{"id":8690,"date":"2020-01-24T08:23:11","date_gmt":"2020-01-24T13:23:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ctpres.org\/ctpressblog\/?p=8690"},"modified":"2020-03-02T10:39:08","modified_gmt":"2020-03-02T15:39:08","slug":"ctpress-january-24-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ctpres.org\/ctpressblog\/2020\/01\/24\/ctpress-january-24-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"CTPress January 24, 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><em>\u201c\u2026they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.\u201d (Acts 17:11b).<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"> <strong><em>\u201cYou shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, \u2026You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house\u2026\u201d <\/em><\/strong><br><strong><em>(Deuteronomy 11:18,19).<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left wp-block-paragraph\"> Do you accept the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be, by the Holy Spirit, the unique and authoritative witness to Jesus Christ in the Church universal, and God\u2019s Word to you? (Book of Order W-4.04b; Ordination Question 2)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left wp-block-paragraph\">This past Wednesday, I restarted my <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ctpres.org\/ctpressblog\/2016\/06\/21\/life-of-the-church-calendar\/\">Wednesday Night Bible Study<\/a>. We began to review Hebrews, a book written to Christians and Jewish converts to Christianity in the mid-first century. It was a great beginning to this study. Hebrews is an inspiring, wonderful part of the scriptures! <em>For over a decade now, <\/em>I have been leading a Bible Study on Wednesday nights. It is scheduled then because it is the only night each week where no committee meetings are ever scheduled. For over a decade, many of the same handful of people have attended Bible Study.<br> I am grateful for the people who attend, but I\u2019m surprised at the number of people who could attend but do not. Learning the scriptures is an integral part of who we are as Christians. And so, I\u2019d like to answer some of the common objections for missing Bible Study:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong> \u201cI can\u2019t come every week.\u201d <\/strong> No one at Bible Study is there every single week. Even if your attendance is sporadic, time spent at Bible Study is never wasted, even if you weren\u2019t there the week before.<\/li><li><strong> \u201cI\u2019m already so busy.\u201d <\/strong> We are all busy. There will always be something competing for every moment of your day. Put Bible Study on your calendar and make it a priority. You will be glad you did.<\/li><li><strong> \u201cEveryone there knows more about the Bible\u2026I don\u2019t want to look stupid!\u201d<\/strong>  Even if you know nothing about the Bible, you can\u2019t change that by skipping Bible Study. If you start attending, you will learn.<\/li><li><strong> \u201cI already do so much at church.\u201d<\/strong>  Believe me, I am grateful for this, but every Christian needs two things in addition to worship \u2013 a place to serve, and a place to be built up. Bible study is a great tool for growing in your faith.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left wp-block-paragraph\">Bible Study meets on Wednesdays at 7:15pm, for about an hour, in the church parlor. I hope you will consider attending!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left wp-block-paragraph\">Blessings,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left wp-block-paragraph\">-Pastor John<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cI can\u2019t come every week.\u201d   \u201cI\u2019m already so busy.\u201d   \u201cEveryone there knows more about the Bible\u2026I don\u2019t want to look stupid!\u201d If you&#8217;ve said or thought these, read into this post for a little inspiration! <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ctpres.org\/ctpressblog\/2020\/01\/24\/ctpress-january-24-2020\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1025,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ctpres.org\/ctpressblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/32253-bibleandcoffee-coffee-bible-mountains-nature.1200w.tn_.jpg?fit=1200%2C627&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ctpres.org\/ctpressblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ctpres.org\/ctpressblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ctpres.org\/ctpressblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ctpres.org\/ctpressblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ctpres.org\/ctpressblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8690"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ctpres.org\/ctpressblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8690\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8692,"href":"https:\/\/www.ctpres.org\/ctpressblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8690\/revisions\/8692"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ctpres.org\/ctpressblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ctpres.org\/ctpressblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ctpres.org\/ctpressblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ctpres.org\/ctpressblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}