Bible Vs Prayer!

At the youth group I help out at we have a question can where high school kids can ask any question they would like about the Bible, life, or anything under the sun. These questions are normally answered in a discussion on Sunday morning. I though that I should answer the questions a little more in-depth on my blog. I hope to highlight blogs and other resources that I find and know.

1st Question: What is better to do "Pray" or "Read your Bible?"

This is a question that I think the answer is simply drawn with little thought. I prayed and though about this through the lenses of a person who is trying to develop a walk with Christ as a center part of there life.

I think I need to answer the question before I show my study on this. I would say that you need one, just as much as you need the other. You need prayer while reading the Bible and you need the Bible to know how to pray. I would say it is like a car you need tires and a engine to drive with out one the other will not work. The next steps will be looking at the importance of the Bible and how prayer relates.

I want to start off looking at why we uses the Bible and then I will show some verses that amplify prayer. "... let the Bible be the Bible, and so to let God be God—and so to enable the people of God to be the people of God, his special people, living under his authority, bringing his light to his world."(NT Wright) There are many discussions that tear down the Bible but I want to look at it as the authoritative word of God. We are Christians and the book we follow to find out who God is and what he has done is the Bible. As John Piper would explain that our feet have to be planted in the text and we need to hang on to every sentence of the Bible to learn how to walk in our life. N. T. Wright compares the Bible to a five act play. The first act is the story of Scripture is creation, then “fall,” then Israel, then Jesus, and finally the church. Act five is unique in that it is an unfinished narrative. Its opening scene began with the apostolic age that we find storied in the New Testament, and will reach its consummation in the final scene as evidenced in such passages as: Romans 8, 1 Corinthians 15, and parts of Revelation. Currently, we are living as part of the fifth act, in the age of the church, which remains open-ended. In this scenario, biblical authority would be expressed through the imagination of the actor based on the scripts of the first four acts of the story. Such improvisation unleashes the postmodern imagination to dream about how “my small story” can matter within the “big story” of God. 


You need prayer to keep this conversation going. You need to know what Jesus is doing in your life and what he has done in the past. the Bible is the most important way to do it.

We need to understand the Bible to continue to be apart of the Biblical tradition. We need to see what the people in the Bible are doing. These people are interacting with the God who they(and I) believe created them. The Jewish culture wrote an entire collection of Prayers which is now called Psalms. This is an example of what a whole community could say to their God.(Goldingay 21) Psalms like Psalms 91 explains characteristics of God which helps us understand the God whom we are following. Jesus the God-man even prayed to his father who was God. This is important because this is the defining figure of the Christian faith and he is praying. Several times Jesus leaves to pray by himself, and Jesus shows his disciples how to pray. I believe that Jesus is the best example of prayer that we have. http://marshill.com/media/pray-like-jesus This link is a great series of Jesus praying and how we should follow his prayers.

Like I said before the Bible is important and it shows us how to pray. Which in turn we need to read the Bible to pray. It is not a question in which we should or should not do but rather how we can use the other to compliment.




If you have more questions about the Bible please post!


How do you pray?


What are your stories of prayer answered?


How has the Bible help you get closer to God?

Leprosy.

40A man with leprosy [8] came to him and begged him on his knees, az “If you are willing, you can make me clean.”

41Jesus was indignant. [9] He reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” 42Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed.

43Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning: 44“See that you don’t tell this to anyone. ba But go, show yourself to the priest bb and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, bcas a testimony to them.” 45Instead he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. bd Yet the people still came to him from everywhere

This really spoke to me about Gods grace. Jesus healed the man even though he would not obey. This seems so much like me. God always forgives me and call me to be one of his followers even though I will end up deliberately disobeying him. I find it much better to follow but Gods grace is amazing.

My last semester in school.

This semester i want school it be life changing...

I have been challenge to think about the injustices in the world. I CANNOT GET THIS OUT OF MY MIND. As I was thinking about this, I thought I was going to be able to change the world. Then the earth quake happends in Haiti and I feel helpless again. What can I do. As I was praying and thinking last night a thought came into my thats its the Lord's Kingdom I am supposed to be partnering with. I need to stop trying to do everything myself. With self-denial comes with not only loving your neighbor as yourself but loving God. These are two equal things. I think loving and worshiping God will help me refresh. I need to let God help me with my cross. This burden is to much for me to carry. Another thing I have to remember is the importance of community. Community should be involved in everything I do. I need people working, worshiping and loving with me. I encourage everybody who reads this blog to partner with me, to love God, love the community are you and seek justice.

The woods.

The woods and wilderness makes me love God more. I am planing on studying all about why God met people on mountain tops. I know it is silly but I think more while being still in the erie silence of the woods. I love reading the Bible and praying while I'm up in the mountains by myself. Is this the way things are supposed to be. Are we not supposed to be distracted by cell phones and crazy hustle and bustle of day to day life.

I feel while your in the mountains living with people the conversation about God just comes. People are more willing to talk about creationism more then just science because they are taking back by what God has done up there. If you are reading this and you don't believe in God as the creator, explain to me why trees and birds and bugs are so interesting. I think being "freezing" in the mountains for the last week I have come to appreciate God and what he has created. I am not going to become one of those crazies who think Styrofoam cups are the worst thing in the world. I'm not going to join Peta. I just love Gods creation. I think people need to get out and explore it more.

White Trash

I think I am comming to the grips that I am white trash. 

My parents live in a trailer behind my mothers flower shop.

Right now I am wearing a motorcycle shirt and a trucker hat.

I am listening to country.

I like big trucks.

I like harley davidson motorcycles.

I like to shoot guns. 

I like to shoot animals.

My house has trash piled sky high infront of it.

If you see any other white trash attributes let me know...

Learning

I have been thinking about writting a new blog about something theological. Everything I want to write about I feel I need to have more info on. So here is my stand to study this summer as much as I can.

I say this but I also feel limited. This is because I do not have very many books. I do not have a well stocked library on the info that I want to learn about. 

I pray that God changes my mind in very many different ways. I want to learn and with my learning be able to teach other. 

How we talk about God.

I have been reading Exodus because I want to understand how the Old Testament shapes the New Testament. 

I was struck by something early on in Exodus 3 and 4. This is where Moses see God(a  Theophany). What intrigues me he the most is how God tells Moses to explain who he is to his people.  

"Exo 3:16  "Go, assemble the elders of Israel and say to them, 'The LORD, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—appeared to me and said: I have watched over you and have seen what has been done to you in Egypt."

Here it can be I am the Lord God of your ancestors.  This is something I have pondered over for a couple of days. It was not a heavy explanation of who God, its just the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob. No more explanation. I find this crazy God does not tell Moses to explain who He is. God just simply speaks of who he has been God over. 

Moses as everyone else would, does not trust God in this endeavor. He says the words I say all the time, "What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, 'The LORD did not appear to you'?"(Exo 4:1) God simply explains to Moses to show the a sign to the people. Turn his staff into a snake back into a staff.

I feel that God is simpler then we try to make him before other people. God is amazing and we need not to try to force him into something he is not. God told Moses to explain who he has been.

This is something I have been thinking about, who has God been, in history, in my life, and in peoples lives around me. This is why I really love understanding the Bible.

One thing I want to look at is in Acts when Paul is speaking to Gentiles and contrast this to he explains God to them.

Act 17:24  "The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; 

Act 17:25  nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; 

Act 17:26  and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, 

Here God is explaining as the God of Creation(Acts 17:24a). Something pretty simple to show and explain. The other day I was in Best Buy with my friend Jake, and we were looking at huge TVs and they were showing a should of insects and sea creatures. We both turn to each other and ask a question "How can people not believe in God with creation being so beautiful and complicated. I feel God should be easy to explain. 

I love the next statement being a closet pentecostal, "He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands"(Acts 17:24b) God is not constrained to a building. I think if Paul was here in our time he would say that God is not contained by the four walls of a church. You can experience God anywhere. I personally love to experience God in nature. I love going on hike, bike rides being in the wilderness. Seeing God beautiful creation is something that brings me closer to my creator. I love my friend Nick who when he always see a beautiful California sunset thanks God. This is a place I think we need to be when we explain God to people, who do not believe in God.

The next two verses I will group together. Seeing that God creates human beings, gives them life, gives them everything. He did not exclude anyone, this is something I think I need to focus and ponder on.

I think it is important to see how you view God. I think its important to explain him simply. Gods not all the complicated. Theology is complicated, lets not make God complicated. I am saying this and I love to argue theology, but is arguing theology Going to get people to search for God? This is something I am going to ponder this summer. Something I will try. I thank God for life and beauty.