Inquisitive Prophets

     Sunday School resumed today after the break for the Holidays. Our class is studying through the 1689 confession of faith; the class is excellent. I've thoroughly enjoyed learning more about the more technical side of our faith, what the components are and how they relate to one another. For instance, before the break, we had just finished going through justification and adoption, and now we are detailing saving faith and its applications. Our teacher is a great Sunday School teacher role model; his lessons are obviously well thought out, planned, and researched.

     We had taco salad for lunch today -- one of my all-time favorites -- and pizza when we got home from the evening service. I spent pretty much the entire afternoon working on my lesson for this week's coming Bible study: it's going to be on Revelation 2:1-7, the Ephesian church. That's as much as I'm giving out for now, I don't want to steal my own thunder. The main commentator I read today was Tony Garland, I'd never heard of him before or at least never associated his name with anything I've read, but I really liked how he explained the text. I'm not recommending him yet because I've only read his comments on a whopping seven verses of Scripture, but so far so good.
     The service this evening was on 1 Peter 1:10-12 emphasizing the inquisitiveness of the prophets. They were the channel through which God directed his Living and Abiding Word to the Israelites and ultimately to us as believers. Much of what they transmitted was understandable to them, but there was also prophecy which they were very intrigued about. That was in the Old Testament age. Now, we are in the 21st century looking back with the enlightening of the indwelling Holy Spirit at the near-completed redemptive story that God has woven into the millenia. We see both prophecy of old and fulfillment in Christ and can stand in awe of a Sovereign God. The prophets only saw the introductory chapters of that story and so they examined, re-examined, and cross-examined those few chapters that they had in the hopes that they could figure out what was to come. As a reward for their efforts, they were able to sketch the outline of the figure which Christ would fill, but they could not see Christ as clearly as the authors of the New Testament did. These things held great mystery and wonder for the prophets and OT believers, even the angels were and are intrigued! Looking in retrospect at our own lives though, we cannot but confess that we have not shown such eagerness, such zeal in searching the Scriptures. We take them for granted far, far too often. So, let us repent of this sin of negligence and seek to renew and bolster each of our relationships with God through diligent, purposeful, focused study and reading of the roadmap to heaven which God has graciously provided us with, His Word.
     After the service I had the opportunity to quiz the guy that is memorizing 1 Peter with me and vice versa. It was different for both of us reciting it to someone else, at least someone outside of our family, but we both made it through to the end of where we've progressed so far. There were some speed bumps along the way, I won't lie; but, like I said, we made it. I think it's good for us to try to become comfortable both with reciting the verses out loud and in front of other people because that is how we will be using them once we finish the memorization part, that is where we see fruits for our labors.
     Things I'm thankful for today: 1) a church that challenges me to grow spiritually, 2) someone who will keep me accountable to continue memorizing, 3) electricity to run my heater since the weather has come down with a cold and doesn't seem to be recovering, 4) married, christian parents who want to influence their children for Christ, and 5) time each night to take a break from life (i.e. sleep).
     Joke of the day: As Noah and his family were disembarking from the ark, they paused on a ridge to look back. "We should have done something, Noah," his wife said. "That old hulk of a n ark will sit there and be an eyesore on the landscape for years to come." "Everything's taken care of," Noah assured her. "I left the two termites aboard."

Joke Credit: the 365 DAY Clean Joke book