17 Chapters in

Now we're in the 17th chapter of Revelation, and will be getting back into the same chapter when we pick back up again after Christmas. I have been encouraged by our study of Revelation a lot more than I had expected, and I expect that these last chapters will challenge our thinking even more. I just wanted to thank all of you who come to the Good Book club for your involvement and encouragement.

Revelation

We have started a study on the book of Revelation. Last night we read and discussed the first chapter. Up next are the letters to the seven churches. There are a lot of things to talk about in this book. As I said yesterday, we're not trying to find all the solutions to Revelation, we're just reading and getting familiar with an often neglected book of the New Testament, and letting God teach (and sometimes dumbfound) us through His word. I think it's good to meditate on what this book says, so I'll try to post what we'll be looking at ahead of time. Next week we'll be reading the letter to the church in Ephesus, so read it, meditate on it, and we'll discuss it next Friday.

May 2nd

The GBc will not be meeting on May 2nd, because I will be on the yurt trip with the other guys from church. I think we're about wrapped up on the restoration theme, so what I'd like to do next is go through a specific book, maybe some of the smaller ones that don't get read very often.

The Restoration

Mike is always talking about "Restoring Shalom," and it's an idea I'd like to talk about more. I think we could fill a few weeks talking about this, and, hopefully, it will bring us into some often neglected books. Friday we'll begin in Genesis 1, and take a good at look at the Bible says about the creation when things were "very good". See you all on Friday.

Good Friday

This coming Friday will be Good Friday, so the homework will be to read the accounts of the crucifixion in the gospels. Any discussion of the crucifixion would incomplete without the resurrection, so read that too. See you on Friday.

Discussion on the Word of God

Last Friday was the first Good Book club discussion group. Whenever I'm involved in a new group, I like to begin by bringing the focus of the group to the Word, so we discussed what the Word of God is, and what the phrase means. After I decided this would be the focus of our first discussion, I did some research and found that there are over a thousand verses with the word, "word." So the topic was a lot bigger than I expected. That being said, we initially focused on the fact that Jesus is called "the Word" in John 1:1, and the "Word of God" in Revalations 19:13, and what it means that Jesus is given this name. Then we looked up other verses that describe what the word of god does. We found out that, among other things, the universe was created by the word of God, the word of God was given to us and abides in us, and the word of God stands forever.

It was a great discussion.

Starting The Good Book Club

Starting March 14th, we will be starting the Good Book Club. The goal will be to further understand the Good Book through stimulating conversation/debate of biblical concepts that are simple, complex or otherwise inspiring. It will be at the Williams' home every Friday at 7:00pm and will end when the last person leaves.

The homework for our first meeting is to meditate on what the Word of God is, what it does and what that means, and to collect scripture, notes and other insights for discussion.

-snw