Category: Studies

Side by side comparison

February 4, 2024

One of the things I was taught to do at Bible college is to use side by side comparisons of biblical texts. This can be especially helpful if you are unsure of what the text is saying or you need clarification.

In the above example I have John 3:3 open in five different translations. It talks about being born again to enter God’s Kingdom but it uses slightly different wordings.

In years gone by I had to do this manually with seperate Bibles. I would go to the library at Bible college and get out a number of versions. If I was at a Bible study I would ask friends to read their versions out to compare them.

These days it is a lot easier with programs like e-Sword (pictured above) and Logos, you can just open them and easily compare them. I generally use a plain English version, a literal word for word translation, a paraphrase idea for idea translation and a devotional translation.

Using this variety sometimes helps us to understand the text and what it is saying. It gives us a wider view of things and broadens our understanding. This helps us to apply God’s Word to our hearts and our lives.

Good leadership?

January 19, 2024

What makes a good leader?

Leadership is something that is vitally important in all areas of life. We have all had good leaders that we loved and bad leaders who we did not love as much.

When I was at Bible college I had to do an assignment on what we thought was good leadership. We had to come up with five points with both Biblical ideas and reflections on Christian leadership sources.

Surprisingly I found this harder than I expected. There is so many examples of Biblical leadership and thousands of resources on Christian leadership.

In the end I distilled my idea of principles of Christian leadership to the following five points.

1. Christian leaders need to cultivate an intimate relationship with God

2. Christian leaders need to have a servant heart

3. Christian leaders need to be shepherds of God’s people

4. Christian leaders need to live with character and integrity

5. Christian leaders need to be committed to making disciples

For me personally I really thought long and hard about these five things. Thankfully my lecturer agreed and gave me a good mark for it.

If you are interested you can read an online version of my article on my website below. It is a cut down version of my assignment.

Five Principles of Christian Leadership

Motivation from your younger self

January 12, 2024

I have been on holidays the last few weeks since school finished just before Christmas. It has been a nice time to rest, relax and spend time with family. It has also been a good time to reflect and renew.

During some down town I was looking through some old photos and videos. I found an old photo of when I was in my mid twenties. I was very much in to cycling and weights at the time and I was quite fit looking for me. I also found an old video too that surprised and shocked me muscle wise.

It was interesting on how motivated I was in my training. I would train one hour a day in the gym four days a week and I would cycle 200-300 kilometres per week. I would train six days a week, twice a day and have Sundays off for rest and church.

It was amazing how my reflections turned back to that time and the fitness goals I was chasing. It may have been 30 years ago (wow time flies!), but I could remember the my tiny shed with my gym and the racing bikes I owned. The alarm going off every morning at 4.50am so I could train before work. My motivation was sky high.

This caused me to think about my faith and walk with God 20-30 years ago. I thought about the churches I attended, looked through my old prayer journals, remembered preaching my first sermon and the people who helped me grow in my faith. The passion and zeal I had for the things of God was off the chart.

Somehow in the midst of all of this reflection I could feel motivation and passion being drawn from the past. It was like I was being inspired and motivated by my younger self. The goals and dreams I had way back then became fresh in my mind again. Mentally it was like I was right back there again.

As I have reflected on these things I really think I have gained motivation from my younger self. I was desperate to be well from Rheumatoid Arthritis and now I am. Something I never dreamed could happen! I was desperate to grow in my faith and to serve God full time. This has happened too.

I am just thankful to God for all He has done for me. I really do not know where I would be without Him in my life. I am also very thankful to my younger self and all the work “he” put in to his training and Bible studies. It has given me a new burst of motivation to press on towards the goals that God has before me.

Devotional Classic book

December 31, 2021

Over Summer I am doing a unit at Tabor titled the, “Story of the Church”. As the name suggests it looks at church history in a broad overview of the last 2000 years.

One of our Text books is Devotional Classics. It has 52 sections that look at some of the great Christians from church history. The 52 sections are divided in to six streams to help us have a more balanced faith. The streams are: the prayer filled life, the virtuous life, the Spirit empowered life, the compassionate life, the Word centred life and the Sacramental life.

For part of our assessments we are required to read a chapter a week, summarise the persons writings and then reflect on how that impacts us. It is meant to be 100 words summary and 100 words reflection. Only 200 words is harder than you think, it forces you to be very concise!

I have really enjoyed the book and the assessments so far. It has allowed me to look at some of the inspirational people through church history. So far I have looked at Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine of Hippo, Bernard of Clairvaux, Francis of Assisi, Martin Luther and Teresa Avila. I have five to go!

Once I have finished the unit and the 12 people we have to look at, I am actually considering doing the 200 word reflections on all the people in the book. It has been such a useful exercise. It has added so much to my faith and life.

If you are interested you can check out the book at Koorong.com. It costs about $45 but it is well worth it.

Blessings,
Dave