Heroes...and not the TV show

Who are your heroes?

When I was a kid, it was He-man. He was the Master of the Universe after all. (If you're over 40 or under 30, you won't remember He-man).

When I was a teenager, (yes, I was that pathetic), my heroes were Batman and Spiderman. I thought they were awesome.

As a Christian my heroes are William Wilberforce, the British politician who worked the whole of his professional life to end the practice of slavery in England. Another hero is Charles Spurgeon, a British pastor known as the "Prince of Preachers."

My closer to home "heroes" list includes men and women who have modeled a passion for the Word of God and whose lives have been marked with the grace of Jesus Christ. I won't say their names because it would only embarrass them. I hope and beseech the Lord that one day I can be a hero for my wife and daughters, a man who models the grace and truth of Jesus Christ.

Finally, I wanted to give notice to all of one of my modern day heroes, my dad, Mike Hendley. He's a great man and has been a great father. He's a man of incredible patience, wisdom, and maturity. I hope I can be one third of the man my father is. (I didn't want to say half because everyone says half). Today the old man is 60. Happy Birthday Pop.

OIA, Interpretation: Finding the Eternal Principle, and several plugs for Indiana Jones.

Have you ever read a story out of the Old Testament and wondered “How does this relate to me?” Does the context of the story, (sacrifices, camels, and people with beards), seem so disconnected from your world that you can’t see how it connects with you? What about passages in the New Testament that seem weird, like 1 Corinthians 8-10 that talks about food sacrificed to idols? Should you just skip those sections of the Bible altogether?

I’ll admit that sometimes it is really hard to see through the contexts and settings of the passages and not get confused. I wanted to try to make a point here that will help you in your study of the Word.

*The ETERNAL PRINCIPLE, or “What is True All the Time, both Then and Now”), is what you are looking for in a passage.*

The ETERNAL PRINCIPLE from a passage, (all caps required), is the principle, lesson, or truth that is applicable both 2,000 years ago when the event happened and today as well. You have to ask yourself, “What is true all the time?” “What is something that was true back then when the story was written and still true today?” The answer is the ETERNAL PRINCIPLE that we can apply to our lives from our study of the Bible.

Let’s look at a passage in the Old Testament and try to find the eternal principle or principles that may be present. 1 Samuel 5:1-5 tells the story of how God Almighty and the god of the Philistines hung out one time. The Philistines had captured the ark of the covenant, (think Indiana Jones), and had placed the ark, (a symbol of the presence of the Lord), in their temple with their god, Dagon. They thought to show the ark as a trophy of their conquests and a symbol of the superiority of their god above the God of Israel. Needless to say, God was not pleased. The next day the Philistines came in they found Dagon on the floor facing the ark. The day after that, the statue of Dagon had its face and hands broken off. The Philistines freaked out on a Biblical scale, (think Nazis in Indiana Jones).

Now what does this have to do with our lives? We are not Philistines. We don’t live in tents. We don’t have the ark anymore, (the government has it in a secret vault somewhere; remember Indiana Jones). We also don’t have little god statues in our homes, (most of us anyways). We live in a different time period and culture. But what would be a true principle from this passage that was true not only then, but now? How about this:

1. God is the supreme God above all other gods.
2. God will not play second fiddle to any idol.
3. Don’t mess with God Almighty.
4. Even when things seem bad, (the ark was captured by a godless nation), God is still supreme.

These things are true both then and now. They are ETERNAL PRINCIPLES that were true for the Philistines and are true for us today.

Next time we’ll talk about the final step of OIA, which is Application. (Observation, Interpretation, Application). Peace out…and remember Indiana Jones…just not the last movie, which was horrible.

Why is Bobby different? Observation part B

The last time in the blog I wrote about "Observation," the first step in studying a passage of Scripture. It's the stage where we answer the Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How questions of a passage in the Bible. In the Observation stage we're not trying to find any spiritual principles or apply anything to our lives, we're just getting information.

Now the last part of Observation before we get any further is really important. It's called the "What's different?" stage. What we want to do is just observe, either mentally or on a piece of paper, what's different between the Biblical setting, (then), and your life, (now). You're asking yourself, "What's different between the story I'm reading and my life, time period, culture, etc?"

The reason we do this is because there are a lot of differences sometimes between the Biblical culture/setting and our lives. Sometimes people try to make applications or take lessons from stories where things are taken out of context and they get themselves in trouble. If we can recognize the differences in the stories we're reading it will help us see what part of the story is still relevant for our lives today.

For example. If we're reading out of Leviticus 4, we obviously recognize the differences of:
1. We're not Jewish
2. We're not sacrificing goats, bulls, lambs,
3. We're in a totally different time period culturally and contextually than the Biblical audience.

The list could go on, and it seems dumb or overly obvious to list what I did, but I promise that when we notice the differences, it will help us notice the "true all the time stuff" that I'll talk about later.

And Bobby is different because he doesn't like to wear pants in public. Weirdo.