Mission to J-City

Only 3 weeks to go and the Bible Core Course is finished. I’ve honestly never worked so hard in my life… But I’ve also never learned so much during such a short time!

The bible really is like a whole new book to me. Sad to say, as I’ve gained a much greater understanding of the bible, some of the sense of divine mystery has gone out of it. But I’ve learned to read the bible for what it is: a collection of writings by many authors at different periods, all intended for specific audiences in specific situations, and written for specific reasons.

I can no longer read it as if it was written directly to me, about my situation, during my time, or I will be in serious danger of misinterpreting it, and then applying things in a way God never intended me to, and even living life in a way God never intended me to live!

Each day, as we go deeper into the bible, I can practically hear everyone’s belief systems (including my own) crumbling around me, as we discover what the bible really says, and how it compares to what we have grown up believing… It’s great! Anything that can be shaken should be! Let the chaff crumble away, and let the gold remain! I honestly can’t say that I feel this study has brought me closer to God so far. But it is rooting me and grounding me in truth, and giving me the keys to understand the bible for the rest of my life—and that is valuable.

This week we’ve been studying Revelations. Yesterday, we went through the history of 2,000 years of false predictions and misinterpretations that came out of the book; things that led to the most absurd movements, and even contributed to horrible atrocities such as the Crusades. It seems ridiculous to me now, as the cycle continues, and teachers today continue to claim divine insight into the book as they compare the events in Revelations with current events in the world, just as hundreds have done before them!

Anyway, it’s enough to say this school is fantastic! And before I start rambling for too long about what I’ve learned, let me declare the main reason why I am blogging this evening: It is to announce my upcoming trip to Indonesia!

In January, three of us from the BCC School will go for 8 weeks to J-City. Originally there was no outreach planned, but we three each feel the urgent call to pass on what we’ve been learning—specifically in a place where this kind of teaching is not so easily available. Our mission is to teach and instruct Christians (especially pastors and church leaders) in the inductive approach to studying the bible.

If you’re not familiar with the inductive approach, it is basically all about letting the bible speak for itself, rather that coming to the text with preconceived ideas of what it should say, and bending the meaning of the text accordingly. It has to do with discovering who the original audience was, what their situation was, and then figuring out what the text would have meant to them. Then, after discovering a good deal of background information (which almost always makes a huge difference in the interpretations), we can discover the timeless principles, and try to apply them to our lives.

The annoying thing about this is that it takes work… lots of it. It’s so much easier to just interpret the bible as if it were directly written to us, out of our own understanding, out of our own world-view, and within our own circumstances… and then to come up with a meaning completely different than what the author intended. Or easier even to subjectively use scriptures out of context to confirm what we already believe.

And so we want to help people learn how to study the bible correctly, just as we have been learning in the last months; to come to the text with an open mind, and to let it speak for itself; to allow the text to form us, rather than us trying to form the text into what we want it to say.

I will certainly keep you updated on our trip. I’m still in the process of raising finances, so keep me in mind in the next months as we finish the school and get ready to go. I get to spend Christmas this year with my family in snowy Colorado (which I’m really, really looking forward to), and immediately afterwards I head for the intense heat of South East Asia.

Please pray for us too, for God’s favor, for opportunities, for effectiveness, etc.

Thank you for staying in touch!

Be blessed,

SPF