I suppose if I am encouraging everybody to post their opinion on this forum I had better too (hoping to slide in under the radar, but to no avail…
It’s always hard to find a topic that makes everybody happy since we all approach studying the Bible in such different ways - whether it be from a thoroughly intellectual perspective or, at the other extreme, a very application-driven perspective. To me, one of the best ways of bridging this gap is to pick a book of the Bible (Romans would probably be my choice this time around, although I have heard James mentioned as a good book to do in this way and maybe (I’ll plead ignorance here since I know nothing about Zechariah whatsoever) even Zechariah would work), choose some overriding themes of a particular book of the Bible which relate to practical, everyday Christian life, and exploring them using the chosen book as the main text as well as references from throughout the Bible. We worked through Acts using a similar strategy last winter (check out the types of things we talked about at http://www.getchurch.org/oxygen/resources-acts.shtml) and I thought it was really a useful way to not only delve into a particular text on an intellectual level (looking at the context of verses which speak to the topic and understanding the historical setting in which Acts played out) but also learn something about what God has to say on some really important issues we face daily. Comment yea or nay if you please!
Following up on the suggestion made last week for a study on an obscure prophetic book, I’ll put forward the book of Zechariah. I taught and preached out of it over the summer, and I’m working with it for my thesis currently. I have lots of notes and ideas on it, so preparing classes would not be that difficult.
For those of you who have never heard of/read the book of Zechariah, it’s the 2nd last book of the Old Testament. It’s full of strange visions which are fun to try and decipher, and great prophetic messages that spoke to the community of God then, and that I think echo down through the centuries and speak vividly to us today. I would welcome the opportunity to introduce you all to this wonderful book that most Christians never get the chance to study.
As this semester winds down, we need to make some decisions regarding what topic(s) we want to tackle this coming winter in our Sunday large group. What do you want to do — a book study (if so, what book), a Bible study (if so, what book(s) or theme(s) would you like to explore), a sermon-based series expanding on what Lane talks about in the service, or something else entirely? Post your thoughts (completely anonymously if you wish, you don’t have to include your name in the post) by clicking on this link:
Just give your post a title, type your idea in the text box and hit “save” when you’re done. You can also e-mail Luke to let him know directly what you’d like to see happen. Please take a couple of minutes and give us some feedback!
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