we are in a time of rapid change and uncertainty. In the last few years we’ve seen so many things that would have seemed impossible not long before they happened: Donald Trump’s election, the pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, renewed Middle East unrest. I’m sure more will continue to come. Who knows what AI will bring, for example.
“This calls for us adopting a posture of exploration, not business planning. That’s not to say we shouldn’t make plans. But this world is different from that of 1970s suburban Chicago, when someone like Bill Hybels could do market research (door to door surveys) and design a church to cater to the desires of an underserved market segment.
“Today’s world is much more like a “zero to one” startup. We are in the unknown territory and have to get more comfortable walking by faith rather than sight. It’s similar to the Israelites crossing the Jordan River into the promised land. They had known only the wilderness, which was their comfort zone. Now they had to venture into the unknown, following the ark because they “had not been this way before.
Source: Aaron M. Renn, “Four Themes for the Church in the Negative World,” 30 January, 2024, accessed 4 February, 2024 at https://www.aaronrenn.com/p/four-themes-for-the-church-in-the.
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SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT
Do you believe all suffering has meaning?
This month’s Pub Talk discussion centered on the topic of Suffering and Redemption. Reply with your response to this discussion question, and I will write you back. Contact me to learn about how to start an evangelistic discussion group for your church. https://thethink.institute/contact.
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Thanks for reading this week’s Newsletter from The Think Institute. We are a non-profit ministry helping Christian men and their families explain, share and defend the Christian message. You can help support the mission here: https://thethink.institute/partner.
Lord willing, I’ll write to you again next week.
In Christ,
Joel Settecase
Executive Director
The Think Institute
P. S. You can watch my latest teaching on the book of Jude here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NcRhRHxW-I