Understanding the Bible - Part 2

Let's pray.

Father, we do thank you that time in your word is good for us.

! And we want to pray that this evening would be useful.

! We thank you.

We thank you that your word is intelligible to us,

that you've not obscured the realities of who you are and what you're like,

but that you have made them plain for us in your word,

and that we are able to read and understand

because of the way that you have made us

and because of the way that you have written your word.

And we pray that that's a task that we would get better and better at.

And maybe this evening would be a small step forward in that task,

we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Amen.

So, if you remember back to last week,

we were thinking about how to understand the Bible.

And I suppose it, in a sense, is experimental

because it's a bit more seminary than it is a sermon, right?

So it's a bit more training than it is teaching.

And we thought particularly about a couple of things.

We thought first that the Bible has a divine author,

so the Bible has a coherent message to tell from the beginning to the end.

The Lord superintends the message of the Bible,

and so he is the author who stands behind it.

And yet it also has human authors,

those people who write the Bible,

who write it in a particular context at a particular time,

and who, while not compromising the authority or divine intent behind the book,

also bring their personalities to bear on the text as well.

So that it is understanding them and their situation

that also helps us understand what God is saying through them as the divine author.

We then said, too, that our main responsibility when we read the Bible

is to see then the author's purpose,

both the human author, but also behind that, the divine author.

And we're to ask the question, what is the point of this passage?

What is being said and why is it being said?

What is the intent of this piece of Scripture?

We said, if you might remember,

that the job of a responsible Bible reader or preacher or teacher

was to make sure, as far as they are able,

that the point of their talk or the point of their Bible study

or the point of their kids' talk

is the author's point in that passage in the Bible.

Because if we take the Bible and make it say something

that it is not intending to say,

we might say something that's true,

but we might also say something that is not true,

and we can end up in all kinds of mess.

As we looked at last week,

we found that the devil himself loves to use God's Word

to teach things which are not the point of the Bible.

Now, this evening, we're going to look a little bit further

and pick up another couple of additional tools

from that book, Dig Deeper, which I held up last week

and which Florence took from me.

So she's reading it and so I haven't got it to hold up.

But anyway, the first thing we're going to look at

is the context tool, the context tool.

So reading a passage in its context.

Now, the book's example, so Andrew Satch

and Nigel Byron's example of this,

dates the book, I think, a bit,

because they talk about the difference

between an encyclopedia and a novel.

Who has an encyclopedia today, right?

Nobody.

We have ChatGPT for that.

But I guess, Mike, you have encyclopedias,

do you, in your home?

Yeah.

The tailors have encyclopedias, all of them.

So there you go.

But an encyclopedia, when you turn and look up something

in an encyclopedia, then what it says on a given subject

is totally unrelated to the entry that's above it or below it, right?

It is just an isolated piece of information.

So if you look up London, it doesn't matter if before it comes lobsters

and after it comes lounges or something.

Am I alphabetically correct?

I think I am.

Right?

That they have nothing to do with London.

It's just the way that it is structured.

And if you approached a novel like that,

so if you just opened a novel and randomly read a paragraph

as if it was isolated from everything around it,

you would end up not really understanding what the book was about

and you'd be quickly confused and probably give up reading.

But that approach, the encyclopedia approach,

is the approach that is often taken by Bible readers

that we expect to sort of randomly pick out a section of the Bible

and presume that it is written directly to us

to answer the question that we had on our hearts as we opened it

and not written in a specific context

with something that goes before it and below it,

which dictate what it means.

Now, one thing that is pointed out in the book

is that the context of a Bible passage is rich and complex.

So each sentence comes in a paragraph, right?

And each paragraph comes in a chapter.

Each chapter comes in a book.

And the book comes in a testament.

And the testament come in the whole Bible.

And so actually, we need to kind of zoom out slowly

from passages of the Bible to see the context in which they're given,

to see how that shapes how we understand it.

Now, I'm going to try and show you that with 1 Kings chapter 19.

1 Kings 19 · chapter mention

So if you turn to 1 Kings 19, I don't think...

Did I print it out on your handout?

No, I didn't because it was a bit long.

So 1 Kings chapter 19, it's page 361 in a church Bible.

1 Kings 19 · chapter mention

1 Kings chapter 19.

1 Kings 19 · chapter mention

Now, you may, I guess, recognize this story in 1 Kings chapter 19 when you get there.

1 Kings 19 · chapter mention

It's taking me a bit of time to get there.

There you go.

1 Kings chapter 19.

1 Kings 19 · chapter mention

It is Elijah after the victory over the prophets of Baal on the mountain with the sacrifices.

And what I want to do, I'm going to read it to you,

and then we're going to have a little think about it in its context.

I'm going to pick it up in verse 9 and read to the end of the chapter.

There he went into a cave and spent the night.

And the word of the Lord came to him,

What are you doing here, Elijah?

He replied, I've been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty.

The Israelites have rejected your covenant,

torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword.

I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.

The Lord said,

Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord,

for the Lord is about to pass by.

Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart

and shattered the rocks before the Lord,

but the Lord was not in the wind.

After the wind, there was an earthquake,

but the Lord was not in the earthquake.

After the earthquake came a fire,

but the Lord was not in the fire.

And after the fire came a gentle whisper.

When Elijah heard it,

he pulled his cloak over his face

and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.

Then a voice said to him,

What are you doing here, Elijah?

He replied, I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty.

The Israelites have rejected your covenant,

torn down your altars,

and put your prophets to death with the sword.

I am the only one left,

and now they are trying to kill me too.

The Lord said to him,

Go back the way you came.

Go to the desert of Damascus.

When you get there,

anoint Hazel king over Aram.

Also anoint Jehu son of Nimshi king over Israel,

and anoint Elisha son of Shaphat from Abel-Mahola

to succeed you as prophet.

Jehu will put to death any who escape the sword of Hazel,

and Elisha will put to death any who escape the sword of Jehu.

Yet I reserve 7,000 in Israel whose knees have not bowed down to Baal,

and whose mouths have not kissed him.

Elijah went down from there and found Elisha son of Shaphat.

He was plowing with 12 yoke of oxen,

and he himself was driving the 12 pair.

Elijah went up to him and threw his cloak around him.

Elisha then left his oxen and ran after Elijah.

Let me kiss my father and mother goodbye, he said,

and then I will come with you.

Go back, Elijah replied.

What have I done to you?

So Elijah left him and went back,

and he took his yoke of oxen and slaughtered them,

he burned the plowing equipment to cook the meat,

and gave it to the people, and they ate.

And then he set out to follow Elijah and became his servant.

Now, the passage is quite famous, isn't it?

And so you might well have heard something about listening

for what is called the still small voice,

I think in the old translation,

which is here in the NIV,

the gentle whisper of verse 12.

So you read it and you think, well, okay, God speaks in a gentle whisper.

So we need to be listening for gentle whispers.

That's what Elijah's heard.

But when you look at it in the context,

you realize that actually is not what's really going on.

So think about the immediate context of what's happening.

Elijah's on the run.

Yeah.

So Elijah has had this great contest on the Mount Carmel

where the fire came down from heaven,

consumed his offering,

and then he slaughtered the prophets of Baal.

But then in the beginning of chapter 19,

Jezebel is out to get him.

And she is determined to kill Elijah

like he killed the prophets of Baal.

So Elijah is so worried about this

that he tries to save Jezebel the bother

and prays in chapter 19, verse 4,

that God himself would kill him.

Take my life.

I am no better than my ancestors, he says,

in chapter 19, verse 4.

Instead, though, God feeds him.

And still, though, Elijah is not in great shape

and ends up hiding in a cave on Mount Horeb

in the end of verse 8 and the beginning of verse 9,

complaining to God that he is the only one left

and they're trying to kill him too.

So much so that when you hear the voice

at the end of verse 13,

it's a direct reflection of the voice

that was spoken in verse 9, isn't it?

There's nothing new for Elijah.

In fact, it's the same question.

What are you doing here, Elijah?

What are you doing here, Elijah?

Before telling him in verse 15

to go back and get on with what he'd started.

Now, that's the immediate context, okay?

So you get the impression

that there's something going on

in this interaction between God and Elijah

as he believes himself to be the only one left.

He's under a great threat by Jezebel.

But then when you expand it

to think about the context of the scriptures more broadly,

you can see that there's even more going on here.

So he is on Mount Horeb, right?

The mountain of God.

This is Mount Sinai.

This is the mountain where the covenant

with Moses was given,

where Moses met God.

You find that Elijah is hiding in a cave,

literally the cave, right?

So he is here on the mountain in the cave,

presumably the cave where,

or at least a reference to the cave

where Moses was when God passed him by,

when he gave him the replacement tablets in Exodus 34,

when God originally meets with the people

on that same mountain.

He then meets later, doesn't he,

with Moses as he hides his face from God

as he passes by in Exodus 34.

But when God originally meets with the people in Exodus 19,

what is it like on Mount Horeb or Mount Sinai

when he meets with them?

Exodus 19, verse 16,

Exodus 19:16

I've put this on your handouts, I think.

On the morning of the third day,

so this is as the people are gathered

at the foot of the mountain.

On the morning of the third day,

there was thunder and lightning

and a thick cloud over the mountain

and a very loud trumpet blast.

Everyone in the camp trembled.

Then Moses led the people out of the camp

to meet with God

and they stood at the foot of the mountain.

Mount Sinai was covered with smoke

because the Lord descended on it in fire.

The smoke billowed up from it,

like smoke from a furnace,

and the whole mountain trembled violently

as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder.

Moses spoke and the voice of God answered him.

Now, that is the context for then 1 Kings chapter 19.

1 Kings 19 · chapter mention

What does that mean for 1 Kings chapter 19?

1 Kings 19 · chapter mention

Well, it means here that what you've got in 1 Kings 19

is Elijah going to Moses' place on the mountain,

hearing the same things that Moses heard

right back when the covenant was originally given,

but God is no longer in them.

Elijah is in effect saying to God,

listen, God,

this whole covenant thing is not working, right?

You need a plan B, God,

because I'm the only one left.

So I'm going to go back to where all this started

and you're going to start with me, right?

This would be like the equivalent of an English footballer

lying in the center of Wembley Stadium

and going, you know,

you're going to have to start again with me.

It's been a total disaster since 1966

and we've not won a single thing.

You know, start again with me, right?

That is Elijah there saying to God,

this covenant is not working.

And so what does God say to him then?

Well, he's not in the thunder.

He's not in the wind

because God doesn't agree with Elijah.

God doesn't think his covenant is failing.

He doesn't think his covenant's collapsed.

In fact, he says,

there are 7,000 in Israel who are still faithful.

And actually then the still small voice

is a gentle rebuke saying,

listen, Elijah,

you shouldn't really be here

and you shouldn't really be asking this question.

You should be getting on with the things

I've already given you to do

because my covenant still stands.

My word to Moses is still good.

And in that context then,

the application of 1 Kings 19

is not so much listen out for a still small voice,

not because God is not capable of speaking to us directly

in whatever way he would like to,

but rather the context says that's not the point.

Rather, the point is,

you better listen to what God has said

because what God said still stands.

His word does not fail.

Maybe perhaps especially his word does not fail

when you might fear that it has.

When you feel like you might be the only one left,

go back to God's word

because God is faithful to his promise

and will keep it.

And so that, I think,

is like just an example

of how expanding out

and seeing the context

that a passage comes in,

in the context of the Bible,

in the context of the covenants,

you get to see what a passage means.

I'm going to give you an opportunity

to do this yourself,

which I know you've been so excited for.

So Exodus chapter 20, verse 3.

Exodus 20:3

What do you think Exodus 20, verse 3 means

Exodus 20:3

as a standalone?

Okay, so if you were just reading Exodus 20, verse 3,

Exodus 20:3

what does it mean as a standalone?

How does the context of verse 1 and 2

change that meaning?

So go for that with the person next to you

for a few moments

and then we'll feed back together.

Okay.

Okay.

What do we think the difference

the context makes

to understanding Genesis 20?

Okay.

Oh, right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yep, so we know that it's God speaking

and that he's been good to them

and he's brought them out of slavery.

Yeah.

Anything else?

Okay.

Yes.

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah, so it's not

an angry, jealous demand,

but it's the word of a God

who has rescued and saved.

Yeah.

Does anyone want to make me really happy

and like link it

with what we were thinking about before

with grace and works?

You know, like,

you're my people.

This is what my people are like.

My people worship me.

Yeah.

They don't worship anybody else.

They worship me.

You belong to me.

You're mine.

I've rescued you.

I've saved you.

This is what we live like

in my kingdom.

We worship this one God

and this God only.

Yeah.

So I think it's easy, isn't it,

to see them as just a list of instructions,

but if you see the instructions

coming in the context

of the God who has saved them,

I have rescued you,

not because you did these things,

but I have rescued you

so you will live like this

and so you will do these things.

Great.

Any other comments

or questions on that?

Exclusivity.

Exclusivity.

Yes.

Yeah.

So he has saved and rescued them

for an exclusive relationship with him.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Okay.

Let's go on to a structure tool

and let's really nerd out.

One of the things

that you need to do

as you're reading the Bible

is that you need to understand

the Bible is divided up

into essentially kind of like thought units.

Okay.

So that there is,

the Bible is divided up

in units which explain

a particular point, right?

Now there might be,

you might be able to argue

that there is one point

from the beginning

to the end of the Bible.

Of course you can,

so it is one unit.

But that is almost impossible

for you to read

in any one sitting

for your devotional time.

You know,

what did you read

in your quiet time this morning?

I've read the whole Bible, right?

That's going to be impossible.

So actually what we need

to be able to do

is identify how the Bible

is divided up

into thought units

so that we can wrestle with

and think over

what the Lord is saying

in different sections of the Bible.

And the way that you do that

is by recognizing

the structure of a passage

or the structure of a book

or the structure of a section.

Now you might think,

brilliant,

because someone's already done that

for me in the Bible, right?

They've written big numbers in it

and they've written bold type headings.

Now often that is really helpful

and they do,

you know,

they do help.

But sometimes they're not super brilliant,

are they?

So like you might notice

that in 1 Kings chapter 19,

1 Kings 19:9

verse 9 is divided into two parts

when actually I think

that's maybe slightly obscuring

the section.

They say,

I don't know whether this is true,

but someone told me this,

that the person who actually

put the verses in the Bible

did it while he was riding

on the back of a horse.

It was a long time ago

and the horse went over a bump

and sometimes he got it wrong.

There you go.

So yeah, there you go.

They do follow the Hebrew numberings

in certain places.

Yes.

Chapter divisions are different

and obviously the New Testament

is in Greek and not in Hebrew,

so it's different there as well.

Anyway,

so we need to be good

at reading the Bible

to see the structure

as it stands out.

So I've put,

I think,

Matthew 5 with the Beatitudes.

So sometimes it's quite obvious.

So sometimes there's a repetition

of a sentence

which kind of begins

and ends a section.

So you might call them bookends,

the repetition of a line.

So blessed are the poor in spirit

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

And then you go through

all the Beatitudes

and then you get blessed

are those who are persecuted

because of righteousness

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

And then you've got a section

that has been marked out for you

by the repetition of

theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

And so if you were just reading it

carefully and thoughtfully

and were looking out

for that repetition,

for that bookend,

you would notice it

and see,

oh,

this is a section.

There's something being said here

about what it means

to belong to the kingdom.

Perhaps other times

it might be in a story,

so connected stories.

So if you turn

to Mark chapter 8,

Mark 8 · chapter mention

have I put this on your handout?

I put it on your handout

but not on my notes

so I'm going to have to turn to it

and you're not.

Mark chapter 8,

Mark 8:22

verse 22.

So in Mark 8, 22,

you get the healing

of the blind man.

They came to Bethesda

and some people

brought a blind man

and begged Jesus

to touch him.

He took the blind man

by the hand

and led him

outside the village.

When he spat on the man's eyes

and put his hands on him,

Jesus asked,

do you see anything?

He looked up and said,

I see people,

they look like trees

walking around.

Once more,

Jesus put his hands

on the man's eyes.

Then his eyes were opened,

his sight was restored

and he saw everything clearly.

Jesus sent him home

saying,

don't even go into the village.

Now if you just read that

as a little section,

you might think,

well, interesting.

Jesus maybe kind of got it wrong.

Maybe he wasn't quite up to the task.

He had to have two goes.

But then if you keep reading,

you recognize that actually

there's a section that carries on.

Jesus and his disciples

went to the villages

around Caesarea Philippi

on the way he asked them,

who do people say I am?

They replied,

some say John the Baptist,

and others say Elijah

and still others,

one of the prophets.

But what about you?

He asked,

who do you say I am?

Peter answered,

you are the Messiah.

Jesus warned them

not to tell anyone about him.

He then began to teach them

that the son of man

must suffer many things

and be rejected by the elders,

the chief priests

and the teachers of the law

and that he must be killed

and after three days rise again.

He spoke plainly about this

and Peter took him aside

and began to rebuke him.

But when Jesus turned

and looked at his disciples,

he rebuked Peter,

get behind me Satan,

he said,

you do not have in mind

the concerns of God

but merely human concerns.

Now it turns out,

doesn't it,

those stories go together

because one of them

explains the other one.

So Peter is like this man

born blind,

or blind man,

sorry,

of Bethesda,

who sees in part

but doesn't see fully.

He sees that Jesus is the Christ

but he does not see

that he has to suffer and die.

He sees Jesus as a man

walking around as a tree.

He doesn't fully recognize

who he is

because he doesn't recognize

what Jesus has come to do.

Jesus' healing miracle

is explaining Peter's situation.

So what does Peter need?

He needs a further intervention

of the Lord Jesus

to open his eyes fully

to see not only who he is

but also why he came

and what he came to do.

And so as you read it,

you see,

oh actually those things go together

and there's a structure here

that Mark intends those stories

to explain one another.

Other times,

you get other kinds of structure.

So we normally,

we write a story in English.

It's a long time

since I've written a story in English

but if you write a story in English,

you would generally kind of build

to a point that you come to

towards the end.

Whereas often in a Bible,

the point is in the middle

and not at the end.

And so the ends reflect one another

and then they build in

and the main point is in the middle.

And that's what we're going to look at

as we finish this evening.

It's called the chiastic structure

or a chiasm.

So John chapter one,

verses one and two

are a chiasm.

In the beginning was the word

and the word was with God

and the word was God.

He was with God in the beginning.

You see it?

So in the beginning was the word,

goes with in the beginning.

Right?

And the word was with God.

He was with God

and the word was God.

So John's point there is to emphasize,

the point he's building to

is the point in the middle

which is that Jesus is divine.

Jesus is God, was God.

And that's the way he's structured

at the story.

The bigger example then

about one of the ways this works

is in Genesis chapter seven.

Now this is,

I think this is,

I think this is possible.

It is possible for us to do it.

But it's slightly more difficult,

I think.

But we're going to work on it together.

Genesis chapter seven

is a chiasm.

It's the story of Noah.

And so let me,

let me read it to you.

And then you can work on it in groups

and find the chiasm.

So let me read chapter seven,

verse one.

The Lord,

so you might want to circle

the numbers as you go along.

Okay, just a little tip.

The Lord then said to Noah,

go into the ark,

you and your whole family,

because I have found you righteous

in this generation.

Take with you seven pairs

of every kind of clean animal,

a male and its mate,

and one pair of every kind

of unclean animal,

a male and its mate,

and also seven pairs

of every kind of bird,

male and female,

to keep their various kinds alive

throughout the earth.

Seven days from now,

I will send rain on the earth

for 40 days and 40 nights,

and I will wipe from the face

of the earth

every living creature I've made.

And Noah did all

that the Lord commanded him.

Noah was 600 years old

when the floodwaters came

on the earth,

and Noah and his sons

and his wife

and his son's wives

entered the ark

to escape the waters

of the flood.

Pairs of clean

and unclean animals

of birds

and all creatures

that move along the ground,

male and female,

came to Noah

and entered the ark

as God has commanded Noah.

And after seven days,

the floodwaters came

on the earth.

In the 600th year

of Noah's life,

on the 17th day

of the second month,

on that day,

all of the springs

of the great deep

burst forth

and the floodgates

of the heavens

were opened

and rain fell

on the earth

for 40 days

and 40 nights.

On that very day,

Noah and his sons,

Shem, Ham,

and Japheth,

together with his wife

and the wives

of his three sons,

entered the ark.

They had with them

every wild animal

according to its kind,

all livestock

according to their kinds,

every creature

that moves along the ground

according to its kind,

and every bird

according to its kind,

everything with wings.

Pairs of all creatures

that have breath

of life in them

came to Noah

and entered the ark.

The animals going in

were male and female

of every living thing

as God had commanded Noah.

Then the Lord

shut him in.

For 40 days,

the flood kept coming

on the earth

and as the waters increased,

they lifted the ark

high above the earth.

The waters rose

and increased greatly

on the earth

and the ark floated

on the surface

of the water.

They rose greatly

on the earth

and all the high mountains

under the entire heavens

were covered.

The waters rose

and covered the mountains

to a depth

of more than 15 cubits.

Every living thing

that moved on the land

perished.

Birds, livestock,

wild animals,

all the creatures

that swarm over the earth

and all mankind.

Everything on dry land

that had the breath of life

in its nostrils died.

Every living thing

on the face of the earth

was wiped out.

People and animals

and the creatures

that move along the ground

and the birds

that were wiped

from the earth.

Only Noah was left

and those with him

on the ark.

The waters flooded

the earth

for 150 days.

But God remembered Noah

and all the wild animals

and the livestock

that were with him

in the ark

and he sent a wind

over the earth

and the waters receded.

Now the springs

of the deep

and the floodgates

of the heavens

had been closed

and the rain

had stopped falling

from the sky.

The water receded

steadily from the earth

at the end

of the 150 days

the water had gone down

and on the seventh day

of the seventh month

the ark came to rest

on the mountains of Ararat.

The waters continued

to recede

until the ten month

and on the first day

of the tenth month

on the tops of the mountains

became visible.

After 40 days

Noah opened a window

he had made in the ark

and sent out a raven.

It kept flying back and forth

until the water

had dried up

from the earth.

He sent out a dove

to see if the water

had receded

from the surface of the ground

but the dove

could find nowhere to perch

because there was water

all over the surface

of the earth.

So it returned to Noah

in the ark.

He reached out his hand

He reached out his hand

and took the dove

and brought it back

to himself in the ark.

He waited seven more days

and again sent out

the dove from the ark.

When the dove returned

to him in the evening

there in its beak

was a freshly plucked

olive leaf.

Then Noah knew

that the water

had receded

from the earth.

He waited seven more days

and sent the dove

out again

but this time

it did not return.

By the first day

of the first month

of Noah's six hundredth

and first year

the water dried up

from the earth.

Noah then removed

the covering

from the ark

and saw that the surface

of the ground

was dry.

By the twenty-seventh day

of the second month

the earth was completely dry.

Then God said to Noah

come out of the ark

you and your wife

and your sons

and their wives.

Okay

have a look at that

with the person next to you

just for a couple of minutes

and try and work out

what is at the centre

of the story.

So

I'm sorry to interrupt

your conversation

we've run out of time.

I think if you

spot the

link between

the sevens

and the forties

and the hundred and fifties

what you end up with

is one sentence

which is in the middle

of the story

which is what?

Yeah

God remembered Noah

yeah

so the

point of the story

is in the middle

of the story

which is that God

whilst

judgment is going on

is remembering

and saving

Noah

and the wild animals

that are there

in the ark

which is

which makes the story

really beautiful

doesn't it

because it means that

in judgment

God is remembering

salvation

and is saving

Noah

in the midst

of the judgment

to come

he will remember

us

in the way

that he has

remembered Noah

sorry we've done

that quite quickly

because I think

yes

go on you can ask

whatever you like

is that

is that

something

that is

instinctive

to come

to come

to come

to come

to come

so from what

I have read

and I'm sure

that Mike will

correct me

if I'm wrong

but from my

what I have read

is that it is

quite common

in Hebrew literature

to put the meaning

of a story

in the middle

of it

it is unusual

that would not

be quite so

common

no

no

yes

it's like any

cultural difference

in the way you

tell a story

yeah

yeah

good example

yes

yes

yes

yes

yes

so when it's

shared orally

and repeated

you will see

these patterns

perhaps more clearly

yeah

the repetition tool

is one that they

actually have a chapter

on in their book

which is really helpful

I mean if you look

at it Romans 6

the passage we looked

at this morning

basically almost

every sentence

says pretty much

exactly the same thing

and so it's just

a sort of repetition

with a slight addition

or a tweak

in the way that they say it

yeah

which I think is because

originally it would be

read out

and the thing that you

were supposed to go

is oh okay

I am dead

I will be alive

I'm dead

I will be alive

and you

you get that

so many times

great

anything else

brilliant

I mean really

it's just a taste

isn't it

we could

this is like

a taster

of a

I don't know

a semester's

lectures

at Bible college

so

we could maybe

keep going with it

at another time

but hopefully

it's whetted

your appetite

for thinking carefully

about how we

understand the Bible

let me pray for us

and we'll head out

Father we thank you

so much

that in your gracious

generosity to us

you don't actually

depend on us

understanding the Bible

perfectly

because that is

beyond us

Lord

and that in your

gracious kindness

you use the Bible

even in

my fumbling hands

in our fumbling hands

and speak to us

words of grace

and mercy

so we thank you

so much

that the gospel

is so clear

in the Bible

that even people

like us

can't miss it

and so we thank you

for your generosity

to us

but we want to pray

that you would make us

better and better

Bible readers

who have a rich

understanding

of your word

and through that

have a rich

relationship with you

we pray

in Jesus name

Amen

Amen

Thanks everybody