Essays & Bible Studies

I write lit­tle essays from time to time, usu­al­ly in response to fre­quent ques­tions I receive from my stu­dents (some­times in con­junc­tion with my respon­si­bil­i­ties as a min­is­te­r­i­al train­er). I have gath­ered as many as I can think of here. Enjoy. Feel free to reuse them in non­com­mer­cial con­texts. Like­wise for the Bible stud­ies.

Bear in mind that I am not writ­ing as a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of any orga­ni­za­tion — all views expressed are my own (and, hope­ful­ly, God’s).

Essays

1. Why Jesus.pdf This lit­tle essay is some­thing I’ve begun mak­ing avail­able at my meet­ings for non­be­liev­ers to take on the way out. I talk about three sim­ple rea­sons to believe in God, and then show how to go about decid­ing whether Jesus is tru­ly the path to God.

2. The Jesus FAQ.pdf This is a com­pan­ion piece to the Why Jesus essay — it explains what we can know about Jesus even if we don’t think that the Bible is inspired. Ques­tions include: “Is There Any Record of Jesus Out­side the Bible?”, “What Did Jesus Look Like?” and “What Did Jesus Teach?”

3. The Spir­it of Jesus.pdf This is an intro­duc­tion to bap­tism in the Holy Spir­it and spir­i­tu­al gifts for those who are ner­vous about the Holy Spir­it.

4. The Ele­phant In The Room: Not All Reli­gions Are Equal­ly Cor­rect Aren’t all reli­gions basi­cal­ly the same? NOPE.

5. Should I Date Out­side The Faith? One of the most com­mon ques­tions I get is whether Chris­t­ian stu­dents should date peo­ple who do not share their faith. tl;dr no. This arti­cle explains why.

6. Change the Uni­ver­si­ty, Change the World I wrote this piece for my sem­i­nary’s alum­ni mag­a­zine, Rap­port. If you ever won­der why peo­ple like me are so pas­sion­ate about col­lege min­istry, this will clear things up for you.

7. Thrive at Stan­ford 2010.pdf This is a 10 day devo­tion­al guide for new stu­dents at Stan­ford which begins on the first day of New Stu­dent Ori­en­ta­tion. This is the Fall Quar­ter 2010 ver­sion.

8. The Essence of Integri­ty by Glen Davis.doc This is a med­i­ta­tion on one of the foun­da­tion­al con­cepts of char­ac­ter.

9. The Flam­ing Goats of Edom — Thoughts on Hell.pdf This is one of my favorite essays. Think­ing about hell makes many Chris­tians uncom­fort­able and (iron­i­cal­ly) even keeps some unbe­liev­ers from con­sid­er­ing the faith, so in this essay I seek to make the doc­trine com­pre­hen­si­ble to peo­ple.

10. Test­ing My Faith — Being Con­fi­dent of My Sal­va­tion. Every once in a while I meet some­one who’s not sure whether they’re a Chris­t­ian or not, and so I wrote this med­i­ta­tion on 1st John to help them dis­cern where they’re at with Jesus.

11. Evan­ge­lism in the New Testament.doc This isn’t real­ly an essay on how to share your faith effec­tive­ly so much as an essay on how not to irri­tate God when shar­ing your faith.

12. How Can I Tell If I Am Being Effective.doc Some thoughts on eval­u­at­ing my use of time.

13. Dili­gence In The Bible by Glen Davis.doc A very short essay direct­ed at min­is­ters (although there’s real­ly only one line mak­ing it min­is­ter-spe­cif­ic).

14. Stan­ford Chi Alpha Small Group Guide.doc Noth­ing very orig­i­nal here, but we find it help­ful.

15. What the Bible Says About Money.doc This isn’t real­ly a full-fledged essay. It’s a one-page sum­ma­ry of what the Bible says about mon­ey (which is more than most peo­ple think).

16. Does the Bible Assert that Jesus is God.doc: a very short sum­ma­ry of the Bib­li­cal evi­dence for the deity of Christ. It’s writ­ten for believ­ers, in case that was­n’t obvi­ous from the title.

17. What the Bible Says About Bap­tism: an exhor­ta­tion to Chris­tians to be bap­tized along with an expla­na­tion of what bap­tism is all about.

Tools

1. A Week of Pray­ing With the Apostles.doc This 3 page hand­out guides you through a week of pray­ing for those whom you serve using the prayers of the New Tes­ta­ment as a mod­el.

2. Apply­ing the Bible.doc This one page hand­out is one of the most impor­tant things I teach peo­ple. I for­get where I first learned this idea, but I know it is not orig­i­nal to me.

3. How To Read False Reli­gious Texts.doc This is an unusu­al lit­tle tool. I wrote it because I require my min­is­te­r­i­al trainees to read from the writ­ings of oth­er reli­gions. This lit­tle hand­out explains why and how.

Pastoral Letters

Dur­ing the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic I began send­ing phys­i­cal let­ters to my stu­dents. Here they are.

1. East­er Pas­toral Letter.pdf — a brief reflec­tion on the impli­ca­tions of East­er

Bible Studies

Most of these are for per­son­al and not group use. They could be adapt­ed for group use, but don’t think you can down­load them and stroll into a small group meet­ing with no extra prep.

1. Being Filled With the Spir­it Per­son­al Bible Study.doc This is a very good study to give to a stu­dent who believes that Bible is God’s word but is uncer­tain about what it means to be bap­tized in the Holy Spir­it. It is for per­son­al and not group use.

2. God And His Rivals — a Per­son­al Bible Study.doc This study will require a lot of thought and a will­ing­ness to think out­side the evan­gel­i­cal box.

3. Wor­ship — A Per­son­al Bible Study.doc This is a study for wor­ship lead­ers, although I sup­pose any Chris­t­ian could prof­it from it.

4. Preach­ing — A Per­son­al Bible Study.doc I real­ly like stud­ies like this one which list many exam­ples of some­thing from the Bible and ask you to infer con­clu­sions. They feel so sci­en­tif­ic.

5. Min­istry of Women — Bible Study.doc This is a hand­out I give my min­is­te­r­i­al trainees before they wade into the vast lit­er­a­ture for and against women in min­istry. It’s a way of mak­ing sure that they’re famil­iar with all the rel­e­vant texts before they see them cit­ed.

6. Accept­ing Cor­rec­tion Gracefully.doc This per­son­al Bible study is about giv­ing and receiv­ing rebukes. Most­ly receiv­ing. Okay, it’s real­ly about receiv­ing rebukes and only implic­it­ly about offer­ing them.

7. By Night and By Day — Evan­ge­lism Bible Study.doc This is a very short Bible study com­par­ing how Jesus talked with Nicode­mus with how he talked with the woman at the well.

8. Cul­ti­vat­ing Noble Char­ac­ter — Prov 31.doc A very short study about not being a slack­er.

9. Davids Fall and Restoration.doc A one page study of a pas­sage most peo­ple don’t know as well as they think.

10. How To Be A Ser­vant — a Per­son­al Bible Study.doc A very short study for new cam­pus min­is­ters.

11. Proverbs — Watch­ing Your Words.doc I bet there are peo­ple shocked to know that I’ve spent time reflect­ing on what it means to speak wise­ly.

12. What Is Blamelessness.doc A study for new min­is­ters.

13. What to and What not to Study.doc Kind of self-explana­to­ry.

14. Work and Sab­bath — A Per­son­al Bible Study.doc This study is word­ed for new cam­pus min­is­ters, but 98% of it works for peo­ple in oth­er voca­tions.