Principles of Interpreting

In week 4 of DG, the Discipleship Essential was on Principles of Interpreting the Bible. Why the need for interpretation? If God wants everyone to believe Him, shouldn't his words be simple to understand? Totally but some people just aren't very smart...haha, me included, and we take things out of context or misunderstand what God is saying. I'm guilty of twisting God's words to suit my needs. I've been reading the Bible for 24 years and there are still many parts that I need a better understanding of.

Here are some principles of interpreting Scriptures:

• Rely On the Lord - My own logic doesn't take me very far. But that's where the Holy Spirit comes in. Having the Spirit of God allows us to understand God (1 Corinthians 2:10-16). 
• Context - Read before and after the verse/passage, who is the audience, what is the situation of the original recipients, is it a historical or literary context, heart of the law vs letter of the law, what is the flow of thought? Is the text prescriptive or descriptive?
• Genres - Each book of the Bible has a different style of writing: narrative (history, story), laws/instruction (does it still apply today?), literary writings (poems, wisdom), letters, etc. 
• Interpret Scripture with Scripture - does it line up with other parts of the scripture, interpret with the whole Bible in view
• Consult Reliable Resources - study Bibles, commentaries

So then this brings me to the hubs. What are the principles to interpreting him?? In a previous post, I blogged that it gets easier to trust and follow someone when you know and understand them. But what does that really mean? How do you understand someone when you don't understand them? Haha. Sometimes, I just don't get the hubs' thought process. He can say and do the most random things, the most awkward things. Can the principles of understanding God's Words be applied to understanding the hubs? Definitely!

• Rely on the Lord - Amen to that!
• Context - what is the flow of his thoughts? I have come to realize that sometimes the things he says seem random but they're not. He actually has this somewhat logical thought process but he doesn't verbalize it all so you just hear the first thought and the last thought and it seems like a big jump but when you ask him how he got there, it's really quite remarkable, the journey from point A to B! Hahahaha!
• Genres - the hubs only speak in two genres, nerd and comedy.
• Interpret the hubs with the hubs - if you understand where one thought came from, you will understand everything!!
• Consult Reliable Resources - I am currently working on a commentary and concordance on the hubs, stay tuned. 

The Word

In week 3 of DG, the storying story was the temptation of Jesus (Matt 4:1-11). This story told of the time when Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil after having fasted for 40 days and 40 nights.

Jesus' desires, his needs, power, vanity and his faith was tested. But Jesus had a solid knowledge and understanding of God's Word. No matter much how Satan tempted him and even tried to use God's words against him, Jesus used God's words for strength, encouragement and to fight off temptations.

In the armor of God, his Word is our only offensive weapon. When I'm tempted to lose my temper, be impatient and unloving, the Bible is filled with words of encouragement, reminders and strength. When the enemy puts hurtful words in my mouth to crush the hub's spirit, I must fight against the lies of the enemy with the truth of God's Word.

I'm learning that following the hubs means following God's words, not my own or the world's. There are millions of books, articles, websites, conferences, seminars, webinars, quotes and galore for how to have healthy marriages but none is more useful or better than what's written in the Bible about marriage and love and sacrifice for the one you love. God made marriage. Wouldn't you think that He has the best advice and guide book for the things and people he created?

"Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God." - Matt 4:4

Learn

The disciples followed Jesus because they wanted to learn from him, follow his ways. I need to do the same with following Jesus and the hubs. Trouble is I have a hard time wanting to learn from the hubs. I don't feel like there's anything he can teach me that I don't already know or want to know. LOL.

But I guess that's beside the point. The point is to learn to follow. To follow in the hubs' ways and learn from him...so what is something that he can teach me? Something that won't mess with my life or ruin how I like to do things (don't judge, I'm starting slow here! haha). I picked guitar.

I know how to play the guitar but don't know it well enough to play anything really. I never took lessons, just learned a few chords and played around here and there. I don't have a natural talent in music. My talent is in learning the notes or chords, memorizing it and then playing it. I got the music award in gr.8 but really I think it was because I was the only student who could perfect my notes, knew the songs and got to class on time. I have no musical ear or internal rhythm. But not so the hubs! He is gifted in music and amazing at the guitar! So...nothing hardcore but I am secretly letting the hubs teach me to play the guitar properly... well, not so secret anymore! Whenever we get the chance after dinner, he will teach me how to strum and keep beat.

Most nights, I am tired, my fingers hurt and strumming practice is boring! I roll my eyes at how perfect he wants me to be and how meticulous he is at every little thing..."slow it down", "ok, speed it up now", "no, you're off" , "let's slow it down again...", "count the beat", "you're not counting!", "let me hear you count out loud!!", "feeeel the beat!". Gah, I just want to play the song!! Haha, it's kinda hilarious.

It's so hard to learn something that you don't want to learn. I never wanted piano lessons but my mom put me through it. I hated every lesson, was stubborn and made my piano teacher cry. But it was all in the heart and attitude. My heart was not there so my attitude was bad.

Hoping to change my attitude this time round. Reminding myself constantly to grow my desire to learn from the hubs and see the good fruits that it will produce. If not a better wife, then a better guitar player!! Haha. Hopefully both :)

My way or his way

A few weeks ago, the hubs and I were having a discussion on a particular subject which I have a very strong stance on. As would have it, the hubs asked me to consider the opposite stance as he was leaning towards that way. I said no and gave him all my reasons. When I asked him why he thought otherwise, he wasn't sure. He just wanted to keep an open mind but since I had very good, sound, logical reasons filled with conviction, he ended up agreeing with me. Success! I felt so proud of myself for having totally convinced the hubs to agree with me by the end of the conversation.

But then... as I was thinking back on that conversation, I felt totally manipulative. Did i give the other stance a chance and think through why the hubs felt what he felt or did I just feed ideas into his head to get my way? Did I really have better reasons or was I just more stubborn? Was my stance really Spirit-filled or am I just selfish?  What if God was telling the hubs something, without giving him any reasons so that he would trust God but my own selfishness was too stubborn to listen to the hubs and instead, caused the hubs to do the exact opposite of what God told him? Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Reminds me of a husband and wife who was told to trust God and not eat from a certain tree but the woman was a little too selfish and actually caused both her and her husband to sin.

Not saying that this is what was really happening during our conversation a few weeks ago but it is a possibility. Sometimes with the hubs, I'm a lot more likely to speak and demand agreement than I am to listen and obey, to listen and follow.

So I tried to be conscious of this. The other day, I asked the hubs if we should change our dinner plans with friends so we could go to prayer meeting instead. I thought isn't prayer more important than dinner? But the hubs said we committed to going to dinner and should stick to the plan. I didn't agree but I also didn't argue. I trust my husband to make the decision and I was going to listen and follow.  And I did. Wasn't really a life altering decision but gotta start somewhere, right?

Need for Speed

I love to drive, I love to drive fast! I wanted to be a race car driver when I was a kid.

But I absolutely go-all-hulk when I have to drive in traffic. This weekend, we were in the Bay Area for a wedding and everywhere we went, there was traffic. I thought I was pretty good at anticipating the traffic by allocating an extra 30mins wherever we had to go but still, we were always in traffic, day or night and always late. Made me angry.

There were also the overall bad drivers that just won’t get out of my way. Made me angry.

Let’s not forget the sucky rental car that had no power and weighs like paper. Had to step all the way down on the gas pedal just to get some speed out of it. When I did get the speed, it felt like the car was going to fly off the road cuz it was so light. Made me angry.

But this also made me think. Why was I angry? Pride, arrogance, impatience, selfishness, self-centerness? Check. All things that prevent me from following Christ.

But I know this is all part of God's refining process of shaping me to be more like him.

Not going the speed that I want? God's timing and pace is perfect. Change takes time. Learning and growing has its own pace.

Traffic? Well just shows that I’m not alone on the road.

Bad drivers? Everyone is just as fallen and sinful as me. People might block me from my destination but God always provides a way. Sometimes I think God intentionally put people who are going at a slower pace than me, just to slow me down.

The rental car?  Not what I wanted but God gives me exactly the tools I need to accomplish his will. It might not be the talents and gifts that I wish I had but God knows what I need and provides abundantly.

Be in the Know

These posts are really close together because the lessons have already happened and I'm posting retroactively. It's the present past.

So along with the storying portion of Discipling Group, there is also the discipleship essentials component.
The first two discipleship essential was learning about God the Son and God the Father. It was a lot of scripture reading on the various characteristics of Jesus and God.

What I gathered from these two lessons is that as followers of Christ, we are able to understand and trust him better, and hence follow him better, when we know his character, when we know his traits and history.  That was a hard lesson for me to learn a few years ago. I had titled my blog "Knowing God" because I had trouble trusting God. After all my years as a believer, I found gaps in my faith. I wasn't truly spending time to know God like I would a friend or lover, and so when it came time to trust God with big decisions or tough choices, I had trouble taking that step of trust and faith. But when I took that time to know God, to understand him and reflect on his character, it became so clear and easy to trust Him.

That's how it should be with the hubs. When I make an effort to learn his character, I am able to trust him better and understand why he says the weird things he says or does the things he does (or not do). I can understand where he's coming from and the thought/reason behind it. I may not agree but it definitely puts me at more ease when I understand where he's coming from. Still have a long ways to go as I don't think he even knows why he says the things he says or does the things he does. I guess boys aren't as reflective as girls...lol.  While a lot of times, I'm still hesitant to follow where the hubs lead, it's at least getting easier to reason that that's the way he thinks because of this and that, there's a reason to the madness. A mad reason but a reason at that. And this only comes from spending time learning and knowing his character, his traits, his past and present.

Given, Christ is perfect and the hubs is not. God is consistent, the hubs is not. Still...there can only be good things that come from spending time with another person and truly getting to know them deeply...what hurts them, what brings them joy, what are their hopes and desires.

Attraction

Lesson 2 of DG was on the story of John the Baptist (Matt 3:1-6, 11-17; John 1:19-34). John was one of those guys who really knew how to draw attention. People came from all over to hear him speak and be baptized by him. But it wasn't necessarily just him as a person that attracted people to him, it was also his message. People came to hear what he had to say and what he had to say pointed people to Jesus. He spoke so boldly and clearly about Christ that not only were people attracted to John, they were ultimately attracted to Jesus!

So simple lesson learned this week: How am I attracting people to Jesus. How am I attracting people to the hubs? When I talk about Jesus, do people want to know who Jesus is and want to follow him? Do I even talk about Jesus? When I talk about the hubs, do people want to know more about him and think highly of him? When you read my blog, do you think my hubs is this really amazing man who you all want to know the true identity of and follow his blog and artwork? Do I speak highly of him in public?

If I don't, I should! Go check out the hubs' website! It will blow your mind :)

It's a choice

The Discipling Group at C-stone follows the format of 24 lessons where each lesson has 2 components: a Bible story and a "discipleship essential". The Bible story is told through "storying" where each member of the group takes turn learning the story well enough to retell the story from memory without missing any important elements. This is a great tool in not only understanding the Bible better but to easily share it with someone else. We all tell stories and enjoy listening to people tell theirs so it is a very natural way to learn and communicate. The second component of each lesson are some basic essentials for all followers of Jesus to know.

As mentioned in my previous post, the main goal of joining DG is to learn to be a better follower of Christ and in turn be able to apply those lessons to following the hubs better. The first DG was just an intro where my leader showed us how storying is done through the story of Jesus' birth, or actually, it was the story of the angel visiting Mary and telling her she was with child (Luke 1:26-38).

Now I have read this passage countless times and was wondering if there was really anything new I could learn about following God and in turn, the hubs. Mary was faithful and trusted God that she was going to be with child and the child will be the Messiah. God told me to trust him and that marrying the hubs was his will for me. Ok, did that. Nothing new...

But I thought about it some more and really put myself in the sandals of Mary and came to this thought: While Mary probably didn't have a choice that God chose her to be the mother of Jesus, she did have a choice in believing God, in following through with His commands and a choice in her attitude and response. She replied “I am the Lord’s servant,”,“May your word to me be fulfilled.” and then she goes into a song of praise!

Following God is a choice and our attitude and response should be that of willingness, trust and praise. Following the hubs is also a choice and my attitude needs to be of willingness, of trust and joy for how he loves and cares for me :)