Men’s One-to-One Bible Study

Men’s One-to-One Bible Study

The book of Daniel can seem mysterious. There are lands and people quite foreign to us, stories which seem unbelievable, and visions which are downright strange. In a recent sermon series we explored the first four chapters of Daniel and saw the mighty power and reign of God over the affairs of this world and its kingdoms. However, there is much more to learn from Daniel.

For our Fall Men’s Bible Study, we will revisit Daniel, and this time we’ll get an overview of the whole book. Since our lives have been turned upside-down by the pandemic, our Bible Study will look different.

What? 

We’ll be using the Good Book Guide for Daniel. Purchase your own copy online and make plans to participate.

Who?

Instead of meeting with a group of men at the church property each week, choose one other man you will meet with and do the study with. We’ll call this our “One-to-One Men’s Bible Study.” Find a brother in your Shepherding Group or choose another brother in our church and ask him to do this study with you.

When?

The two of you can meet whatever day of the week and whatever time works for you. You decide. However, the window of time we’re giving for this 7-week study is September 10-November 12. This is a 10-week window which will give you flexibility if you happen to miss a week here or there. To encourage you over the weeks of this study, we are planning (1) a weekly email and (2) two Zoom calls for a time of sharing. One Zoom call will take place mid-way through the 10 weeks, and one will occur at the end of the 10 weeks. These will be brief “check-ins” where we can share how God is at work in us through His Word. Make sure you sign-up below so that you are on the list and get our communication.

Women’s Fall Bible Study

Women’s Fall Bible Study

For many of us, Psalms is a favorite book of the Bible—and for good reason! While we won’t be able to cover every psalm this semester, we’ve selected nine psalms to help learn some ways to see the Psalms with even deeper appreciation and awe for the God who wrote them for us.

For this fall, we’ll be offering Small Group Discussions via Zoom each Tuesday morning at 9:30 a.m. or Tuesday evening at 7:30 p.m. Small group times will last about 40 minutes to an hour. A pre-recorded teaching video will be uploaded each week that will replace our regular Large Group Lessons. There will be options for both audio and video of the teaching lesson. You can listen or watch on your own or get together with friends. Either way, the order each week will generally flow this way:

  1. Complete Personal Bible Study throughout each week
  2. Login for Small Group Discussion via Zoom on Tuesdays
  3. Watch or listen to the Large Group Teaching Lesson. Link will be emailed each week to those who sign up.

Sign up online and pick up your study notebook in the Hudson Road lobby at Heritage on Sundays, August 30 or September 6 . Or stop by the HBC office Monday – Friday from 8:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. to pick up a notebook. Cost is $5. Email  with questions.

Blue Crabs and Human Tradition

Blue Crabs and Human Tradition

In Sunday’s sermon, “Worship and the Word,” from Mark 7:1–23, we came to Jesus’ famous confrontation with the scribes and the Pharisees on the topic of human tradition. The Pharisees sought to take God’s Word seriously. If God told the priests to wash their hands in the temple, then why shouldn’t all of us wash our hands all the time (Ex. 30:19–21)? And why not wash the pots and couches too? They did many things like this, apparently.

Were they sinning? Or, from another angle, are traditions always bad? For example, is it wrong for us to have a certain pattern to our worship service, or to our giving, or to how we go about shaping church life week to week? Is it wrong to have a certain way of dressing or an ear for a certain type of music? No. We are encultured people. Traditions can be a little goofy from the outside, but they aren’t bad. Then, what was the problem? Remember Jesus’ math. Having made too much of their traditions they handed down, they made void the Word of God (7:13).

How, then, can we know when human tradition has become a problem for us? On this point we got some help from Michael Garland in his commentary on Mark. He offers three ways:

Traditions become evil when they run counter to God’s purposes expressed in the ethical commands of how to relate to others. Traditions become dangerous when persons are blind to how they undermine God’s commands. Traditions become corrupt when people become more devoted to upholding them than obeying God’s direct commands. As [it has been put], “Tradition is the living faith of the dead, traditionalism is the dead faith of the living.”

To this explanation, Garland adds this colorful illustration:

One may compare tradition to the shell of the blue crab. To live and grow it must shed its shell from time to time. Until it creates a new shell, the crab is extremely vulnerable. But if the shell becomes so strong and rigid that the crab cannot escape, that is the shell in which it dies. Losing traditions that make one feel safe and comfortable can cause great anxiety. But hanging on to traditions so that one becomes ‘hard-shelled’ is fatal.

So, here’s something we can aspire to as a church: to be a blue crab church. Let’s embrace our traditions without elevating our traditions so that we can’t shed them as needed. Let’s do the old math that knows adding to the Bible means subtracting the Bible itself. Let’s ask God to establish his rule in our church by his Word, even if that makes us a little uncomfortable sometimes.