![]() White maintains a personal friendship and, in the past, occasional ministerial connections with Dr. White’s many books and debates, his blog, and The Dividing Linewebcast (also on iTunes). White is almost the equivalent of getting a graduate degree from an elite, doctrinally sound seminary. James White – An expert in apologetics, textual criticism, and theology, “James White is the director of Alpha and Omega Ministries….He is Professor of Church History and Apologetics at Grace Bible Theological Seminary….He has authored or contributed to more than twenty four books…He is Pastor/Elder of Apologia Church in Arizona.” Following Dr. I need a little time to study, so we won’t be starting right away, but our next Bible study will be a topical study on the subject of biblical discernment. So I got up yesterday morning, and I started studying and sketching out an outline, and this time the shoe fit. …until a few hours later, when a reader emailed me looking for a Bible study on -you guessed it- discernment. Several passages started coming to mind, but I didn’t have time to give it much thought… And I started thinking… “What about a topical study on discernment? Maybe that would be a good idea.”. You know, like when you accidentally put your left shoe on your right foot? It’s still a good shoe, it’s just in the wrong place at the moment. Late last week, I started working on what I thought would be the right passage for the study, but it still just didn’t feel right. I have been back and forth and forth and back in prayer about a number of different ideas. This year, for whatever reason God may have ordained, I have really struggled to settle down on the subject of our next study. That’s because, normally, sometime around October-ish, I’ve already prayerfully decided what book, passage, or topic the study is going to center on, and I’ve started my preparatory study and writing. I know, I know, normally by this time of the year I’ve already started our new spring Bible study on the blog. It’s a joy we’ll never experience without “I do it myself.” That joy is absent, and can never be achieved, when someone else is showing us how or doing it for us. We rejoice in His work in us through His Word. ![]() And when it comes to mastering the skill of Bible study, the joy is not in, “Look at me, I did it all by myself!” but in, “Wow! God really did speak to me through His Word! Look how God has grown me! God showed me this great and amazing thing!”. You can’t gain mastery of a skill if you never attempt to do it by yourself. But that is part of the learning process. Yes, you probably won’t know what you’re doing at first. Canned studies, a “mommy” breathing down your neck, showing you how to do it, or doing it for you, gets in the way of what you can learn – what God can uniquely tailor to you as an individual – when you do it yourself. We need to learn this concept when it comes to individual Bible study. ![]() Why don’t we see that as unhealthy in our spiritual lives, in our Bible study lives? We would take him to the doctor to find out what’s wrong. If a child never moved into the “I do it myself” stage we would consider that child unhealthy. “I do it myself” is a normal part of child development. Why is it that so many Christians never grow past the milk of someone spoon feeding them Bible study to the “I do it myself” of studying straight from the text of Scripture? That child grows past the milk of spoon feeding, and someone else showing him how, or doing it for him, to the meat of growing in maturity and independence and self-feeding. Because he knows that “I do it myself” is better. He will fight you off if you try to help. That child doesn’t want you breathing down his neck. It brings with it the joy of figuring it out for yourself, the satisfaction of accomplishment, the firsthand learning that sticks with you that spoon feeding just doesn’t bring. ![]() “I do it myself” brings with it rewards that having someone show you, or do it for you, just doesn’t. That child would rather struggle with that sock or puzzle piece for five, ten, fifteen minutes than let us help.īecause that child knows something about life that we don’t know about Bible study. We’re standing right there, ready and able to show them how to do it or do it for them, and yet, “I do it myself.”. Maybe he’s trying to put on a sock, or she’s trying to fit a puzzle piece into a puzzle. Whether you’re a mom, an aunt, a grandmother, or babysitter, you’ve heard a toddler say this at some point.
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