And the people of Berea were more open-minded than those in Thessalonica, and they listened eagerly to Paul’s message. They searched the Scriptures day after day to see if Paul and Silas were teaching the truth.
Acts of the Apostles 17:11 NLT
As a church family we have begun our year in the Bible. Many of us have begun to live into the challenge John gave us last year to read the Bible in a year this year.
As we study God’s Holy Word, we may find there are some things which are difficult to understand. This is especially the case if we are not engaged with a Bible study group. There may be parts of the Bible where we become discouraged.
Years ago, when I first decided to just sit down and read through the whole Bible from start to finish, my stumbling block initially was what I called the “begat” section of the Bible. You may know what I am referencing, the sections listing genealogy where this person begat another who begat… and so forth and so on. For me, being in a Bible study where I learned to put sections like that in some context was very helpful.
Of course, not everyone is free on Wednesday evenings or Sunday mornings, to access the Bible studies we are currently offering at Faith, so I would like to offer you some other resources to help with whatever your stumbling block may be.
We will start by using our Facebook group “Faith UMC Accokeek” as a place for discussions or questions. This will allow us to discuss our studies in whatever time frame suits you. If you need help accessing this group, please let us know in the office.
For those of you not on Facebook or more comfortable with a live discussion, I’m going to plan to have a “Let’s Talk About It” session on Zoom monthly with the first session being at 6 PM on Friday, 1/28/22. We can discuss our stumbling blocks. We can answer questions about some of the rough parts of the Bible, like how could God ask Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac? What’s up with that?!?
I am also going to suggest some supplemental resources which may be helpful in reading without fear or frustration. One you may want to try as you begin to study a book in the Bible is Bibleproject.com. This website offers helpful introductions to each book of the Bible as well as other useful insights.
Also, don’t forget to take advantage of your free subscription to Amplifymedia.com. (Instructions for how to access this service are on a later page of this newsletter.) For those of you using the printed Bible in a Year option available in the Narthex, this service offers weekly videos which supplement each week’s reading.
Meeting this challenge is doable. Especially because we are doing it together and most importantly because it is well worth doing. We can meet the challenge together!
Blessings,
Pastor Peggy