Tried With Fire

Pastor Ryan started teaching a Sunday school class on how to read the Bible. He mentioned something briefly in his introduction that was very interesting -  The majority of believers in the past would have learned the Word of God in a corporate setting via preaching and public reading, not from their own Bibles. Think about it. Until the invention of the printing press, copies of the Bible were written and bound by hand. A laborious and time-consuming process. Until the Reformation, the Bible was not written in the language of the average person in the pew. Also the cost would have been prohibitive for the average person. But even after the Reformation, how long did it take for copies of the Scriptures to be readily available? Was it after the Industrial Revolution that books became more affordable via mass production? Even then, there was the issue of literacy, which I don't think became as widespread until reforms in public education. This brief aside in Pastor Ryan's c...

During the Theology Conference Q&A , Dr. Murray stated: At the core of all empathy and sympathy is humility, that you have something to learn from someone else... The first thing you want to do is just listen. I don't know about you, but this is the opposite of what I have done, which brought back memories for my daughter and me. I was not always the best listener nor the best learner when it came to helping her through some of her struggles. There are moments when she still feels sad over this, and I have more than my share of regrets as well. Thankfully this sadness does not mean that we have we have not reconciled nor forgiven one another. The sadness does not mean that our relationship isn't stronger and healthier, which it is by God's grace. But hurts take time to heal, and grief is part of that process. I don't whether it is just me or in the larger Christian culture, but it's hard dealing with sadness. It's a normal response to want someone to fe...