Ah! Too Good Not to Share!

The title of this post is quite literally how I'm feeling. Day Two of Beth Moore's study To Live is Christ, and I have already learned so much! After two days, I've decided that journaling this journey with the Apostle Paul is a must. It's TOO GOOD not to share! So, here are some nuggets of goodness from today's study. (:

First, one thing we have to know about Paul to understand his life and ministry was that he was a "Hebrew of Hebrews," a Pharisee. So, I know most people associate Pharisees with hypocrisy and pride, but today I learned that Pharisees aren’t all that bad!! F. B. Meyers says this, "Amid the world's prevailing indifference, Pharisees stood for strict religious devotion. Amid the lax morals of the time, the Pharisees held fast to holiness." Sure, some Pharisees were proud and hypocritical, but I bet some were seriously legit. Just like some Christians misrepresent the rest of us, so it must have been with the Pharisees. This definitely changed my view.

Nugget of Goodness number two... Ephesians 6:4. I could write it out for you, but I'd rather make you go look it up on your own. ;) In short, Paul is telling fathers to discipline their children not with anger, but train them in the ways of God. Beth Moore pointed out to me that maybe Paul is instructing based on his experiences with his own father. Of course, we don't know this for sure, but it's likely, since Paul's father was a Pharisee and would have taken raising his son very seriously.

This is where Nugget number three comes in. Though Paul (actually at this point he is still baby Saul) was raised in a strict culture, at least his parents were entirely devoted to raising him in God's ways. This is the kind of upbringing that, sadly, only very fortunate children have today.

Nugget of Goodness number four... By the time Paul/Saul was 6, he would have memorized Psalm 113-118!! He's already got me beat! So as part of the study I read these Psalms, and these are some of the things that stood out to me:

114-There is some serious personification going on here, and I love it!! (English
nerd, I know. Hah!)

Psalm 115, Jews despised the words, “Where is their God?!” …I can relate. This mocking of the world gets really old for me, in the midst of the worst brand of Western-minded college student skeptics. But read on in the Psalm... We believers know EXACTLY what our God is up to! <3

Psalm 116:7- "Return to rest,oh my soul! Th Lord has dealt bountifully with you!" This just kinda made me laugh. I could totally hear myself saying, "Yeah right, soul, calm down already! God's got you under control!"

And the last Nugget of Goodness... in Psalm 118 David writes, "I will not die, but live, and tell the works of the Lord." Back to our one soul and central purpose: to love the Lord, and to make Him known.

Okay, can you believe that this is only a SUMMARY of everything I learned through this one lesson? I can't! Thank you God and thank you Beth Moore, for making scripture come alive!