In our class times together, passages and themes from the book of James kept coming up and we decided it would be cool to change our tack a bit and do a Bible book study instead of our typical topical studies. I’m not sure they’re still glad they did because we are (I am) taking quite a bit of time going through, and I’ve gotten a bit too technical in the presentation. You’ll notice as we get close to the end of chapter 1 that I started doing better with that, and I think we’re doing quite well with a better balance of background, application, and velocity in Chapter 2 (next post). Here are the notes divided into four sections along with a bonus (no extra charge!) simple worksheet that I created for my kids since we are studying it with them in parallel.
James Introduction (Pt. 1 of 2) – March 13, 2016 – AAC, 42 min., 21MB
BTW, if you’re interested in the discussion in the introduction about the actual name of the author of the book of James, you should also listen to the first eight or nine minutes of the Palm Sunday lesson, since that topic came up at the beginning of our time together that next week.
James Introduction (Pt. 2 of 2) – March 27, 2017 – AAC, 39 min., 19MB
This study came from four different sources that are closely related in their practical truths. I was reading something and came across this quote:
“Bad habits are easy to make, but hard to live with. Good habits are hard to make, but easy to live with.”
And somehow God took that thought and reminded me of one of my favorite Andy Stanley sermon series, Destinations: The Principle of the Path. And when I started thinking about that, I remembered a recent sermon by one of our teaching pastors where he talked about the process of how our thoughts become attitudes and actions, and how those actions become habits, and how those habits will determine our lives. And then I remembered some great wisdom from Andy Andrews that really helps make it all practical.
I began thinking about all four principles and realized there is an important reminder / warning for us at any age and place in life that we be careful with our minds, intentionally choose what is influencing our decisions, and make sure the destinations that are set by our current paths are where we want to end up.
Here are the recordings of my teaching this series (AAC format playable in most browsers, iTunes, and iDevices):
(My new lapel microphone does a much better job getting my audio, but a much poorer job picking up audio from the group, and this lesson had a huge amount of wonderful discussion that ended up being large chunks of silence on the recording, so I had to remove it. That results in some odd transitions, but it’s better than wasting the listeners’ time. I may have to start running two separate recordings to capture both well.)
As I revealed in the previous lesson, I realized that while knowing your spiritual gifts, and even understanding His purpose for you, are both important steps in finding God’s direction and will for your life, having an ultimate life goal will dictate your priorities and activities to make you more focused and effective in your Christian life. This lesson illustrates that truth with numerous examples from some great individuals from the Bible: Paul, Moses, Hannah, and Jesus.
“The tragedy is that so many are converted and so few Spirit-filled.” (Chuck Swindoll) This series presents: The Work of the Holy Spirit, Evidences of being filled with the Holy Spirit (and not), and How to Be Filled with the Holy Spirit.
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