Giving Thanks in November

I always look forward to Thursday because Thursday is my Bible Study day. 

We're studying the Book of Hebrews and using a bit of a different approach, which has been amazingly profitable.

 Each of us works our way through the passage on our own first, writing down our observations and questions and checking cross references.  Then we go to our commentaries--every one is reading a different commentary--and make notes and connections, recording the aha! moments, the scholarly insights, the linguistic explanations,  and other details we would never had found on our own.

I, myself, am reading Hebrews by Richard Philips (one of the Reformed Expository Commentaries)  alongside Calvin, Aquinas, and some sermons by Ray Stedman.  One of the other ladies is reading John Brown's commentary, another is reading Geoffry B. Wilson and listening to sermons by Rev. Arturo Azurdia.

It been wonderful to benefit from the scholarship and writings of these pastors and theologians.  John Brown has been especially helpful--I'm tempted to invest in my own copy of his commentary!

One of the ways in which we challenge ourselves and each other, with every passage we study,  is to find a "jumping off place" for sharing the Gospel.  For example, today's passage for study was Hebrews 3:1-6:

1 Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Christ Jesus, 2 who was faithful to Him who appointed Him, as Moses also was faithful in all His house. 3 For this One has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as He who built the house has more honor than the house. 4 For every house is built by someone, but He who built all things is God. 5 And Moses indeed was faithful in all His house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which would be spoken afterward, 6 but Christ as a Son over His own house, whose house we are if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end.

So I ask you, if you only had this passage to work from could you, like Philip in Acts 8, "begin with that very passage of Scripture and tell the good news about Jesus?"  Because that IS the Gospel.  The Good News about Jesus.

Today I am thankful for Bible Study, for commentaries that challenge and instruct, for friends who take the study of God's Word seriously, and especially for the Gospel.