Being a mentor can be a rewarding and fruitful experience – a chance to participate in the awesome sanctification adventure of another believer - an opportunity to grow as a leader and impact the life of someone who needs you. But it can also be a frustrating experience – a time of little or no fruit that leaves you doubting, confused and discouraged. What makes the difference between discipleship that ROCKS, and discipleship that ROTS?

The following article is based on a talk given to some high school youth leaders. These are the ten basic elements that I believe should be a part of healthy, good, vibrant discipleship relationships. Obviously there is more to discipleship than this article, but not less! It’s my hope you’ll find something here to inspire, motivate and encourage you in your various discipleship/mentoring relationships.

Keep reading by clicking here.

“…offering discussions of high-profile theorists in postmodern theory and contemporary theology, for a non-specialist audience that is interested in the impact of postmodern theory for the faith and practice of the church.”

by Quentin J. Schultze from Christian Educators Journal

A few years ago the Calvin College faculty redesigned the “core” curriculum, which serves as our foundation for Christian liberal arts education. One of the most important changes was requiring that core courses cultivate virtues such as patience, wisdom, and courage. Not long after we had approved the new core, a faculty member noticed that we had forgotten one critically important virtue: gratefulness. This was particularly ironic because one of the college’s confessional documents, the Heidelberg Catechism, highlights gratitude to God as the prime motive for Christian service. A Christians’ hard work is not meant to be an end in itself, but a joyful response to the message of salvation.

Continuing Reading…

In his warm style, backed with biblical scholarship, Scot McKnight travels through the contours of Mary’s life as she struggled to come to terms with the mission that her son would accomplish.

Read the first two chapters of the book here.

While it is not comprehensive in the sections or types of scripture covered, this Bible Study does specifically look into The Law (Exodus), The Prophets (Isaiah), and two Gospel accounts (a parable in Luke and eschatological scripture in Matthew) to show the biblical consistency across scriptural genre and Old and New Testaments.

I hope this is a good starting point!

See Full Text of Study Here.

-How can the Bible be a historical text with errors (maybe) AND the Word of God?
-Should the Old Testament be disregarded in the study of the Bible?
-What does it mean to be born again?
-What happens to people of other faiths?
-How can we reconcile condemnation of homosexuals with unconditional love?

This document is meant to be a resource to those who are asked these questions in the hopes of faithfully and lovingly engaging those who ask you these questions.

See Full Document Here. 

II. Be clear why you are memorizing scripture. Before starting, I urge you to write at least ten reasons for your decision to memorize scripture, and secondly, many reasons why you know you can succeed.

III. Commit to memorizing and systematically reviewing God’s Word daily for three months or some other specific length of time. Memorization is most difficult when you first begin. Freedom always follows discipline. Know that you are going to face many times of struggle and disappointment. No new discipline is easy. Satan will strongly oppose this one. Only drawing close to Christ as Lord and the power of God’s Spirit can see you through these initial efforts.

IV. Choose small portions of scripture at first. Master the verse at the beginning of the day and review it four or five times during the day. It is usually most helpful to have it on a card you can carry with you. This makes review much easier. I suggest one verse a week, or at most, two verses per week for the first three months. Learn the references by saying them before and after each time you review the verse. Both become part of you and increase confidence in your knowledge.

V. Determine to memorize each verse “word perfect” before memorizing additional verses. It takes no longer to review a verse word perfect than with mistakes, and it gives greater confidence. You may take two to four days with that first verse before you learn the second. Then, master the first and second before you add a third. Review each verse every day until you have memorized at least 12. If you have mastered the verses, that review will take you two to five minutes, unless you stop to meditate and/or pray the verse. Whenever a verse you are reviewing inspires you to pray, move into prayer. Then, return to the review process. The primary purpose is to be with God through scripture. Say the verses to Jesus. He is present and pleased with you. John 14:21

After you have memorized 12 verses, then each time you add an additional verse, eliminate the first one and then the next one, etc. This way, you can review all your verses daily in five minutes and it doesn’t become a burden. I suggest that you review all your verses on the Lord’s day each week. In this way, you can keep them sharp and forming your life, even when you have memorized 100.

VI. Energize your discipline through regular accountability to another person. Everyone should have somebody check them on their verses each week because of the strength and encouragement this gives you, and so you can know you have them word perfect. The key is a long obedience in the same direction. It will bless you and also the person with whom you share them.

VII. Faithfulness and faith will grow. Memorizing scripture in order to know God and His will for your life will become one of the most powerful blessings you will ever receive. If you learn scripture in order to respond to God’s love, pray in the light of those passages and live their truth in daily life, faith will grow as will the power of your prayers and the impact of your life. Share your adventure with someone else and, if they choose to join with you in this thrilling and life-changing adventure, I encourage you to pray for each other daily for the first month, using the 30-Day Prayer Covenant plan.

“I enjoy helping others get the most from their Bible study,” says Lance. “Learning how to deal with figurative language is a step in that process.”

Language is God’s handiwork.Those He inspired to write the Scriptures—from Moses and the prophets to Jesus, Paul, Peter, and John—became language masters. Often, God led them to use literary techniques to communicate His Word. One of the most common of these techniques is figures of speech. Found in all literature, figures of speech have been called the “ornaments of language.” They allow the author to transform a simple literal idea into a clearer, more graphic image for the reader. Let’s take a look at some of the most frequently used figures of speech in the Bible.

Figures of Comparison
Simile: A comparison in which something is said to be “like” or “as” another thing.
Example: ”As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God” (Ps. 42:1).

Metaphor: A comparison in which it is said that something “is” another thing.

Example: ”Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path” (Ps. 119:105).

How to interpret: Similes and metaphors force us to stop and consider how one thing compares with another. How is the longing of our souls like the longings of a deer? In what ways is God’s Word a lamp and a light? Once we see what they share in common, we will understand what God is saying to us.

We must be careful not to press the comparisons too far, beyond what they could have meant to the original audience. It would be wrong to conclude from Rev. 16:15 that Jesus is a thief! When He said, “Behold, I come like a thief,” the point of comparison is that of unexpectedness, not questionable character. In comparing Christians to salt in Mt. 5:13, Jesus did not have every contemporary use of salt in mind. In ancient times, salt was not used to de-ice roads! Thus it would be incorrect to say that one meaning is that Christians are to melt people’s cold-heartedness toward God.

As with all interpretation, immediate context is our surest safeguard. Notice that Rev. 16:15 is in a context of alertness and readiness in the midst of turmoil. Knowing that Jesus could come any moment, as unexpectedly as a thief, believers are never to relax their faithfulness. The salt metaphor, like its corollary of light, comes on the heels of the beatitudes, which describe the countercultural attitudes of believers. However, we are not to step out of our culture but to be change agents within our culture, preserving what is good and demonstrating by our lives the reality of God.

Figures that Intensify
Hyperbole: An intentional exaggeration or overstatement designed to achieve an emotional effect.
Examples: ”If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple” (Lk. 14:26).

“So the Pharisees said to one another, ‘See, this is getting us nowhere. Look how the whole world has gone after him!’” (Jn. 12:19).

How to interpret: The use of hyperbole is more common than you may think. We have all said something like, “I wrote until my hand fell off!” or, “I danced until I dropped!” While hands do not fall off and rarely do people drop from dancing, hyperbole is a way of expressing the emotional truth about something…the way it feels to us. It is also a way of abruptly getting another’s attention. The examples above illustrate both purposes.

Jesus’ words in Lk. 14:26 seem extreme. That should alert us to the use of hyperbole. If we took these words literally, they would contradict the abundant biblical teaching on honoring one’s parents and loving all people (even enemies), not to mention the teachings against hate (see 1 Jn. 4:20). This is an example of Jesus driving home a point in a way that forces us to take note of it. With further reflection, we realize that Jesus is saying that love for Him should take precedence over all other affections and allegiances, making them seem like “hate” by comparison.
The Pharisees in Jn. 12:19 show us hyperbole to express a strong feeling…that of exasperation. It would be nice if the whole world was going after Jesus, but this has never been the case either then or now. But if we were Pharisees in 30 AD watching crowds flocking around Jesus, it might have felt like everyone was abandoning us in favor of Jesus. The Pharisees were frustrated at the loss of their influence over the people.

The key to interpreting hyperbole is never to take it literally but to look for the ways in which it is either expressing what is emotionally true or serving to grab our attention. But before we tame a saying too much, we should wrestle with how radical Jesus’ teachings really are.

Figures of Contrast
Irony: Intentionally saying the opposite of what is meant.
Examples: ”As for you O house of Israel, this is what the Sovereign LORD says: Go and serve your idols, every one of you!” (Ezk. 20:39).

“Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich!” (1 Cor. 4:8).

How to interpret: Here is another figure of speech that should be familiar to us. You might be asked, “How was the meeting with your boss?” and answer sarcastically, “Can’t wait till the next one!” This is irony. It is easy to pick up on in a conversation because intonation tips us off. But we must be more alert to catch it in the written text. Irony is used not to hide meaning, but to add greater force and vividness. I’m not likely to mistake your meaning as wanting to meet with your boss again, but using irony says it more vividly.

In Ezk. 20:39, God is surely not commanding His people to break the second commandment and worship other gods. Rather, as the context points out, Israel is already doing this. God really wants them to worship Him. He is allowing Israel to go on their chosen path, promising the discipline of judgment. He works in the same way today.

In a similar way, Paul uses irony to address spiritual pride in Corinth, saying the opposite of what he really thinks to be true. Far from being a commendation, 1 Cor. 4:8 condemns the Corinthians’ false self-perceptions. They thought they had arrived spiritually! By using irony, Paul portrays their folly more vividly and forcefully. He knows that neither he nor they, nor any of us this side of eternity, can claim perfection. There is no place for spiritual pride in our lives.

In the Bible, irony is usually found in situations of rebuke or ridicule. Often there is an intent to censure or criticize concealed in an ironic statement. As the context will always show, irony cannot be true if taken at face value. It is the opposite meaning that the author wants to convey.

Figures of Association
Metonymy: Substituting one thing for another closely related to it.
Example: ”Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own” (2 Sam. 12:10).

Synecdoche: A part is substituted for the whole or the whole for a part.

Examples: ”They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks” (Is. 2:4).

“Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach” (Phil. 3:19).

How to interpret: While the names may be unfamiliar, these too are figures we use fairly often. We might say, “I don’t agree with anything the White House is doing,” referring to the President and his staff. Or we may speak of a friend being ruined by “the bottle,” by which we mean drunkenness. These are both examples of metonymy. Similarly, we might read that the city imposed a curfew on children under 18. Here, “city” refers to the government, not the entire town.

When we come across metonymy, we should pause to ask ourselves why the writer chose to say things this way. What do the images suggest? Don’t make the mistake of interpreting too narrowly or literally.

In 2 Sam. 12:10, the prophet Nathan was not telling David that he would always have a sword in his house. Rather, “sword” is associated with violence and “house” refers to David’s family. Because he had sown seeds of violence against the innocent Uriah, violence would plague David and his family. However, the word ”sword” conjures up a more vivid image, and the use of “house” indicates the pervasive consequences of David’s sin. How wide a circle the influence of one person’s sin can become!

Coming to our examples of synecdoche, Isaiah was not reducing the Israelites to fighting with slingshots and bows and arrows. By mentioning a part—swords and spears—he was using synecdoche to refer to all instruments of war. There was coming a day of total disarmament.

In Phil. 3:19, Paul refers to the enemies of Christianity as those whose god is their stomach. Do they really worship their stomachs? As a use of synecdoche, we must look for an association. We typically associate the stomach with appetite. Paul intends this to represent all the fruitless appetites of a life lived in the flesh and not in the Spirit. Consider, though, how readily we can all identify through the word “stomach” with a vivid image of cravings.

The Bible is indeed the inspired Word of God. We can more fully appreciate its meaning because God chose so many ornaments—figures of speech—by which to communicate His truth. The Bible is not dry but uses language that causes vivid images to pop into our minds. The more we contemplate the meaning of these images, the greater will be our appreciation of God’s Word, and the better prepared we will be to apply it to our lives.

Singled Out For Good by Paige Benton Brown