DC 101 - Week 6 - Overview of Scripture

Coming out of the Spiritual Disciplines Retreat, we met this morning to consider an introduction to Scripture. The focus of the lesson was on the inerrancy of Scripture. In other words, the Bible as we have it in our multiple English translations is essentially (with that word meaning what it is meant to mean) identical to the original Greek and Hebrew manuscripts. We focused on word studies as well, since it is crucial to know how and why English translations are rendered the way they are, given the original Greek language. For this week, we move to an overview of Scripture. Completing the workload might look something like this:

Monday - Read Matthew 19-28 and Proverbs 12
Tuesday - Read the two articles in the workbook - Bible 'Improvement' by Andree Seu, On Misinterpreting Stories You Don't Like by John Alexander, and How to Read Your Bible by F.B. Meyer
Wednesday - Memorize 2 Timothy 3:16-17 (if you haven't already) - "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." Review previous memory verses as well (2 Peter 3:18, Ephesians 2:10, 2 Corinthians 5:21; Galatians 5:16).
Thursday - Answer questions 1a-c, 2, and 3a-c in the workbook (7 questions).
Friday - Answer questions 3d-e (2 questions) and spend some time with the guided study of the word "save" as found in Scripture. Consider using www.blueletterbible.org for assistance with this exercise.

Some of the guys will have retreat this weekend. They'll complete some additional work regarding the spiritual disciplines. Then we'll all be on the same page from here on out.

DC 101 - Spiritual Disciplines Retreat

The Spiritual Disciplines Retreat is a Friday evening / Saturday morning retreat including two meals, worship time, fellowship and fun, teaching on prayer and the spiritual disciplines, and practice time for solitude, silence, and prayer.

The order of events looks like this:

6 PM - meet and greet
6:30 PM - dinner
7:45 PM - intro meeting and memory verse quiz
8:15 PM - corporate worship
8:30 PM - break out session to discuss spiritual disciplines, including workbook articles and questions
9:55 PM - wrap up / corporate worship
10 PM - fun and fellowship
6:50 AM - instructions for silent solitude time
7 AM - 1 hour of silence and solitude
8 AM - breakfast
9 AM - break out session to discuss solitude and silence and prayer, including workbook articles and questions
10:30 AM - BREAK
10:45 AM - group meeting and prayer time
11:30 AM - group activity if desired
NOON - dismissal

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DC 101 - Week 5 - Intro to Scripture

Our recent study on the Holy Spirit was excellent. It can be difficult to conceptualize Him as one in being with the Father and the Son and yet at the same time eternally distinct and actually living in every Christian. This week, having considered the characteristics of a follower of Christ and the Trinity, we'll be focusing on Scripture. The workload this week might look something like this:

Monday - Read Matthew 11-18 and Proverbs 11
Tuesday - Read the three articles: "Text Criticism and Inerrancy" by J.I. Packer, "The Greatest Story Never Read" by Gary M. Burge, and "How to Do a Word Study" by Kent R. Wilson
Wednesday - Memorize 2 Timothy 3:16-17 - "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work" - and review previous memory verses (2 Peter 3:18, Ephesians 2:10, 2 Corinthians 5:21, and Galatians 5:16).
Thursday - Consider points 1 and 2 in the workbook and answer questions 3-4 as well. Review memory verses.
Friday - Make an effort to do the optional word studies in question 5 (there are 3 of them), go ahead and consider the word study of question 6, and review memory verses.

We are having a Spiritual Disciplines retreat on one of the next two weekends, and there is material to cover for discussion there. I'll mention that later in the week.