Prior Book | Prior Chapter | Prior Verse | Next Verse | Next Chapter | Next Book | Viewing NASB and Amplified 2015 | |
NASB | Numbers 28:11 ¶ 'Then at the beginning of each of your months you shall present a burnt offering to the LORD: two bulls and one ram, seven male lambs one year old without defect; |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Numbers 28:11 ¶ 'Then at the beginning of [each of] your months you shall present a burnt offering to the LORD: two bulls, one ram, seven male lambs one year old without blemish; |
Bible Question:
My church on Wednesday nights does not have preaching instead we group together in Bible studies. Our Ladies study group has started a study using this book "The Sacred Romance" by Brent Curtis and John Eldredge. My question is: Is it a safe study? The language used makes me uncomfortable. I keep reading about how the voice often comes in the middle of the night or the early hours of the morning. Then the language used is magic, enchantment, the lost journey of the heart, finding the romance we lost in being active in church activities and business. It talks about coming into focus with our inner life, the story of our heart, our passions and dreams, our fears and our deepest wounds. Our "shimmering self" is the mystery within us. And we need to find this place again and have a romance with God. O.K. Maybe it is the Baptist in me, but I am seriously critical of this language. But everyone else thinks it is great. What do you think? |
Bible Answer: VR - Well, for starters fellow Baptist, until somebody shows me I'm a hopeless basket case both intellectually and spiritually, I'm going to hold to the unpopular notion that a group assembled for Bible study ought to study the Bible. It is the business of Christians to learn what God says about man and not what man says about God. Upon that criterion alone I would be highly suspect of using "The Sacred Romance" as a text instead of "The Holy Bible." Moreover, while I candidly admit to not having read the book, I am acquainted with it as the result of having read a large number of critical reviews of it, and I am not impressed. When I hear such terms as "fluff" and "feel-good, man-centered theology" used in connection with the book, I am not moved to lay down my money to buy it or take my precious time to read it, let alone use it as a teaching text in a Bible study class. For well over a quarter century I've taught Bible study classes, chiefly adult classes, and only twice in all these years have I ever used any textbook but the Bible. The first occasion was many years ago when, for a summer, I taught a group of college kids and used some of the works of C. S. Lewis, particularly "The Screwtape Letters." The second was a short eight-session survey which contrasted various secular world views with the Christian world view, in which we used some audio-visual materials prepared by Chuck Colson and Nancy Pearson, but these were generously laced with Scripture. ..... We live in an age when English-speaking peoples have the widest choice of Bible translations in history, and copies of the Bible can be purchased at extremely modest prices, yet possibly no generation in the last several hundred years has been more ignorant of God's word. When I first began teaching Bible study classes I was dismayed at the dearth of Bible knowledge among the students in my classes. And since then the situation has grown progressively worse, not better. And in the face of this pandemic ignorance of the Bible, even among God's people, we see the disurbing trend in classes that call themselves Bible study classes to replace the Bible with texts that pander to the self-interests of Christian men and women by providing them with a man-centered, feel-good, pale and watered-down version of a sweetness and light philosophy that masquerades itself as the Christianity taught in Scripture. There are far weightier issues that come before the Christian community today, and far greater truths to be learned and inculcated in our lives than those encompassed by "The Sacred Romance" or any other secular work that is paraded as "Bible study." Other works have their place and can be helpful when chosen with care and discretion, but the proper textbook for Bible study is the Bible. --Hank |