The Lamb of God

Agnus Dei by Francisco de Zurbarán
On Sunday you should have received a bulletin with our Daily Prayer Guide printed on the back.  The guide is simply a guide; not the guide.  If you have an established path of prayer, great.  If not, feel free to use this guide.  It is the guide I use in for my morning prayer time.  Here, I don't want to explain the whole thing, but one part - the Gospel Reading for the Week.

The Gospel Reading for the Week is just that - one reading from one of the Gospels that is read every day of the week.  On Sundays we get a new Gospel Reading that corresponds to day on the church calendar.  The church calendar revolves around the life of Christ, so the Gospel Readings walks us through the life of Christ on an annual basis (this is good for those learning the Jesus Way).

The first time you hear the Gospel Reading is together during our worship service.  Then, each day during your individual prayer time, you encounter the Gospel Reading again.  The Gospel Reading is also the text we use at Friday Night Fellowship.  The hope here is that by Friday you have read the text six times (Sunday-Friday) and are beginning to get acquainted with it (that its beginning to get "in you").  By Friday you will have made many observation and will have questions.

Last Friday Matt and Jared talked about the Biblical interpretation pyramid.  First, what does the text say?  Second, what does it mean?  Third, how might it apply to life?  One of the tools that will help you figure out what the text says (step 1) is an outline.  After you have read through the text a few times you will begin to see a pattern, structure, or a flow.  An outline is simply putting that structure down on paper.  An outline helps you see how the Biblical author wrote which naturally leads to why he wrote it in such a manner (step 2).

Here's an outline for John 1:29-42 - The Gospel Reading for the Week

John's Testimony (29-34)
     •  Jesus is the Lamb of God (29-31)
     •  Jesus is the Son of God (32-34)
John's disciples follow Jesus in response to John's testimony (34-39)
     •  John:  Behold the Lamb (35-36)
     •  Disciples respond (37)
     •  Dialogue with Jesus (38-39)
Andrew witnesses to his brother (40-42)
     •  We've found the Messiah (40-41)
     •  Andrew brings Peter to Jesus (42)

The first step in understanding the Bible is just figuring out what it says.  An outline is a helpful tool to get you there.  There's nothing too exciting about an outline, but it can help as we begin to get at what the text means.  

I want to encourage you to sit down and try to outline the Gospel Reading this week.  Use mine as a guide.  Do you see anything I missed?  Is there a better way to divide the text?  What observations does an outline help you make?

I am praying for you this week as you seek to follow the Lamb.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Discipleship Pastor

For this reason I left you in Crete, that you would set in order what remains and appoint elders in every city as I directed you, namely, if any man is above reproach, the husband of one wife, having children who believe, not accused of dissipation or rebellion. For the overseer must be above reproach as God's steward, not self-willed, not quick-tempered, not addicted to wine, not pugnacious, not fond of sordid gain, but hospitable, loving what is good, sensible, just, devout, self-controlled, holding fast the faithful word which is in accordance with the teaching, so that he will be able both to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict. Titus 1:5-8 So you shall present the Levites before the tent of meeting. You shall also assemble the whole congregation of the sons of Israel, and present the Levites before the Lord; and the sons of Israel shall lay their hands on the Levites. Aaron then shall present the Levites before the Lord as a wave offering fr...
Read more

Gospel Living

Image
But as the believers rapidly multiplied, there were rumblings of discontent... Acts 6:1 This morning Matt preached a message titled "Gospel Living."  He shared from Acts 6 where, as Matt said, "A Gospel issue develops."  The background in Acts 6 is that there are two groups of widows and one group feels like they are being overlooked.  Well, this is an affront to the Gospel and the Apostles immediately put together a plan to make sure no one is overlooked.  (It is worth noting what they don't do:  they don't take sides.) Now, I don't sense any type of rumblings of discontent, but, as Matt rightly pointed out, a Gospel issue has developed.  (Really, when is there not a "Gospel issue" in our life?  That's kind of the point.  The Kingdom of God creates constant tension in our life.  It constantly forces us to rethink things.)  We are faced with selling our building which presents a nice variety of Gospel issues.  When will it s...
Read more

Sorrow will Flee Away

Image
Isaiah 35:1-10 - Isaiah's Vision of the Blossoming Desert It will blossom profusely... The first two weeks of Advent we walk through the wilderness.  We mourn and confess our sins and the systemic sin of the world in which we live in.  It is a step into darkness; the dark ways of this world and the darkness of our very souls.  As we walk through the wilderness of our sin the proper response is lament and contemplation.  We lament the evil depths humanity (including me) is capable of wallowing in.  We contemplate - we recognize that something is not right here and hope to God there’s a better way. It’s not hard to feel like God has left us while we walk through the wilderness.  It is easy to feel like He’s distant, like He doesn’t care, or like He doesn’t hear our prayers.  But even in the wilderness, flowers bloom.  The crocus is a small flower that thrives in the dry, gray wilderness.  It blooms late in the season.  After all ...
Read more