A brief update

It has been a while since I last blogged. It has been busy, work is demanding but not as bad as I expected because somehow the workload got lighter due to various reasons. Co-leading Breaking-down Brick Walls (BBW) has been also very time-consuming, but it is a joy and privilege to serve the fellowship in teaching members about studying the bible. We have covered the following topics:

• importance of the Bible
• Old Testament context (very high level)
• New Testament context (early church, also very hight level)
• various observation skills (repetition, connecting words, keywords... there are like more than 10 distinctive items to look for)
• sentence structure analysis
• translations (will cover it more extensively)

Honestly, I don't personally utilize many of these techniques to study the Bible myself. Perhaps some of these come naturally to me, but most of the time I get lazy and when I find a hard passage to decipher I usually go directly to trusted commentaries. I guess as I teach these techniques in BBW, I am also learning a lot, and it's really cool to dig into my set of old notes from my years in university to find some Sunday school handouts from PT about sentence structure analysis (which I don't do in a bible study) and I was so happy to find such hidden treasure :)

Looking back, many of these bible study techniques I acquired them through exposure to leading bible studies in CCF. During pre-studies, I don't only learn about the passage but also about how the DLs approached to get to a conclusion regarding the passage. It is through serving God that many of these skills are acquired, and  it took me much practice to be comfortable handling a bible passage. 

It was a dear brother of mine who encouraged me to lead bible studies during my 1B work term. I seriously never considered it, but since he was intentional in asking me, I decided to try it out. And my first bible study experience wasn't easy at all. I remembered there was a very intimidating-looking upper year in my group, so I was scared all the time, and doubting whether I was doing something wrong. But as I continue leading bible studies in CCF, I started to learn, grow in confidence in leading, and appreciate the Word of God more. 

Many times we question ourselves if we are adequate to serve in an area. Many times we want to say no, because we don't feel confident nor feel that we have the skills. I think all that is very secondary if we look at great leaders from the Bible like Moses (who struggled with confidence and public speaking) and Peter (who was impulsive, and just a fisherman), I see that God doesn't necessary call the most equipped people to serve, but that He chooses the untrained so that they can be trained to bring Him honor. After all, it is not by my strength, but by the power of the Holy Spirit that I serve. Everyone has to start from somewhere to learn, so grow close to God everyday, and discern in what area you can serve Him to bring Him glory, honor, and praise.