The Bully Solution

This comes as no surprise to anyone, but the issue/problem of “bullying” has grown to epidemic proportions. Many are saying “Stop bullying!” or “We need to stop bullying!”, yet they are not addressing foundational principles that will help get to the heart of the issue.  Rather, they are address symptoms and say they are “helping,” which is like saying a Band-Aid is “fixing” cancer.  Please read through the following principles and consider how we need to address the foundational issues of bullying.

What is Right?  We must teach a standard of right and wrong that is unchanging.  Nearly everyone will say that the bully is wrong.  Yet, one must admit is that in the majority of cases the bullied has broken God’s standard of righteousness by wrongfully responding to the bully even before it becomes a “bullying” situation, and usually afterward, as well.  We must bring both parties to the point of recognizing that God sets a standard of right and wrong His standard does not change with society’s whims.  We therefore bring them back to the truths of God’s Word.  Psalm 119:9, 11 (NKJV) “How can a young man cleanse his way?  By taking heed according to Your word.  Your Word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against You.”

Who am I?  We must teach individuals that they are created in the “image of God” (Gen. 1:26-27), as the greatest of all of God’s creation.  Our value, therefore, comes from the fact that I am “fearfully and wonderfully made.”  Psalm 139:14   My value or worth does not change when someone calls me a name, or makes fun of my clothing.  My value does not change by how smart, good-looking, or talented I am.   These things are all temporary, and will pass away.   The bullied needs to change the way they look at themselves, to see how God looks at them.  The bully needs to recognize that they are attacking one whom God specially created for His purpose, and they will give account to Him for their behavior.

As one created in God’s image, all of us are to be reflecting the character of God by striving to be loving, caring, holy, forgiving, gracious servants of Him.

How do we resolve our conflict?  The majority of bullying situations grow out of unresolved conflict.  This conflict and fighting comes as a result of our own selfish desires (James 4:1). We must learn not to respond to others sin by attacking them.  I must learn to respond calmly (Prov. 15:1).   We must learn that retaliation is never right (Prov.  20:22; Rom. 12:17; I Peter 3:9).  We must know that God has saved revenge as His right and responsibility (Rom. 12:19; Heb. 10:30).  He sees and knows all, and He is all-powerful, and therefore able to deal with the problem.  We must trust Him to deal with the problem through the authorities that He has set up or personally.  It may not always be the response for which we were wishing, but we can be certain God will deal with it.

Our response is to do everything in our power to live peaceably with all men (Rom. 12:18).   This does not mean we can compromise the truth of God’s word, or disobey His

commands, but we can do everything up to that point to bring about peace in our relationships.

The starting point:  In just this short space we have recognized that there is a standard of right and wrong that has been compromised in our relationships.  This “missing the mark” of God’s righteousness is called sin.  And the “wages of sin” is death (Rom. 6:23). That is bad news, but the good news is that the “gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom 6:23).  God in His love sent Jesus Christ to die on the cross to pay the penalty of our sin (John 3:16).  We therefore must recognize our sinfulness and the consequences or our sin and believe that Jesus Christ is the only remedy for that sin.  Are you ready to put your faith in Christ to take the punishment for your sin? 

This bullying problem will continue to increase if we do not teach and train individuals with these truths.  For more help, daily encouragement and more thorough explanations, as well as, other topics such as love and authority: find “The Bully Solution” on Facebook or twitter (@BullySolved) and follow so you get all the updates, or look up www.thebullysolution.blogspot.com to follow our blog.   The bully solution is a ministry of First Baptist Church of Littleton, IL . www.fbclittletonil.org

Faith-based counseling to help those struggling on either side of this issue is available by calling 309-257-2290.

How To Study the Bible (part 2) Interpretation

Our first step of Bible study was observation.  Hopefully we have worked hard and answered many questions regarding the passage at which we have been looking.  If we have worked hard these observations help us to know what is in the passage.  Knowing the content of the passage that we have been observing is our first step of interpretation.*

We then must consider how this passage is placed in the Bible.  This is called context.  How does it fit with the rest of the verses around it?  Is it part of a large sentence and extended paragraph?  How does it fit with the surrounding paragraphs and the rest of the book?  Then how does it fit in with the entire Bible?  These questions help us to determine literary context.

We also must consider when was this taking place?  What was going on at the same time politically, socially, and technologically in the world at this time.  This is the historical context.

Closely associated with the historical context would be the cultural context.  How people communicated and lived in their time helps us to understand the scriptures more.

In some passages an understanding of the geographical context will help with a clearer interpretation of the passage.

It is also important to see how the passage one is studying fits into the greater framework of Scripture?  God through the ages slowly revealed more of His plan.  What did the writer and the recipients understand and know about God.  What was the primary religion of the culture to which the writer was ministering?

As we come to an interpretation of a passage we must compare it to other passages that speak to the subject.  God is not the author of confusion so He will not give us two messages that fully contradict.

There are several tools that can be used to help us in our interpretation of the Scriptures.   A concordance helps us find other passages that use the same words or similar words.  Many of them also have short definitions.   A Bible dictionary is helpful for finding the definitions of key words or words that we might not fully understand.   There are various types of Bible dictionaries of which some are much more in depth than others.  Your depth of study and your knowledge of the original languages may affect the type of dictionary you want to get.  It is often helpful as well to read a passage in multiple translations to see how the different translators handled the passage.

Once you are pretty certain of the meaning of the text it is wise to check some commentaries to see if you are interpreting in a similar way to well known men whose interpretations and lives have proven faithful.  Some that have been helpful to me and that are often available both digitally and in book form are “Matthew Henry’s Commentary”, Warren Wiersbe’s Expositor’s Bible Commentary”, Albert Barnes – “Barnes Notes on the Bible”, Jameson-Fawcett Brown, John Gill’s Commentary, along with John MacArthur’s Commentary have all been helpful to me at different points in my life and ministry.  I don’t know that I agree with everything any one of them say, but they give me a great foundation for which to compare my final interpretations.

We cannot stop with interpretation but must go on to application, but we will save that for another day.

*Note: I am grateful for the work of Howard and William Hendricks in "Living by the Book".  This article reflects much of what I learned through their study.  For an in depth lesson on Bible study please get this text.

How Do I Study the Bible? - part 1

Someone sent me this question after watching one of my video blogs.  I will not be able to answer it in one blog but will take a couple of them to answer it.

One area we need to begin with is to determine, what is out goal in Bible Study.  Our goal in Bible study should be to determine what message the author was conveying to his original audience.  This keeps me from saying things like, “Well this passage means _______________ to me.”  The meaning does not change from one person to another.  Then, once we know the meaning of the passage we must ask the question of ourselves, “How should this information affect my life?”

The three main steps of inductive Bible study are observation, interpretation, and application.

In this short article I will only discuss observation and only a brief overview of the subject. 

As one observes a passage they must question the passage.  Here are a few ideas, but in no way are these exhaustive.

Who – Who is speaking?  To whom is it being spoken?  About who is it being said?

Where – Where is the author?  Where is it taking place?  Where is the letter going?

When – When was this taking place?  When will it take place?  When did the author live?  When is this in relation to the rest of the Bible?  Who is acting?  Upon whom is the action taking place?

What – What is taking place?  What are we being asked to do?  What is to be obeyed?

Hendricks in his book “Living By the Book”  challenges us to look for things that are emphasized, repeated, related, alike, unlike, or true to life pg. 166.  If you would like an in depth study on hermeneutics, how to study the scripture, I would encourage you to get this book and go through it with someone.

We must also realize that this is not an instant process.  We must read over a passage many times patiently looking at the structure and then thinking about the message that the author is striving to relay to us.  I personally use an eight color highlighting pencil in my personal devotions which I use to mark my Bible. 

The following chart shows what I use the colors for:

Red	Names or descriptions of God; LORD, Lord , Rock
Yellow	General highlight  or  challenge
Orange	Commands: Thou shall….; Gal. 5:1 Stand Fast…
Dark Blue	Geographic locations: Jerusalem, Samaria, Egypt
Light Blue	Prophecy or promises:
Pink	OT quotations in the NT
Green	Passages dealing with Salvation or God’s promise of salvation.
Brown	Translation/ manuscript issues – usually in the notes of the margin as well.
Regular pen circle	I circle major conjunctions ie. But in Gen. 6:8 or Gal. 5:18; or Therefore in Rom. 12:1 or Eph. 4:1

These things only scratch the surface as far as observation, but for many it will give you a great place to start as you embark upon learning the Word of God.  In future posts I will discuss interpretation and application.

End of Year Evaluation, New Year Motivation

Another Christmas is past and the year draws to a close.   Families all around are cleaning out the remnants of Christmas.  Let me encourage you as you do to evaluate whether Christ had first place this past Christmas, and whether he had first place this past year.

Yes, the New Year is a great time to evaluate our lives.  Where have we been and where are we headed?  This takes some careful examination.  Imagine a ship or plane captain that is only one or two degrees off as they chart their course over the Atlantic.  It seems like it makes no difference yet when they reach shore they will find they are hundreds of miles from where they had planned.

Life is similar.  We must carefully examine where we are going.  What may seem OK from a daily perspective in light of eternity may find us far from where we thought we were headed.

One of the first things to examine is how much am I allowing the Word of God to impact my life.  It should be our compass that helps us determine where we are headed.  Not only do we have the responsibility to be reading and studying the Bible but we have the responsibility to be under the teaching of God’s Word on a regular basis.

Some evaluation questions to help me see how I am doing:

11.   Have I been reading/studying God Word on my own?

22.   Am I faithfully attending Church?

33.   If so, are the messages at church driven by teaching of Scripture based upon the message of the original author to the original recipients?  Or are they based more upon the opinions of the speaker?

44.   Do the people that attend church with me have a passion for the Scriptures?  Do they bring their Bibles to church with them? Are they following along in their Bibles as the pastor preaches? Do they get concerned if the message of day is not based upon the text of Scripture?

55.   Am I willing to respond to the teaching of God’s Word and personal study?  Do I confess and forsake sin?  Am I concerned with being obedient to Jesus Christ?

66.   And most importantly, have I place my faith in Christ by asking forgiveness of my sin believing that Jesus Christ blood is the only thing sufficient to cleanse me and make me acceptable to God?  To trust in anything else whether it is baptism or any other works will not work.  In Revelation 20:13- 15 God’s Word makes it clear that at the final judgment all those judged on their works alone will be cast into the Lake of Fire.  It is those who put their faith in Christ that are saved by God’s grace(Eph. 2:8-9).

I hope that these few words help you set your course straight for the next year and many to come.