Bible Study Lauch

We held our Bible Study Launch on Tuesday night, where I gave a talk on what to expect as part of a TBT Bible Study group. Here are the main points/highlights.

1. Expect to Encourage Each Other.

ESV Hebrews 10:24-25 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

It’s where we encourage one another. It’s where we say to each other. Keep it up. Keep following Christ. Keep on the narrow road. Look to Jesus. How can I help you this week, as you help me this week to remain Christian. Now you can’t encourage one another if we don’t meet together.

2. Expect to Bear with One Another

It’s where we share with one another our fears and burdens. It’s where we care with one another about our hopes, joys and aspirations.

ESV Colossians 3:12-13 Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.

3. Expect Prayer

Expect prayer. Expect to pray for one another. That means we need to open up to each other. And share our concerns. Share with each other how you are going. What you find difficult in the Christian life. What you find a joy in the Christian life.
Now some of us might not be married, and others of us might be married to non-Christians, so these relationship could and should be some of the most intimate relationships we have as Christians.

4. Expect Bible Study

Expect a bible study. We don’t study Christian books; we don’t study the latest thing. We study the bible. We are on about Jesus, not some Christian authors take on it.

Why do we study the bible? Because the bible is the word of God. It is spoken by God.

ESV 2 Timothy 3:16-17 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.

That is, when we come to study the bible we ought to expect those four things in verse 16 to occur.
· Expect to be taught about salvation, and God and Jesus, and the gospel, and how to live life in response.
· Expect to be reproofed, or rebuked. Expect to be told to get back on track. When we do wrong, we must be rebuked. We are, after all, disciples of Jesus. We don’t do as we please, because we’ve been bought by another.
· Expect to be corrected. That is, we will have wrong thoughts about salvation and God and Jesus and the gospel, and when we study the bible, we will be corrected in our thinking and in our lives.
· Expect to be trained in righteousness. That is, shown/modeled/exampled how to live righteously.

5. Expect Hard Work

Now it won’t be easy, because we are swimming upstream. You’ll have spent the day at work, and you wont feel like going to Bible study. The easy option is just to go home and put your feet up. You may even think that you learn nothing new at bible study. You might be a well grounded Christian, and you’ve heard it all before.

That’s when you are primed for a fall. There is never a time when we think like that. There is never a time when we can say, I’ve heard it before. Too often we want to be taught something new, or it to be worded in such a way that it sounds new. But, when we meet together, we are to remind ourselves of the gospel.

ESV 2 Peter 1:12-13 Therefore I intend always to remind you of these qualities, though you know them and are established in the truth that you have. I think it right, as long as I am in this body, to stir you up by way of reminder,

Did you see that Peter reminds his readers of these things, despite in verse 12; they know and are established in the truth.