Good morning and welcome to the first exemplar study from New Study Church. I’m really quite excited about today.
This is the start of something completely new. Over the summer I’ve felt a lot of things laid on my heard and I want to share some of them with you over the next few sessions.
Just before I do, there is a brief bit of business to get out the way. You are able to print off these studies. The reason for this is we are also releasing PowerPoint shows which you can use along with these transcripts and, in order for you to read one and view the other at the same time, you need to print this off. We’ve also made up some study packs with a range of tools to help your Bible studies which you can download from the website.
Instead of doing a John Fletcher-style “Click, please”, whenever you see the mouse icon, that indicates it’s time for you to move onto the next slide.
With all that said and done, let’s begin. Over the summer, the team and I sat down and talked a lot about New Study Church. One thing we really felt we needed was a mission statement. I have the very dubious honour of being gifted with Pastor John’s jokebook. He actually gave it to me! I’m not sure whether it is an enormous privilege or a total curse, but I looked up a quote that I’ll share. It says: “Progress has little to do with speed and much to do with direction.”
That short phrase is very apt. I really believe we’re moving in a huge way this season, but we need to know where we are actually going.
You can put up the first slide now. Here is the New Study Church mission statement:
New Study Church is a church community drawing closer to God by diligently dwelling on His Word in order that it may be illuminated, testing everything and reflecting together.
That just about sums up this whole operation. I want to spend today, the first in a three-part series examining just where we’re coming from, teasing that statement apart. There is a briefer explanation of the mission statement in these study packs, but for today I really want to explore it.
The first key phrase in there is “church community” . You all know the line. Church isn’t a building or a specific group of people. Church is the body of Christ. We can recite that parrot fashion, especially when we’re sitting in a building with a specific group of people. But this isn’t a building, and this in many ways is where the test of your understanding comes in.
As New Study Church, we exist as a community of believers sharing together. That makes us church. Now, I’m not saying that this is the only thing church has to offer, neither am I decrying the need for attendance at a fellowship. New Study Church doesn’t offer pastoral support, and you can’t give tithes and offerings. But if you wanted to sum up what we do, ‘church’ is the definition.
The first mention of church in the Bible is in Matthew 16:18, which says: “And I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell will not overpower it.”
‘Church’ comes from the Greek ekklesia, which means ‘called out’. It was the common term in the day for those called out or assembled in the public affairs of a free state or a body of citizens called together by a herald. The New Testament refers to all who were called by and to Christ in the fellowship of salvation.
Are you free? Have you heard the herald of Christ? Are you called by Christ in the fellowship of Salvation? Then you are the church! And so are we. And that makes this church.
The next part says “diligently dwelling on His word”. It’s based on two verses – John 5:39 which says, “You [diligently, NIV] search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, and it is these that bear witness to me.”
That’s an important point. Christ spoke those words and his point was this: people were searching the Torah so tightly so they could recognise the Messiah, and all along they were too busy to click on to the fact he was standing talking to them!
That’s something to constantly bear in mind. The Bible points to Christ, but we must follow the directions to get to him. Reading it alone is not enough. If you had a map in your hand, you could sit and scrutinize every nook and cranny of every bend and landmark, but until you start following the direction it’s pointing you in, you’re still going to be sat sitting exactly where you were when you started!
But at the same time we need to dwell on the word. Colossians 3:16 tells us: “Let the Word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom, teaching and admonishing, together with psalms, and hymns and spiritual songs.”
The Bible is the only inspired Word of God. There are plenty of great authors out there, but only the Bible is inspired. According to 2 Timothy 3:16-17, “All Scripture in inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.”
What more do we need?!
What else do we really need other than that? A favourite phrase of John Fletcher’s was that the Bible is the Maker’s manual. When you go to Ikea (he had a thing about Ikea as well, apparently) and open up your flatpack whatever, you consult the maker’s manual so you know how to do it. The same should be true of our lives.
What I feel personally is the crux of New Study Church is the next part: testing everything. This is so, so important. 1 Thessalonians 5:21 says: “Test everything. Hold on to the good.” Probably one of the simplest verses going, to be honest. But it is crucial. There is no place for one person to be standing up spouting a whole load of stuff and everybody goes away and blindly follows it. I don’t care how many years you spent in Bible college, how many letters you have after your name, how many books you have published, you are never going to get it right 100% of the time.
Let me ask you this. If somebody says something that’s not quite Scripturally accurate and you go away and follow it anyway, who’s fault is it? I would say it’s more yours, because you haven’t done your homework.
Don’t take my word for anything. I know I’m going to get something wrong somewhere eventually. Pick up a Bible and check what it actually says. If you don’t have one, we have a copy of the Bible available to download in the Study Pack. You can use the search facility in Adobe to find the verses, or Bible Gateway is a really good site.
And this leads nicely into my final point of “reflecting together”. This is not a one-way street. I don’t want to be sitting here, barking out Scriptures and everybody just lapping it up. That’s not the way it works.
A major, major focus and emphasis of New Study Church is you. I want to hear your comments – when you agree and, even moreso, when you don’t. If I’ve said something you think is a load of mince, email me and tell me why. There is a good chance you might be right. Stick it on the forum.
One of the most refreshing churches I’ve ever been to is Eikon in Edinburgh. The pastor, Tony Foley, made a great emphasis on feedback. He told us that if ever he made a point we didn’t agree with, we were to stand up right in the middle of the service and tell him. You don’t get that very often in church nowadays.
It’s not supposed to be the Sunday Morning Lecture. It’s a service. Have you ever wondered why it’s called a ‘service’? Because we are there to, obvious though it may seem, serve each other! And that includes serving each other with Scriptural and doctrinal truths. If there’s something wrong, there has to be an outlet for that. Not necessarily standing up in the middle of the service and shouting about it, but definitely a spirit of reflection and, yes, accountability. If anybody is going to say, “Here is my interpretation of the Word of God”, they have to be accountable to the people they are delivering it to, and they have to be humble enough to accept they could be – and at some point probably will be – completely and utterly stonking WRONG.
And it IS an interpretation. Every book, service, God TV programme you watch is just an interpretation, because why? The Bible is the only inspired Word of God.
So, please, if you disagree with something email me or mention it on the forum. I will absolutely intend to present a true and honest reflection of the Bible, but I will get something wrong someday. And there’s nothing wrong with having different opinions, either. Some things will only ever be interpretation, and so people will have different views. The important thing is not to accept somebody’s interpretation as the gospel truth (pun intended) and that is why, we come back to again, you MUST test everything. 1 Thessalonians 5:21.
Some people won’t know how to test something. Some folks just won’t have a clue, so we’re going to help and you can apply this to any service you go to, any book you read, any conversation you even have.
There’s a tool in the Study Pack that gives you pointers on how to do this, but here’s a few tips :
1. Read the actual Scriptures quoted – and be careful of people who swap versions to suit what they want. There is one very famous American author who is terrible at this, choosing the version of the Bible that matches their point instead of matching their point with what the Bible actually says! Some versions of the Bible are more accurate that others, and there will be a tool on different translations and what you can use them for.
2. Read the rest of the Scripture around the verses – the Bible has been terribly abused by folks who take a verse out of context and the entire meaning is completely twisted. There was a thing in the paper recently about a theatre who quoted a newspaper as saying their performance had “stunning visual effects”, but the critic actually wrote: “Despite the stunning visual effects, the acting was appalling, the script was terrible and this play should be avoided at all costs.” There was no accurate reflection of the whole meaning of the review.
3. Use the midweek remix – we had these last season at some points, and we’re going to have them for most weeks. These are out on a Thursday, downloadable from the usual downloads section of the website, and they are directly linked to the study. Darren writes the remixes, which means it’s a fresh pair of eyes looking at what I’ve written. You can use the remixes in small groups or on your own for personal reflection. What they do is they pick out the verses I use and the points I make and ask you to think about them. Not big, theological questions, but just: What do you think this verse means? Do you agree with this statement? How does this impact you?
4. The forum – we still have our forum online. The questions for the midweek remix are automatically entered into it, and you can also start brand new discussions regarding completely different topics. Speak to other readers and other people on the website and think about whatever is on your heart.
5. Us – we are here to listen to your comments. You can email us, and there is also a facility on our web page right now that allows you to request a particular topic for us to look at, and we’ll try to go through as many of them as we can.
As I say, there will be a proper tool on how to test and reflect on everything, but I hope that gives you an idea. I know that New Study Church is going to take us to places we’ve never been before, and I invite you to join us, to study Scripture with us, to diligently dwell on it, and together we will see them illuminated and we will get to know God more.
