Big Idea

Open the Bible to hear God’s voice and renew your mind

for faithful living.

We must renew our minds on God’s word because…

Influence is like the air that we breathe.

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Less than half of those who regularly participate a worship gathering like this read the Bible more than once a week, and one in five say they never read it.

-Lifeway Research noted in Christianity Today

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The moment you wake up each morning, all your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. (And sometimes the kids are hungry too).

And the first job of each morning consists in shoving them all back (not the kids!); in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other, larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in.   -C.S. Lewis

Our Challenge:

Win The Day

Before you seek out anything else, start your day by renewing your mind. Listen for God’s voice by reading the Bible.

75% of people sleep next to their phones and 90% of us check our phones immediately upon waking.

The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry John Mark Comer

Anyone who reads the Bible and isn't puzzled at least half the time doesn't have his mind on what he is doing. - Gilbert Highet

Working the Angles

Eugene Peterson

God ≠ Bible

God communicates --> Bible -->   with God's people

God communicates --> Bible -->   with God's listening people

God communicates --> Bible --> with God's listening people in conversation.

(That’s prayer and reflection informed by the word).

God communicates --> Bible --> with God's listening people in conversation --> for the purpose of a relationship with the God of the Bible.   -Scot McKnight

What is the Bible?

The true story of the world!

• Creation
• Fall
• Redemption
• Restoration

The Bible is a unified and progressively unfolding drama of God's action in history for the salvation of the whole creation. Drama of Scripture  - Bartholomew and Goheen

We read scripture in order to be refreshed in our memory and understanding of the story within which we ourselves are actors, to be reminded where it has come from and where it is going, and hence what our own part within it ought to be. - Scripture and the Authority of God -NT Wright

What is the Bible?

Scripture is not a history of Israel, a biography of Jesus, a source for early church history, nor a handbook on science. Moreover, it is not book of theology, or ethics, or a devotional book of spiritual truths. (While there is a level of truth in these descriptions), all of these miss the point:

The scriptures are the Word of God because therein the Spirit testifies to Christ as the center of kingdom history and the salvation he has revealed and accomplished.

Its purpose and role in this story is to lead us to follow this Christ and embody his salvation. 

Mike Williams & Mike Goheen

missionaltraining.org