Romans

This week in class we got to hear Chad teach us the entire book of Romans. Having never truly studied the book more than just to be able to walk someone down the Romans road it was unbelievable to dive in headfirst. It was cool to see this book in its entirety because Paul had never been to Rome so in this book he basically is writing everything that he wants them to know so it gives us an amazing picture. It was so cool to see as well that basically the theme of the entire bible can be summed up into Romans 1:16-17 because he has a lot of reason to be ashamed of the gospel because he has gone through so much. He has been captured beaten and laughed at but still remains faithful and unashamed to share the gospel. We need to be resilient like Paul so that when the tough stuff comes we do not just punt our faith but that we cling to it in these difficult times.

Apologetics and Sharing the love of Jesus

This week in class we had the privilege of hearing from Pat Zukeran on apologetics. It was so awesome to get to hear so much truth about how to defend our faith, defend the Bible, and defend Jesus. It was incredible. But I just want to share a little bit about how to share your faith in a winsome way. It is important when sharing your faith that you know you are not going to win someone to Christ by sounding smart or giving them a ton of facts but you are going to win someone to Christ by showing them love and allowing the Holy Spirit to do its work in their life. When sharing with someone or having a discussion with a non believer it is important to know that you are not going to win them by winning an argument or proving them wrong it is only going to force them to put up walls and barriers against you. When doing these things it is so important that you do them carefully and respectfully so that you don’t turn them off from the Lord but the way you conducted yourself. I hope some of these things can be of use to you in talking with your non-Christian friends.

1 Timothy

This week we had the great opportunity to hear from Jason Dees on the book of 1 Timothy. This book was written by Paul to his young disciple Timothy around 63-66 encouraging him to stay at Ephesus and warn against the false teachers. There was so much to be taken away from what was taught this week for me because I had never really studied the book of 1 Timothy before so everything in it was a new discovery. Probably the biggest thing for me was learning the qualifications of an overseer and an elder. Before, I knew what these were but I didn't know how you got to be one or what it ment to be one. Seeing the qualifications and desiring to be one someday made me really take a look at my life and check the things I'm doing right now to make sure that they line up so that in the future I would not be disqualified. Another huge takeaway for me was that Paul talks about bodily discipline being of little profit but godliness being profitable for all things. This passage made me reprioritize some of the things in my life and fix my eyes and heart on pursuing godliness above all else.

Discovering Hebrews

This week for class we had Charles Stolfus from Denton Bible Church come and teach us the book of Hebrews. Having never really explored Hebrews I had a great time this week discovering the truths that Hebrews offers. The book of Hebrews is written to a mostly Jewish audience. In Hebrews it unpacks the authority of Christ and how he was able to be a high priest even though he was from the line of Judah. The book also shows Christ's ministry and the power of faith as well as the power of hope and love in Christ. Reading and discovering all this brings me so much hope. Our God is so good and loves us so much. How lucky are we that He cares so much for us that He would send His son to die for us.

Leadership and Nehemiah

This week we looked at the book of Nehemiah. Nehemiah is found in the Old Testament of the Bible. The book of Nehemiah was written by Nehemiah in the time of 445-425 BC. During this period the Jews had just been allowed to return to their homeland of Jerusalem and Artaxerxes was the King of Persia. Nehemiah had become the cupbearer to the king, which during that time was a position that was held in high esteem. The cupbearer was almost second to the king as he would offer wisdom and advice to him. Nehemiah then was allowed, by the king, to return to Jerusalem and start rebuilding the wall around the city. Many people from the kingdom did not like this and so during the rebuilding of the wall they were attacking the city and the Jews working on the wall were building with one hand and using a sword with the other. But despite all of this Nehemiah was able to lead them through this and finish rebuilding the wall that went all the way around Jerusalem in just 52 days. This was an incredible feat and it was all a testament to Nehemiah's leadership. As we studied his book we looked at some of the qualities that he possessed and here are some that I was able to find. Nehemiah was a leader who was a servant leader, humble, responsible, not lead by emotion, knew God's sovereignty, planned ahead, stuck to God's plan, had clear vision, delegated well, encouraged, listened, and allowed God to guide all of his steps. When I think about what a Godly leader looks like Nehemiah is the perfect picture of what that is. All of these qualities are ones that I desire to have as I grow and develop into a Godly leader.

A p p o l o whatttttttttttt i c s ????

To be 100% honest with you last week at this time I had no idea what the word apologetics even meant. I thought it was someone saying i'm sorry for something but boy was I wayyy off. Apologetics is how to give a defense for your faith. And wow did I know very little about this topic when Kerby Anderson came in to speak to us. First I didn't even know what the word meant and second after I found out I didn't really know much about it still. But watching him walk through the validity of the bible and to be able to see why the bible is true because of the number of ancient manuscripts that we have and the time that is passed between the initial writings and the first documents we have. It is so cool to look at the bible next to all the other old literature that we take as being true from that time period and look at all the numbers of manuscripts that we have and proof that the bible has not been altered at all. And then aside from all this learning about why the bible is true stuff I realized that when he started to talk about other world religions I had no idea about any of them really. I had always looked at them as being a bad thing and so because of that I had never taken the time to be educated or informed on these other religions. But when Kerby came and spoke to us on all of this it really opened my eyes to what the rest of the world is living in and dealing with. It truly made me want to go share the good news with them so much more. This week has been beyond valuable to me in building up a defense for my faith.

September 27th Blog

September 27-2015

Since arriving at the Kanakuk Institute on Sept. 5th these have been some of the best weeks of my life. Truly having the opportunity to dive in the to Lords scripture has been such a blessing. In the first week of the Institute we did what is called cleansing and filling which was a time to address sin in our lives and get right with the Lord. We got to learn about the significance of conflict resolution from Todd Wagner, as well as how to deeply study our bible from David Lawson. He taught us the significance of truly knowing the word and how to dig into it. I can't wait to start studying my bible. So excited for what the rest of the Institute has in store.