Nicky Gumbel, the founder of Alpha, went on holiday with his family to Russia and smuggled in Russian Bibles. He writes (on his Bible in one year app) While I was there I went to churches and looked for people who seemed to be genuine Christians. (Church meetings were often infiltrated by the KGB.) On one occasion, I followed a man down the street after a service. I went up to him and tapped him on the shoulder. There was nobody about. I took out one of my Bibles and handed it to him. For a moment, he had an expression of utmost disbelief. Then he took from his pocket a New Testament, which was probably 100 years old. The pages were so threadbare they were virtually transparent. When he realized that he had received a whole Bible, he was elated. He didn’t speak any English and I didn’t speak any Russian. But we hugged each other and he started to run up and down the street jumping for joy.
Before William Tyndale, the Bible was only in Latin. The Catholic church wanted to keep it that way and forbade translations into the common language. It was William Tyndale who first translated the Bible into the common language — and this indeed paved the way for the Reformation.
Because we have the Spirit of God, we can understand the Word. “You don’t need anyone to teach you.” (1 John 2:27) But at that time, the Catholic church said that was not true — that believers needed to have the Bible explained to them by the priests. The priests twisted the Word to say we are not saved by grace, but by works, indulgences, sacraments…the good news, the gospel, was lost. God became not a God of great love and grace, but a demanding tyrant. The leaders of the Catholic church fought against a translation that the common man could read, and burned Tyndale at the stake. How thankful we can be to God, who gave Tyndale the courage to obey Him, no matter the cost. Watch this two minute clip.
This week you will watch this message from Michael Reeves on Tyndale. (It is a series that must be bought — but the first is free, so we will watch it!) You can’t download it, so you’ll have to have internet to watch. We’ll watch it on Monday and Tuesday.
On Thursday you’ll be asked to listen to this song:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=remember+me+andrew+peterson+lyrics
Word Document for Homework:
Sunday:
- What stands out to you from the above and why?
Monday and Tuesday: Michael Reeves
2. Watch the video from Michael Reeves and share your notes and comments.
Wednesday: You Have No Need for Anyone To Teach You
The argument the Catholic church made at the time of the Reformers was that the layman was not equipped to understand the Scriptures and had to have them explained to him.
3. Read 1 John 2:20-21. What assurances does John give them?
4. Read 1 John 2:26-27
A. What point is John making with verse 27?
B. Does this mean we should not listen to teachers and preachers? If not, what does he mean?
5. How was this different from what the Catholic church was teaching?
6. Having said that, there are certain safeguards to help us not to misinterpret Scripture.
A. Unclear scriptures should be interpreted on the basis of the whole counsel of God. For example, we recently looked at some verses from Ecclesiastes which seem to say that life is meaningless. How would you explain this to someone who is confused by it, by putting in the whole counsel of God?
It also helps to see Ecclesiastes as the haunting cries for Jesus — the drumbeat preparing the way for the One who is full of grace and truth. Rather than life being “meaningless,” Jesus came to give us abundant life. While it is true life is not fair, that “the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong,” it is also true, as Jesus said, that though we will have trouble in this life, to be of good cheer, for He has overcome the world. Ecclesiastes said “the dead know nothing,” yet Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life.” We will be more alive than ever one day!
B. Genre is important. You do not interpret poetry, for example, the way you interpret prose. Give an example, if you can, of a poetic verse that is meant to paint a picture rather than to be taken word for word.
C. It is not enough to have it in our head — I love Keller’s question: “Why are you telling me this today, Lord?” Apply this to 1 John 2:20-21 or 26-27.
Thursday: Who Can Ascend the Hill of the Lord?
As a young Christian I heard a choir sing a version of Psalm 24. When I heard this, I thought, “Oh my — I’m in trouble.”24
Who may ascend the mountain of the LORD?
Who may stand in his holy place?
The one who has clean hands and a pure heart,
who does not trust in an idol
or swear by a false God.
Psalm 24:3-4
I thought, “That’s not me. I’m not clean! I cannot ascend the hill of the Lord!”
And surely the Catholic church before the Reformation would have confirmed my fears. They would have told me to be penitent, fast, and pay indulgences, spend time in purgatory, and ask my loved ones to pray me out and pay indulgences.
Maybe that is why I soooo love this song sung by Andrew Peterson. He says it is his favorite — and he didn’t write it! (The link is in the opening as well.)
7. Who may ascend the hill of the Lord according to “Remember me?” What verses does he use to show this grace?
John Bunyan was a Puritan quite different from the others in sophistication – a big burly and poorly educated man. Yet his “Pilgrim’s Progress” was next in line to sales to the Bible! Proof that God’s word can make the simple man wise. He loved John 6:37 and wrote a whole book on it. It is the antidote to fear that God will not accept you. (As happened to me when I did not put Psalm 34:3-4 in the context of the whole counsel of God.)
That is not to say that we should not continually ask God to give us clean hands and a pure heart and to repent of whatever He shows us. One of the greatest revivals in the history of the United Kingdom took place in 1949 when seven men and two women had decided to pray earnestly for revival. One night, at a prayer meeting held in a barn, a young man took his Bible and read from Psalm 24 (the psalm for today): ‘Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place? The one who has clean hands and a pure heart’ (vv.3–4a). He shut his Bible and said, ‘It seems to me just so much sentimental humbug to be praying as we are praying, to be waiting as we are waiting here if we ourselves are not rightly related to God.’ He asked God to reveal if his own hands were clean and his own heart was pure. They came before God in repentance, and He did not cast them out. As they waited on God ‘his awesome presence swept the barn’.
Four miles away, two sisters aged eighty-two and eighty-four had a vision of God. They saw the churches crowded and the youth and the community flocking into the churches. They had ‘a glorious assurance that God was coming in revival power’. Duncan Campbell was invited to come and speak to them. When he arrived in the parish church, it was packed out with hundreds waiting outside. No one could explain where they had come from. Within ten minutes of the service starting, men and women were crying out to God.
What we must see is that it is all of grace. As John Newton said “T’was grace that taught my heart to fear and grace my fears relieved.”
8. Meditate on John 6:37 and then, go the next step — by applying the contemplation questions to it:
- What does John 6:37 say?
- Bunyan took each word and meditated on it. But take these “All” “Whoever” and “Never” and share how this speaks to you.
- Are you confident that God receives you, loves you, and has compassion on you, no matter your state?
Friday: Gently and Lowly
9. If you have Gentle and Lowly, read chapter 6 and share anything that stood out to you.
Saturday:
10. What’s your take-a-way this week and why?
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Everyone — I have posted tomorrow’s post this morning as we are having tech problems and I feared it would disappear if I didn’t. You can still comment on this week’s post if you like — but you may want to get started on Paige’s lecture for when the clock hits midnight Tuesday, her you-tube post will disappear.
Got it!
I could cry. Only seen the first bit, Dee. But oh my: “the place that was supposed to be bringing people to God was barring people from God…she has prostituted away those who vowed to guarantee her safety.” Jesus comes to them and they don’t recognize Him.
So much already is wrapping me in love as I look back on the spiritual abuse I have walked through. They didn’t recognize Jesus in me. But why should that surprise me? I tried to show them how they were stopping people from coming to Jesus: placing requirements on them to enter His Presence that Jesus never did. But they wouldn’t listen and they looked at me as the enemy and as someone who couldn’t be speaking God’s Word standing in her weakness and frailty before them. But that is the message Jesus wanted to give: that that very weakness is what draws Him to me and others, not what repels Him.
And now this old hymn is rising up in me that so often played in my grandparents’ little church:
https://youtu.be/2CeBoSQsBR0
Oh, come to the Father, through Jesus the Son, And give Him the glory; great things He hath done.
2
Oh, perfect redemption, the purchase of blood,To every believer the promise of God;The vilest offender who truly believes,That moment from Jesus a pardon receives.
I want to thank all of you who responded to me yesterday. Each one of you was God’s searching and knowing of my heart to reveal wickedness and expel it.
The funny thing is that that searching and knowing has been my constant prayer the past few days, because I have noticed that I cannot even see what is blinding me: I need God’s help to see. Thank you for being His eyes for me.
I woke up to find this verse on my Bible app to pray through today:
Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.
1 Peter 4:8 ESV
And then listened to a prophetic Word of teaching that spoke of how old patterns of thinking can blind us to the favor God is pouring out upon us and we can end up not embracing and receiving it, believing God has ignored our plight.
She spoke of how especially when we have been waiting a very long time for Promises to be fulfilled, and have continually poured ourselves out without seeing things changing, how our weariness can make us believe God has abandoned us. It can blind us to His favor that is in fact so very present (in other ways). I so recognize that. There are so many places I am waiting.
Funny thing is my spiritual Mom and I only just posted a blog post on that very thing: how we have to experience a falling, as our own strength fails us in the waiting, so God’s eternal chord can then begin to bind itself around us and become our strength. So, we are no longer praying from our flesh, but from His Spirit.
I can see how He’s allowed me to live out this post. I have fallen in my blindness of sin, but His chord of love has picked me up in this place. You have been His eternal chord of love binding me to Jesus, when I began to self-sabotage.
As I showered last night God reminded me of Rebecca’s words a few weeks ago. She spoke of a counseling session where her eyes were opened to how not everything was about her. How the responses of others to her, were not always in fact in response to her, but to their own pain.
I realized the first place I go when I feel pain is myself. I immediately look for something I must have done wrong and begin to shame and condemn myself. But God showed me that that turning on myself is where I went wrong as a little girl: I stopped abiding in HIS Word to me that was steadfast and true no matter what others said or did to the contrary, and I began to abide in my idol of approval: believing man’s disapproval to be evidence of God’s disapproval (of the very Word He entrusted to me).
But even here, that blindness goes even further with me. Because like Mary pointed out: the wounding I have gone through has indeed caused me to see things through colored glasses. I LOOK for evidence of people rejecting me and find it, even when it isn’t in fact rejection. I have known this for a long time and have prayed for help.
It has to start with me resting in Jesus. I have to stop looking to the left and to the right and to rest in God’s abiding Word that He has asked me to speak. I have to unclench my fingers and see it not as my word but His and therefore also HIS to steward and bring fruit from. I have to learn not to need that soothing: the proof that the Word is bearing fruit, but to become that weaned child who trusts her Abba Father no matter what she sees.
Oh precious Jesus: Thank you for this place. Thank You for leading me here to find Your love and grace. Thank You for the gift of each of the women here. LORD shower them in blessings. Return the favor they have shown me back on their heads as abundant oil in the presence of their enemies. Set a table before them, right in their various valleys, to declare Your glory in their midst.
Father, be my strength. Stop me from self-sabotaging. Eradicate my old patterns of thinking. Continue to renew me in Your true and steadfast Word. Thank You for all the old patterns You have already broken. Break this one too. Break my idol of approval into smithereens by setting my eyes upon You.
Cause me to yield in obedience to Your Word to me, transform me to be who You have created me to be. Yield my mind, heart and body to rest in Your approval so much that I have no time to look around me because I am too busy doing the work You have prepared me to do.
Make me Your hands and feet. Stop me from sinking into the mud, blinded in self-obsession and pride. As Bing said: help me to resist the devil and not let him ever gain a foothold like this again. Keep my eyes open to Your favor and help me to believe You actually want to bless me. Not because I am so worthy but because Your blood has made me worthy: worthy to be Your hands and feet. Worthy to receive Your mercy in my falling and getting up again.
Worthy to sit at Your table. Worthy to sit at Your table. Worthy to receive Your loving discipline, unafraid and unashamed of my need but oh so thankful that You get me. That you get why this is so hard for me.
Grow my awe of You, so that I no longer see myself as too broken for You to mend. But so that I see myself as someone You have created to reveal the depths of Your compassion, Your kindness, Your mercy, Your love. As someone who proves to the world that the Cross changes everything. I love You Papa. So much. But you already know that. You’ve always known that. Because that love, even that is You in me.
Thank You for walking to that Cross weeping for me. Saying: “Forgive her Father, for she knows not what she does.” No, I don’t know what I do. But I thank You that You do and You will complete what You’ve begun in me. You will turn this lump of clay into something beautiful. You are already doing so. Open my heart, my eyes to believe You love me. Help me not to push away the favor You are pouring out over me in this place. Thank You for Your patience with me. Amen.
Oh Anna…I pray with you! Transform us both dear Lord into who You created us to be. May our hearts desire be more of You, less of me! ❤️