Final Chapter in Thessalonians

SCF will be concluding their study of Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians Tuesday night. Read chapter 5 or the whole letter once more to prepare.

6:30 in C207

Movie Night #3

Bonny & Clyde will be our movie of the evening. This Tuesday meet at St. Simons (1450 Litchfield Dr. Oakville). We'll have pizza and drinks as per usual and discussion of the movie afterwards.

1st Thessalonians III

Tonight we completed chapter number 3 of the above stated book/letter. We wrestled through some interpretation and then tackled matters of suffering and/or persecution which led us to discuss our commitment to seeking others' salvation, but mostly (I think anyways) we spoke of how belief [faith (Pistis in Greek)] connects and binds us together.

Stay tuned for next Tuesday's SCF - we'll hit up the 4th chapter of five.
Some themes in this chapter are "The Will of GOD","Sex", "Life After Death" and "Christ's 2nd Coming."

1 Thessalonians continues: 2nd chapter

We'll be continuing our observational study of Paul's 1st (and maybe only....) letter to the Thessalonians. We are now ont the second chapter. Read ahead and bring you insight. Or wait until Tuesday and read and observe then. Both work out. Same place and time as usual.

Cheers

Say Anything...

Movie Night at St. Simons.
This Tuesday March 4
6:30pm at St. Simons (1450 Litchfield Rd)
Pizza & Drinks

We are watching the film, "Say Anything..." a romance/drama directed by Cameron Crowe, starring John Cusack.

Thessalonians: Key Words and Study Tips

Key Words write these down in your bible, mark 'em up, so you don't forget them and they start to pop out at you.
gospel/word
faith
love
hope
any reference to Jesus
God
Holy Spirit
affliction/suffering./tribulation
day of the Lord
-any other words you think are key


Recapitulation: Observe/Interpret/Apply - see below blog for detailed approach.

Observe the 5 W's Who wrote to whom? When? From where to where? What is being said? Why is the letter written, or is Paul saying what he says?
Interpret - derive meaning of passages based on context of the chapter/bible/history/society
Apply - Transfer principles to our lives today based on our interpretation.


Some Helpful questions to double check along the way:

a. Where does this passage fit into the Meta-narrative?

b. What is its immediate context?

c. What is the genre of this passage/book?

d. What was the intended meaning of this passage to its original audience? (A text can’t mean what it never meant?

e. How does this passage point to or enlighten our understanding of Jesus?

f. What are the transferable principles for our context today?

g. Are there any biblical principles that shed light on this passage?

h. How does this challenge me personally? What course correction should I make? How should this change how I get up in the morning? What would align my life more with Jesus?

Manuscript Study - Steps and Resources

Hey!

I'm really excited about these next few lessons we have planned - I think we're going to be able to pull alot out of 1 Thessalonians, have some good discussions and grow from what we learn and from seeing each others points of views. I think we all have something valuable to bring to the table.

For those of you who weren't there tonight we going to be digging through 1 Thessalonians - looking at a chapter each time we have a regular meeting. You can get a copy of this from the last email we sent out - if you need the file again just ask. It's helpful to print off the passages so you are free to mark it up and make notes.

We were using three steps tonight when we were looking at the first chapter of the book. Here's a rundown to help you remember:

Observation
Here's where read through the passage, without looking at any outside sources, and note down things that strike you. This could be powerful phrases, reoccuring words or themes, metaphors etc.

Interpretation
Now you can look up anything you want that you think might help you understand the passage better. You can refer to other parts of the Bible that you think relate to what you are reading, look up definitions of words you don't understand, and use commentaries and other resources that are available to you.
Here's some online resources I found - I know there is more out there and feel free to look (searching under 1 Thessalonians, or bible commentary was pretty successful for me)

http://www.enduringword.com/commentaries/52.html

http://www.searchgodsword.org/com/bcc/view.cgi?book=1th

http://www.biblegateway.com/resources/commentaries/index.php?action=getBookSections&cid=60&source=2

http://eastonsbibledictionary.com/ (Bible Dictionary)

Application

The last step is apply this to your life - open your heart to what God is trying to say to you and how He wants you to respond to the passage.

So those are the steps - don't feel like you need to entirely dissect the passage. It's a group effort. I encourage you all to definitely read 1 Thessalonians 2 and dig into it a bit for our next regular meeting (which will be March 11th because of the movie night on March 4), but don't feel like you can't come and join in on our discussion if you haven't gotten through it all. The themes we'll be talking about are things that relate to our lives - so your bound to have opinions/stories/experiences/wisdom to share.

Have a great Break Week everyone!

1 Thessalonians begins

This Tuesday (post family day) we'll be starting to read and study Paul's letter to the Thessalonians.

Written in 49 CE, it's Paul's earliest surviving letter.

Thessalonica is and was a port city. Located in present day Greece, it was the capital of the Roman province of Macedonia during the time of the Empire.

Check us out at 6:30pm in room C207, not 209.

You don't know jack.

Scf this tuesday (February 12) room c209 at 6:30. We are going to let those who want to share their personal faith journeys in 10 minutes or less. This should expose our deeper bonds we share with each other, the work of Jesus Christ.

Barriers to belief.

A fundamental concern with Christians is really believing all this Christian stuff. Doubt plagues us, debilitating us from being passionate followers of Christ unto transformation; first of ourselves and then others.

Jesus asks in John 5:44, "How can you believe, when you receive honour (glory, praise or fame) from one another and you do not seek the honour (glory) that is from the one and only God?"

Jesus is tackling a barrier to belief - something we'll unpackage at SCF.
Something else we will unpackage is chocolate fondue.

Movie night past

For those of you who missed our first pizza movie night of the semester, we watched "The Machinist," with Christian Bale at St. Simon's Anglican Church. It was good flick with some strong and provoking thoughts and themes. I won't spoil it, but I recommend watching it and watching it again to see how the director left subtle hints and clues everywhere. I've been analyzing the film somewhat and there are lots of spiritual nuggets in there to be mined and mulled over. Quite intriguing. There was also interesting discussion aftewards hosted by the very Reverend himself, if that's something that gets you going. If not, well, next week we are back to regular programming plus maybe chocolate fondue?

more details on that this weekend - look forward to some discussion from the bible and Jesus Christ.

Truth Project Vid

For those interested in understanding basic philisophical and biblical ideas and truths concerning the many areas of life, Faith Baptist's church is hosting evenings for young adults to watch "The Truth Project."

This Friday at 7pm (just across from Sheridan) they will be screening the fourth video in the series. You don't have to start at the beginning, but if you want to know more check out http://www.thetruthproject.org/ for now.

Movie Night! with the anglicans

This Tuesday we are meeting at St. Simon's Anglican Church for a movie night. The movie is: Instinct with Anthony Hopkins. There'll be pizza and drinks. After the movie we'll have some discussion with Rev. Darcy Lazerte. So however you like the movie, we'll talk about the truths we can glean.

Place: St. Simons - 1450 Litchfield Rd (red brick church across from Sheridan College, NOT Faith Baptist Church).
Time: 6:30pm -9:30

SCF Tuesday #2

Jesus, the Bible and the Family. First we'll have some game and snack time before tackling the topic of Christ centred family. We hope as we do this we can get to know eachother, be supportive and encouraging in the spirit of Jesus.

SCF: 2008

This semesters first meeting is in C209 this Tuesday (tomorrow) at 6:30. We are starting the year with some catch up, games and naturally snacks.

Some of our goals this semester is to get to know each other and get to know Christ through those relationships: Focusing more on prayer, social outtings, and personal encouragement.

A outstanding goal has been to make SCF reach out to Sheridan College. This will mean that instead of focusing on bringing people to SCF, we bring ourselves to our College in intentional and supportive ways.

That means partnering with existing college and student intiatives in whatever way we can. The Student Union and other clubs are doing interesting and positive things and we'll be finding out how we can contribute.

Stay Tuned for those exciting developments!