Luke: Good News of Jesus

This is the Bible study page for the Thursday Night Bible Study Group meeting June 12 to begin the study of Luke's Gospel.  This will be a long study folks, so settle in for the long trek.  But this trek will be through the life of Jesus, and no one is more odd to us than Jesus.  He will frustrate us, delight us, confuse us, and illuminate us beyond our ability to imagine.  Get ready.

The best way to prepare for this I hope you've already been doing.  Since we knew two weeks ago we'd be going through Luke, I was hoping you'd be reading through 'introductions' in study Bibles and any commentaries you could find.  The Blue Letter Bible has lots of resources, including the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (ISBE).  The entry for Luke is pretty good, but multi-volume commentaries will have good ones as well.

One of the things we'll discuss is Luke himself.  Find out all you can about him (which is probably sparse).  Most of what's out there is conjecture, but still interesting.  Sifting down to what we actually know is sometimes depressing compared with what we suspect, but still important.  Any decent Bible dictionary should have a good article on him.

If we have time, we'll dive into the first 25 verses of chapter 1 and begin to examine the announcement of John the Baptist, his parents, and 'announcements from God' in general.  We may not get that far, and there's no reason to push it.  If you've been reading a lot about Luke already, you can read ahead, and have some questions about verses 1-25.

That's all I have at the moment.  I know you were hoping for more of my amazingly insightful probing questions, but this week we'll just fly around without them (did I just hear a collective sigh of relief?).  See you Thursday!

Always Listen to the One Closest to God

This is the study page for the Thursday Night Study Group meeting on April 25 to study Acts 27.  This chapter is a lot like Luke's former narrative on Paul's voyage to Jerusalem.  The major differences are the events themselves, and the places...and the people involved actually.

Read through the chapter a few times, and feel free to go and include chapter 28 (we'll get to that next week).  Look for odd things whether explained or not.  Ask "why" questions; try to imagine who says what, what things and places look like, especially pay attention to Julius.

After reading through a few times read through again considering the questions below:

• What does "Augustan Cohort" suggest about the centurion?
• Where is Adramyttium?
• Who travels with Paul?
• Look at the route Paul takes from Caesarea (see map below). How much of this is familiar ocean for Paul?

• Where is the second vessel from?  Where is that?
• What seems different about the second part of the voyage right off the bat?
• When they reach "Fair Havens" what does Paul say, and how does he say it to them?
• Look up "admonish" in the Strong's Concordance.  What sort of emotion is Paul feeling as he speaks to the sailors and soldiers?
• Who does the centurion listen to instead of Paul?  What would you have done?
• What was wrong with Fair Havens?  What was so "great" about Phoenix (besides spring training baseball)?
• What was the storm called?  Look the name up in the Strong's Concordance. Be sure to "listen" to it pronounced.  What does it mean?
• What was done at Clauda?  What was it supposed to do?  What did they use to do it?
• After hope is abandoned, what does Paul say?
• Where does Paul find his hope?
• Where is the Adriatic Sea?  Does that seem to be where they were on the map?  What explains the difference (click through to the complete article)?
• In a huge storm, why would the sailors try to escape?
• What does Paul do?  What do the soldiers do? (so, now who's in charge of the ship?)
• What is Paul's next word and deed of encouragement?
• How many people are on the ship?  Do you need to revise how big you imagined it to be?
• Consider all three words used for "ship", what do you think of the third one?
• What does the ship hit on its way to the beach?  Look up 'a place where two seas met' or 'reef', 'sandbar' or 'shoal' in Strong's Concordance.  It's really made of two words, the other one is 'place' which may look or sound familiar if you like maps.  This is one of many technical nautical terms Luke uses.  So where do you think Luke learned all these terms?
• Why would the soldiers want to kill the prisoners?
• What does the centurion do to change their plans?
• Where do they all end up?

This should be a fun study, and we're almost done!  This is the exciting part though, the dramatic climax.  After this the account calms down, but also closes to a point (again, we'll get to that next week).  I look forward to studying with you Thursday!

On The Road Again (Or Sea As It Were)

This is the study page for the Thursday Night Study Group meeting on February 28.  We will be studying Acts chapter 20.  The chapter is about half travelogue and half dialogue.  The route is not what was intended, but to avoid trouble the travelers took the long way.

There are lots of odd elements to the trip, and most of them are left unexplained.  In essence, this chapter forms a connection to the trip to Jerusalem, or would if it weren't for the long monologue of Paul.  Be thinking about why Luke included the elements he did, and consider what is missing that you would have liked to have known.  Some things may have been assumed to be common knowledge of the day, but a lot wouldn't.

Read the chapter through several times.  It may be helpful to read ahead just to get a sense of how this chapter fits into the story Luke is relating.  Remember to look for things that seem out of place or incomplete.  Ask questions about what Luke wrote.  It would be nice to be able to ask him personally, but we'll just have to put ourselves in his shoes and see what we can figure out that way (not a great method really, but it's what we have).  Look stuff up in commentaries you may have or other sources you find online.

After reading it through a few times, consider the questions below:

• Where was the uproar that ceased?
• How long was he in Greece?
• Why did he return back through Macedonia?
• Which names of his companions did we run across in chapter 19?
• Where was this guy from?  Who else was from there?
• From verse 5, who is now another of the companions of Paul?
• What was taking all night in Troas?
• What has Luke, the "physician", left out of the story in verse 11?
• If Paul is in such a hurry to reach Jerusalem, why travel by foot instead of boat?
• Find Assos, Mitylene, Chios, Samos, and Miletus on a map.  How far are they traveling?  Why would this take them a while to navigate?
• How far did the Ephesian elders need to travel to see Paul?
• What is Paul doing in the first part of his speech?
• What does he expect in Jerusalem?
• Since he doesn't think he will see them again, what does he begin to do?
• What warnings does he give them?
• From verse 31, how did Paul work with people?
• In 33, what is he doing?  Isn't this the third time he does this in some fashion?
• When did Jesus say the quote Paul claims for Him?
• Where would Paul have gotten this quote?
• What, after all that, really bothered the elders?

That should do.  There are lots of other stuff.  Read up and bring your thoughts and questions to group.  I look forward to seeing you all then!