DC 101 - Week 3 - God the Son

This is actually week four in terms of our meetings. I'm not counting the introductory week in my title; rather, I'm considering the weeks we meet to discuss issues. In week 1, we considered the character traits of a disciple of Jesus Christ. In week 2, which concluded with our meeting this morning, we discussed God the Father. And in preparation for next Monday's meeting, which I'm calling week 3, we'll discuss God the Son. The workload for this week, if you're breaking it down by daily work, might look something like this:

Monday - Read John 10-21
Tuesday - Read Proverbs 9 and both workbook articles (one on "The Completeness of Christ" and one on "The Emotions of Jesus")
Wednesday - memorize 2 Corinthians 5:21 - "God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God" - and review the previous memory verses (2 Peter 3:18 and Ephesians 2:10)
Thursday - Review the memory verses and answer questions 1a-c and 2 a-c (6 questions)
Friday - Review the memory verses and answer questions 3a-c, 4, and 5 (5 questions)

Monday's 12 chapters in John's gospel is probably the most time-consuming portion of the workload, but just read it and enjoy it. Take an hour and jot down a point or two from each chapter. I'll comment more on the workload later in the week.

DC 101 - week 2

Going through the workload this week, we find that there is much more to discuss than in week 1. We could easily spend the entire meeting time on John 1-9. In fact, we could easily spend the entire meeting time on John 1:1-18. John Piper once took a 15-week seminary course on the Gospel of John, and the first 14 weeks were devoted to this prologue. See my blog posts, which serve as a commentary on the prologue, here.

Next, as the DC leader's guide notes, a discussion of John's gospel can break off into tangents that naturally flow from a reading of the text. But we don't have time in our meeting to deal with many of them. Thus, we'll try to focus on personal application, rather than issues of doctrinal debate. We'll also sneak in a brief discussion of Proverbs 8 in the first few minutes of our meeting; how do we understand the personification of wisdom found there?

Finally, we'll discuss a number of questions regarding theology - the study of God. We'll focus specifically on the character traits of God the Father, His eternal purpose, and His role in salvation. We won't be able to cover everything adequately; rather, we'll try to focus on the key points and overarching application of the topics at hand.

DC 101 - Week 2 - God the Father

Our group met yesterday to discuss the character traits of a disciple of Jesus Christ. Humility was one of, if not the main, one noted. Thanks to all who participated in the discussion of Ephesians, Titus, and Proverbs 1-4 as well. This week, we are focusing on God the Father. Our plan for the workload might look like this:

Monday - Read John 1-9
Tuesday - Read Proverbs 8 and the article on fearing God
Wednesday - Memorize Ephesians 2:10 - "For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do" - and consider the context of this verse, especially in light of having read Ephesians last week.
Thursday - Answer questions "1a-e" and "2a-e" (10 questions total) and review the memory verses learned so far (both 2 Peter 3:18 and Ephesians 2:10).
Friday - Answer questions "3a-d", "4a-c", "5a-c", and 6 (12 questions total), and review those memory verses.

Louisville has experienced quite a wind storm from Hurricane Ike, and if you lack electrical power, you may have to be creative in finding time to get the work done this week.

DC 101 - Week 1 - Introduction

We started a new group this morning, made of 13 men, including the 2 co-leaders. We'll be spending the next 21 months going through a structured, self-led study called Thoroughly Equipped, a Discipleship Curriculum (DC). I want to try to blog through the entire course. During the 70 weeks of meetings, we'll memorize over 70 verses of Scripture, read through the entire Bible, and study and discuss a number of relevant topics from a Biblical perspective. The first week includes one memory verse, 13 chapters of Bible reading, an article on Scripture memorization, and 15 topical study questions on "The Character Traits of a Disciple of Jesus Christ." If we break down that work into 5 days of blogging, it might look something like this:

Monday - read Ephesians (6 chapters).
Tuesday - read Titus (3 chapters) and Proverbs 1-4 (4 chapters).
Wednesday - Memorize 2 Peter 3:18 - "But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be glory both now and forever. Amen." - and read the assigned article that reveals why we ought to memorize Scripture.
Thursday - Review memory verse and answer half of the questions (the 15 questions include all parts of questions 1-5 or so...).
Friday - Review memory verse and answer the other half of the questions.

This workload should be fairly evenly distributed among the five days of the week, with Wednesday having the lightest of the workloads and Thursday and Friday being heaviest, especially if you are not comfortable looking up Bible passages. Of course, it may be that a Sunday afternoon works best to pound out the vast majority of this work. That's fine too. Since it's a self-led study, you do what works for you; but the design is to build in some daily discipline into Christian growth. We ought to keep that in mind. Due to some travel this week, I won't blog daily on these tasks, but hopefully, starting next week, I'll be able to keep a daily record of a typical effort to complete this workload.