Essentials of Faith. If you wrote a list of essentials of faith, what would it include? Worship, Catechism, The Bible, fellow believers? Just as each of us learn in an individualized way to read, or write, or do math, so we each learn about Faith in our own way. But the Bible is a central piece of that. God gave us a legacy of documents (yes, they were individual documents before they were compiled) and we have learned about Faith and God and ourselves from them for thousands of years. This statement has a lot of ‘weight’ to it, though, doesn’ t it? I meet people all the time who are so intimidated by the enormity of the Bible that they have never gotten the bravery together to study the Bible, or even read it for pleasure. And, in my experience, folks ‘build a wall’ of their own perceived inadequacies as far as the Bible, and keep their distance from the Bible as though it had an electric fence around it. That’s too bad.
None of us know the Bible verbatim (okay, maybe there are folks who have some genius stuff going on, but I don’t know them). And we can all learn from each other. ALL of us. I learn about God and the Bible in every bible study, every conversation.
To begin, however, to move towards a closer relationship with God, we have to involve study of the Bible. Because otherwise, we can end up in an echo chamber of our own thoughts and feelings. The Bible, is a powerful thing, and it’s words, coming down the millenia to each of us can give us context – frame our experience, and lift us up to encounter God in our lives in a meaningful way.
Sound Good? Consider joining us for the first of 7 sessions January 13th at 11 am (following our 9:30am service). We will use the Lutheranism 101 Second Edition book as a pathway (Part 3). This is a publication of the LCMS, and therefore has some conservative perspectives but all in all provides a thorough grounding for our discussion. We’ll put a calendar together that day that have us meet once or twice a month through April . This study is a perfect grounding for Affirmation of baptism (sometimes called Confirmation) or for Reaffirmation of Baptism, which will take place at Holy Cross on Sunday, May 20, 2019 – Pentecost. Blessings to you all – Pastor P+
