Next up, Terry in Boise, Idaho. Hi Terry.
Yeah?
Hi!
Hi.
Your question?
Um, yes! I have a
young adult son that is kind of walking away from the Lord for a while, and been beat
up by the world and coming back around, and is open to God. I was wondering-- he's
not-- you just can't go to church and relate, connect with church, but I think
you would do like a Bible study-- where would you--
what book in the Bible would you start at with someone that's kind of searching and uh, I guess that's
my question.
You know, what this is kind of maybe counterintuitive to sort of the
advice that people would give you in terms of reading the Bible, but what I
would do is I would start with either Psalms or Proverbs or both.
I've just been going through Psalms and Proverbs - the book of Psalm, and the
Psalms in that book and the Proverbs - they're absolutely
transformational. And they're so practical. "My son, do not forget my
teaching, but let your heart keep my Commandments for length of days and
years of life and peace they will add to you. Do not let kindness and truth leave
you - bind them around your neck. Write them on the tablet of your heart. Then
you'll find favor and good repute in the sight of God and men." I mean these are
all practical things. Every enterprise is built by wise planning becomes strong
through common sense and prophets wonderfully by staying abreast of the
facts. There's no wisdom or counsel or understanding against the Lord. The horse
is prepared for the day of battle, but victory belongs to the Lord. And
there are literally hundreds and hundreds of more, but they're
intriguing, and virtually every single principle and Maxim therefore for
successful daily living are found in the book of Proverbs. And then
the Psalms of David - I think I was saying on a previous broadcast that I couldn't
sleep a week or so ago, I got up in the middle of the night, and I was reading
through the Psalms and there was such an encouragement to me, and then I read, "You
will not die, but live and proclaim the works of the Lord, the Lord has chastised
you severely, but the Lord is not giving you over to death. I took that passage, I
memorized it in four different versions, and then that passage became something
very, very meaningful to me as I'm going through the caldron of diversity with
respect to my health. So you know those are two books that I would start with.
But you know, maybe even prior to that, I would get a good primer on how to read
the Bible in the sense in which it's intended because if you do for your son
the Bible will open up like a fragrant rose. If you don't it still becomes very,
very difficult to make sense of. And Christina and I were doing a Facebook
live just before we came into the studio and this is one of the things we talked
about - the art and signs the biblical interpretation - which is a science in
that rules apply, an art in that the more you apply the rules the better you get
at it, and if you want I'd be happy to send that out to you so you can do a
little bit of a Bible study starting with that flip chart.