Blessed & Bearded's Biblical Blog

  Introduction:       Thank you guys for having me; I definitely really appreciate it! A quick word about me and my teaching style: I've been a Christian for about 9 years. I was saved through Brian "Head" Welch's testimony; he's the bass guitarist for Korn if that means anything to y'all. And I've taught off and on for about 8 years. Basically, my teaching method is to just constantly discuss and ask the "why?" questions so that we always get to the heart of the topic and the biblical text. And that's what we're gonna do here tonight; I'll open us in prayer and then we're gonna first define what is stress and anxiety and then look at how to handle it as Christians. Pray Lesson:     So let's start defining our terms for this evening:      1 ) How would y'all define stress and anxiety? And would anyone like to give an example of it in your own life?     So our  dictionary definition of stress  is "distress in the midst

     Grace and peace to you all.      This week's topic was suggested for us by Jordan and I thoroughly enjoyed researching and meditating on it.  For our topic this week we will be discussing the purpose of the local church in two parts, those being: what is the local church; then what is your purpose in being apart of the local church.     First, what is the local church?     Jonathan Leeman, of 9Marks Ministries,  defines the local church as , " group of Christians who regularly gather in Christ’s name to officially affirm and oversee one another’s membership in Jesus Christ and his kingdom through gospel preaching and gospel ordinances. That’s a bit clunky, I know, but notice the five parts of this definition: a group of Christians; a regular gathering; a congregation-wide exercise of affirmation and oversight; the purpose of officially representing Christ and his rule on earth—they gather in his name; the use of preaching and ordinances for these purposes."      Or t

     Now that we have sufficiently covered the Minimalist Method in part one let us now consider how to best maximize our time spent in God's word. For our purposes here we focus on Study Bibles and Journaling.       First, consider the Study Bible: As the name suggests it is a Bible with various notes to help the reader understand what it is they are reading. The Study Bible will generally include an introductory page on each book of the Bible that explains who wrote that particular book, when they wrote it, why they wrote it, and to whom they wrote. On the proceeding pages, there will be verse notes on concepts, doctrine, words, or actions found in that chapter.       In my time since I've become a Christian, there has been quite the explosion of Study Bibles; and they don't seem to be going anywhere any day soon. When considering which Study Bible to purchase it is important to remember that our goal of reading devotionally is to grow in Christlikeness. With this in mind

     Grace and peace to you all.     As I mentioned in the previous blog I chose the topic of devotional Bible reading (you may also think of it as worshipful Bible reading) to officially begin our new Bible study. I believe it is appropriate for us to consider and discuss how to read the Bible for ourselves privately before we really dive into Bible studying publically. The heart of this blog post is to show us all how to read the Bible as a Christian, and why we do so, so that we may enjoy God privately (in our own lives) and publically (within our local church).      Before I begin writing directly on the topic at hand it is essential to note that this blog will mainly focus on what I will call the "Minimalist Method" for devotional Bible reading and will deal with Maximization and Supplementary techniques in part two of this blog post. And our discussion will primarily focus on part one; the discussion questions in part two we will consider optional.     To illustrate wha

    Grace and peace to you all. This post will serve as sort of an introduction/housekeeping piece for our new Bible Study; we will not be doing any "big boy" theology just yet.  Before I begin our housekeeping I wanted to briefly state that I truly am grateful and excited for this new Bible study. Not only is it an excellent idea (thanks for that Dennis and Jordan) but also a wonderful application of Deuteronomy 11:19 which reads, " You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise." The message here is that we, as Christians, should talk to one another about God, and His commandments, as often as we can in any and all areas of our lives. My heart is encouraged at the thought of getting to talk to you all more constantly and deeply in all different kinds of matters pertaining to life and godliness.  Now, I will briefly recap what we discussed last