BSD Blogging: A Brief Intro to Corinth

This week our BSD groups begin studying Paul's second letter to the church in Corinth--which we learned in the lesson is the fourth known letter to these early Christians, with the first and third having been lost to us. We can better understand Paul's message if we put on those "three-dimensional" glasses to see what the city of Corinth and the church were like in Paul's day.

First of all, Corinth was really a new Roman city built on the ruins of the Greek city of Corinth which was destroyed by the Romans in 146 BC and resettled  by decree of Julius Caesar in 446 BC. Situated on a narrow isthmus of land, Corinth had two seaports: one leading to Italy and one to Asia. The city was a major commercial center and, like most successful port cities, attracted a very diverse population.  

That population included many Jewish refugees from Rome, who had been expelled by order of the emperor in 49 AD. Among these Roman Jews were Priscilla and Aquila, leaders in the early church in Corinth. 

Paul's letter to the Christians in Corinth were read and shared by a number of house churches, not just one congregation. At this time the church was organized by households which in Roman culture (remember this is a Roman city and the Jews in Corinth were Roman Jews) which included more than the nuclear family. Slaves, freedmen, hired workers, tenants and skilled craftsmen were considered part of the household and were expected to follow the faith of the head of the household. They gathered for worship and a shared meal in private homes, not in synagogues or separate buildings. Some of these house churches were led by women who were independently wealthy either by inheritance or through their own business dealings.

Imagine Paul's Second Letter to the Corinthians being read aloud in one of the early house churches and then being copied and passed along to the next Christian household! Many of those hearing his words were illiterate and could not have read it for themselves. We are going to spend the rest of our BSD study learning this letter that gives us a window into the early church in Corinth and Paul's sometimes strained but always loving relationship with it.

Last Day of BSD

Yesterday was the last day of our BSD study for 2009-2010 and we wrapped up with the last two chapters of Romans. I really loved this year's study and the amazing women who were members of my small discussion group and my leader group who inspired me weekly with their devotion to study and their faith.

On the last day of the study we traditionally invite people to speak about their experience with BSD that year. There were more than 200 women overflowing the church's chapel yesterday. (BSD also has coed study groups on weeknights and Sunday mornings that were not represented.)

This year one of the speakers was a woman who identified herself as a Messianic Jew who has involved with BSD for several years. She thanked the group for the welcome she had experienced and the interest shown in her Jewish heritage, saying that over the years she shared seders and other celebrations with group members. Then she exhorted us, in the words of the Apostle Paul, to "arouse my own people to envy" (Romans 11:14) of what we have in Christ by the example of how we live. This was the most memorable witness I have heard in the few years it has been my privilege to be a BSD group leader.

Afterwards at the Celebration Luncheon someone asked me how early I have to leave Sugar Land to get to the church on Thursdays and then asked me if I was coming back next year. But all I could say in reply was, "how could I not?"

Of Disputable Matters

As we are wrapping up our study of the book of Romans in BSD, we came this week to chapter 14. In this chapter Paul admonishes Christians to accept one who is "weak in faith" but NOT for the purpose of :

"passing judgment on his opinions" (New American Standard)
"disputes over opinions" (NRV)
"passing judgment on disputable matters" (NIV)
"having doubtful disputations" (King James)
Romans 14:1

This chapter really spoke to me because over the weekend I read the controversial Middle East Report that is coming before the General Assembly this summer. Without going into a point-by-point analysis of why I believe the report is seriously flawed and should not be approved, I will just say that if ever there were "disputable matters" that are not essentials of the faith then opinions on issues of domestic and foreign political policy fit squarely within Paul's definition.

Paul's admonishment that Christians should "make every effort to do what leads to peace and mutual edification" (v. 19) within the community of believers is again being ignored by the denomination which seems intent on avoiding dealing with its own serious internal problems by engaging in disputes over matters of opinion. In the process more internal division and less unity among its members is created. And that is a major reason for the serious decline in the PCUSA.

QG Podcast: Romans 8--Victory in Christ

If anyone is interested, here's a link to the podcast of my BSD lecture yesterday on Romans 8 from the MDPC website:

UPDATE:
There's some error with the previous link. If you go here:
http://www.mdpc.org/mediaservices/channel344.xml

Then click on the media files for the top entry--Victory in Christ dated February 17, you will be able to hear it.

BSD Lecture Coming Up!

In a couple of weeks I will be giving a lecture on Romans 8 for our Bible Study Discussion program. I have about 50 minutes in which to do it for about 200 women on a Thursday morning. Oh, boy!

Our groups are studying Paul's letter to the Romans, chapter by chapter. Since this is the middle of the book, I think it is a good time to include a brief review and summary of the first 7 chapters as well as a look ahead to what is to come. It better be brief because Romans 8 is the apogee of Paul's letter--and one of the most significant chapters in all of the Bible.

Chapter divisions in the Bible can be helpful or arbitrary. In the case of Romans, they are arbitrary and don't always come at logical places in Paul's densely written argument. That makes a lecture on one chapter challenging!

If any of my Gentle Readers can give me suggestions for resources for this assignment, I would be most appreciative! I'm using Paul for Everyone by N.T. Wright and the Interpretation series commentary on Romans, written by Paul Achtemeier as well as the study notes in the NIV Study Bible, the Oxford (NRV) Study Bible.

PresbyBloggers Adult Bible Study Post

Go over to Presbyterian Bloggers today to read my post about the Bible Study Discussion program at my church and hopefully, a good discussion in the comments about what makes a successful adult Bible study program.

Sailing Retreat

Last Thursday and Friday I was on retreat with fellow Bible Study Discussion leaders from our church. Our leader was my good friend Mary Marcotte, who is also an Associate General Presbyter for our presbytery.

Mary's theme was Sailing Lessons for Leaders and I'm still pondering all the implications of it. Mary talked about how the sailboat was a symbol of the early church: the mast is in the shape of the cross; the boat is the church itself which is tossed on the seas of worldliness, disbelief and persecution with its precious cargo of human souls which it transports to our heavenly home.

The power of the sailboat is in the wind--and the power of the church is in the Holy Spirit which is known as the ruah or breath of God. We spent time discussing how often we are furiously trying to row the boat of the church with our own power, ignoring the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Then we wonder why we get frustrated!

It was a powerful retreat and I was doubly blessed by being with the wonderful BSD leaders and being led by my good friend. Now I'm going to try to find a place to store those oars and see if I can leave them there for a while. My arms are pretty sore!

BSD Wrapped Up for the Year

Today was our last meeting of our Bible Study Discussion (BSD) groups at church for the year as we completed the Revealing God study. This was the first time the program used a "theme" study instead of a "book" study, and it definitely took some getting used to. The study was based on J.I. Packer's book Knowing God. It was certainly worth it!

It was a tough year, full of distractions for everyone:

• Hurricane Ike--yikes! The church was closed due to lack of power for a couple of weeks and some people were out of their homes for six to eight weeks before electricity was restored and debris cleared.
• The financial meltdown that threatened jobs and savings.
• Powerful thunderstorms that flooded the Houston area this Monday, bringing more water than we saw from Ike. Ten inches fell in a few hours in the area around the church. Many who live near there had their homes flooded.

It took our groups longer than usual to bond with each other because of the early disruptions, but in the fullness of time they did. And just like every year, we all said we had the best group ever!

I'm looking forward to our study next year of 3 letters of Paul--Galatians, Philippians and Romans. I'm a big Paul fan. Being a BSD leader has taken me out of my comfort zone in some ways--all of them good--and helped me grow spiritually. What a blessing!

Blogging will probably be sporadic between now and the day of the big move (May 15). We close on our new house Monday and I'll be in full throwing out, packing and setting up mode.

Great Questions To Ponder

I just love it when our BSD lesson gets people to ponder and struggle with some very deep questions!

Today we tried to answer the following in connection with a study of the nature of Christ:

Surely Satan knew Jesus was God, so why did he even bother trying to tempt him?

If Jesus is fully God, then how could he possibly have been really tempted by Satan?

How can you respond to a loved one or friend who believes Jesus was a good teacher, but not divine?

In connection with the above question, is C. S. Lewis' "Liar, Lunatic or Lord" argument persuasive?

If not, then how else could you give evidence of the divinity of Christ?

There were lots of different answers offered to these questions, but ultimately the mystery of the Trinity doesn't lend itself to discovering THE answer. What's your response?

QG's Podcast

The lecture that I gave last week at BSD is now available as a podcast on your computer or as an MP3 download on the MDPC website for those of you who were kind enough to say you wished you could hear it.

If you go to this link you can access the audio files. The link takes you to the Media Archives page on the church website. Go to BSD Lectures 2008-2009 and click on "show Details". This takes you to the page with all the lectures. Scroll down to the January 22 lecture and you'll see the link to listen, download the MP3 file and/or the pdf of the powerpoint notes.

Whew! That's a lot of work. I thought about just posting it here as a podcast, but since it was recorded by the church wasn't sure that fit the "terms of service" of the church website.

Praying on My Mind

For the past week the topic of prayer has been preying on my mind. (Sorry, couldn't resist the pun.)

I agreed to substitute for our regular teaching leader and give tomorrow's lecture for BSD (Bible Study Discussion). Our study this year is called Revealing God and examines the attributes of God. Tomorrow's subject: "The God Who Hears Prayers".
Thanks to the Wall Street Journal's article on the history of inaugural prayers and the fact that a whole lotta praying has been going on in Washington DC between the inauguration and several prayer breakfasts and services, I can bring in some examples from recent news stories.

As the Church Lady would have said, "how convenient"!

Lecturing is not really my strong suit, though. I've taught lots of adult groups, but they were usually small enough that I could encourage questions and comments from the group. But this group is too large for that, so a lecture it is!

Since the lesson focused on prayers in scripture and the components of prayer, I'm going to focus the lecture on how God communicated with people in scripture and then I'm using Dallas Willard's Hearing God to talk about how we can learn to listen to God's response to our prayers.

Back to work!

The Ministry of Admnistration

Today I am very, very grateful for all those whose ministry is administration.

I'm thinking of the wonderfully well-organized and diligent women who keep me supplied with rosters, calling lists, attendance sheets and weekly agendas for our Bible Study Discussion program that resumed last week. There are several hundred women involved in BSD at my church so this is no small task.

The hours they spend word-processing, editing and double-checking all the details allows me and the other small group leaders to focus on our ministry of encouragement, prayer and facilitation of the lesson discussion. I've done it before myself, but it so nice not to have to do it!

It's an amazing gift. Thank you, ladies!

(This year our study is Revealing God, based on the J.I. Packer classic Knowing God.)

Getting To Know God

This summer I'm participating in a group study of Knowing God by J. I. Packer at church. Members of the group will be leaders for the upcoming BSD study of the same name. The study is not a study of this book, but a theme Bible study: the idea is that the book will be a good preparation and supplement for the leaders.

Today is the first meeting, so I finished reading the first two chapters and answering the questions in the study guide. It is often said that the best way to learn about the Bible is to actually READ the Bible itself and not what other people write about what the Bible says. (What a concept!) The goal of this study is to help you go beyond reading about God -- to develop a relationship and understanding of who He is through prayer and meditation.

I'm looking forward to what I hope will be a real growth experience.

Concluding the Journey Through Hebrews

This was our last day of the 2007-2008 Bible Study Discussion program at church (a/k/a BSD, see this post a description). We finished the study of Hebrews that we began in September.

Hebrews is not a long book, so I wondered how the study could stretch out over eight months. It actually works very well, because there are so many references to the Old Testament in the book, that we spent a lot of time going back and reading those relevant passages that helped explain part of Hebrews.

There was a big celebration luncheon afterwards, and I came away with two lovely souvenirs shown in the photo at left: one is the lovely carved wooden angel which was a table decoration (reminiscent of chapter 1 of Hebrews) and the other is the metal sculpture given me by the members of the discussion group I led. The metal sculpture is called "Open Hearted Woman" which I love because it is so cheerful it makes me smile and remember each member of my wonderful group. I added the orchid plant to the shot because, well, don't an angel and an open-hearted woman deserve a bunch of orchids?

Taking part in this study has been a huge blessing to me and has really helped me stay grounded throughout my adventures as Moderator-elect and Moderator. I'm so grateful for the opportunity to be involved with BSD and of course, I'm going to do it again next fall!

BSD Re-Enacts Balaam's Ass

Yesterday and this morning I joined 30+ other leaders of Bible Study Discussion groups at my church for a leaders' retreat at Camp Allen.

I always come away from my time with these ladies inspired and impressed by their dedication, consistency and totally awesome organizational abilities. This year's retreat was led by the now retired founder of the program, and it was fascinating to meet her and her husband and hear their story about the beginnings of BSD. She was amazed to see how it has grown today, and now includes several co-ed groups as well as the traditional women's groups that meet mid-week.

This group really knows how to par-tay, by the way. Yours truly played the dual role of God/Narrator in a never-to-be-forgotten original skit in which my group re-enacted the story of Balaam's Ass. (See Numbers 22). Balaam used stalks of celery to beat the ass with, and the ass wore a bicycle helmet to protect herself. Guess you had to be there!

The Medium Is NOT The Message

I'm getting a lesson in the use of internet resources for Bible study this week. The BSD studies require a LOT of looking up of different scriptural references. Although the lessons vary, you usually look up 10 to 20 different citations in addition to the assigned reading. That's a lot of thumbing through your Bible.

There are several websites that let you search the Bible by book, chapter and verse in many many different translations. One of the most straightforward and easy to use is Bible Gateway. It seems some diligent ladies in the group have used this method to find the verses for every lesson for the entire year and printed them out.

I got a copy of one of these supplements and used it this week. It is a great timesaver, which I really needed today. When I have more time, I like to use these sites to compare different translations, especially when I find the meaning of the verses difficult. It's always interesting to see what The Message version is.

It's probably a generational thing, but it doesn't seem as much like Bible study to me if I'm not putting my hands on my trusty Access Bible while working through the lesson. And I think of myself as being pretty good with computers! I bet that is not the reaction of the young women in the group who have used computers all their lives.

When El Jefe and I were in New Haven last weekend we stopped at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, where he worked in his student days. We saw the copy of the Gutenburg Bible which is a very large folio-size volume with calligraphic style printing of the Latin text, bound in fine leather.

Whether hewn on stone tablets, handwritten on papyrus, printed on a primitive press, published with modern word processing, or residing on the internet in the form of electric impulses, the Bible is the Word, regardless of its medium. The medium is not the message, after all, just the messenger.

I must remind myself of that!

Overcoming Acedia

Kathleen Norris brilliantly described the spiritual malaise known to the ancient church fathers as "acedia" in her book The Cloister Walk. She says that today this state is most often described as despression, but acedia is not the same thing as depression. Kevin Quast, writing for Christian week, says "Acedia is a spiritual languor. We experience it as apathy, boredom or inertia in one’s discipleship."

For the last couple of years, I've experienced some of the symptoms of acedia. That's not unusual--our journey in faith is full of both peaks and valleys. One of the great blessings both El Jefe and I have found in our new church is that we are being pulled out of that acedia.

The latest antidote to this condition for me was the surprise invitation to become a small group leader in Bible Study Discussion. "BSD" is described at MDPC as "Bible Study Fellowship with grace and mercy." Bible Study Fellowship is an interdenominational Bible study group that is very active in the Houston area and has very strict attendance and participation requirements.

The curriculum for BSD is different than that used for BSF. I began attending a group this March at church and found that it was more compatible with Presbyterian and other mainline Protestant viewpoints than BSF: conservative but not leaning toward fundamentalism. I loved the fact that the lecturer cited Eugene Peterson and Calvin in her remarks.

Like BSF, BSD is interdenominational. It is a mission of our church. I've been told that 60% of the participants are not members of MDPC. That's amazing! BSD has several hundred participants that meet at different times during the week and although most are women's groups there are some coed groups as well. People drive from all over the Houston metro area to attend.

When I was asked to be a leader, I prayed about it and felt that this was the way I was being called to use my spiritual gifts in mission to others. Today I went to a leaders' meeting for the coming year. What a pleasure to be part of a well-run group that has structure but is also flexible when necessary! Without exception the other leaders were warm and genuine in their welcome to us "newbies" and their joyful spirit is infectious. I'm really looking forward to growing spiritually in different ways. Our study for next year is Hebrews, a book that I have never studied in depth.

Praise God, the acedia is receding and the spiritual mojo level is coming up!