Discipleship

If you are a woman who attends Trinity or Trinity's Women's Bible Study, you should be receiving a letter in the mail from me. It shared where my heart is right now and invited you here. I'm glad you found us : )

In that letter, I discussed a conversation I had with Pastor Josh about discipleship. I said that it was about sharing "life, love and faith together." One thing I would like to add to that definition is that discipleship involves reading God's word together. Women who are not believers meet together and share about their life experiences. Women who are believers meet together, share experiences, joys, trials and hopes. They read the Word and what it says about their lives and they are changed.

That's what we want. That's what God wants for us- that His Word be read in community so that His believers grow to be more and more like His Son Jesus.

That all sounds magnificent, but the truth is- it's scary. Most of us don't normally talk about the Word in our day-to-day conversations. With most of my friends, our conversations revolve around our relationships with our husbands, our jobs and our families. It's only a handful of friends that I can comfortably discuss what God's been teaching me through His Word.

So it can be difficult and uncomfortable- but we are called to do it. I think my job is to jump in alongside you and we can encourage each other through it : )

Let's start small and at home. Place a Bible on your kitchen table. The next time your family sits down to eat together, open up to the book of Mark and read a few verses from chapter one. You don't have to read much- just a few. Then ask your family a few questions.

Ross and I did this tonight. We read Mark 1:1-4. It says, "The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It is written in Isaiah the prophet: 'I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way-- a voice of one calling in the desert, "Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him."' And so John came, baptizing in the desert region and preaching baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins."

Then we asked ourselves these four questions:

1) What does it say?

2) What does it mean?

3) What does it mean for us?

4) What questions do I have about this passage?

Here's what we came up with:

1) It says this is the beginning of the gospel of Jesus. It talks about Isaiah's prophecy about Him and John. John fulfills that prophecy by coming, baptizing and preaching.

2) It means that God has been planning to bring Jesus for a long time. Isaiah prophesied a looong time before Jesus came. It means that God had a plan for John and Jesus' lives long before they were born.

3) After reading this, we can know that God has an ultimate plan for salvation- and has for a long time. This should comfort us. I also thought it should encourage us to read the prophetic books (which I tend to ignore)- as they point forward to the coming of Jesus and therefore, discuss the gospel.

4) We wonder what John's calling was like. How did God reveal His plan to him? We won't know the answer to that question here on earth. We also wonder what the time difference from Isaiah to Jesus is. This question can be looked up : )

So- try this with your family. I'll give updates on occasion on where we are and what we are thinking : )

Hope to see you at church tomorrow!