What kind of millions?I thought this would be a great start to this blog to capture your attention. You must get these (the million Taliah is holding)! They are Gospels of John from Living Waters - and they are amazing!! Living Waters Gospel of John Millions: store.livingwaters.com/million-dollar-gospel-of-john.html We are doing well, lots of studying, anticipating longer breaks, and doing evangelism! This month has been full of Gospel opportunities, missionary preparations, and excitement when thinking about upcoming adventures! What kinds of things are we up to? Gospel of John Millions!!Normal, everyday stuff!!It's so important to remember that we can serve the Lord even in normal, everyday situations. We don't have to wait until someone runs up to us begging for the Gospel, because that's not very likely to happen. Our encounters in stores on a normal basis can be extremely fruitful for the sake of the Gospel, even if it's just handing a tract to someone who works at the store! Taliah enjoys being out too, so that's helpful when we're trying to start conversations. But...there's also lots of studying to do... Daniel studying for seminary!I'm so proud of my husband! He has been working so hard. Even though seminary is beneficial, it will be VERY nice to get Thanksgiving break, and then a longer break for Christmas. Here Daniel is studying for Hebrew, which is continuing to go well! One of his textbooks is shown below. What are benefits of learning biblical Hebrew?I thought of 5 reasons why it's important to study biblical Hebrew, the first being the most important: 1. It glorifies God through (hopefully) understanding His Word more accurately. Think about how you would feel if an extremely famous world leader wrote a special message to you in a different language. Let's say it was translated into English, but you found out it was written a long time ago, so lots of contextual issues were raised about what the special person was actually trying to communicate with you. Wouldn't you take steps to try to understand what he wrote with more accuracy? The Bible is WAY more important than that. The God of the Universe communicated specifically to His children! That's a HUGE deal... Therefore, it's important to study Hebrew because of the positive implications of private worship. 2. Learning Hebrew serves the Lord through aiding others in the church. One more person studying Hebrew means one more person who's (Lord willing) going to speak out against heresies that aren't in the original language of the text. Therefore, studying Hebrew means churches will grow healthier and stronger with a proper application of the text. 3. This endeavor also fuels personal growth, not just through private worship and understanding the text with more clarity, but it helps the believer to learn study skills. Therefore, in general, Hebrew can benefit through Christians using their time wisely so that they have their focus right; they aren't in idleness or slothful areas of sin at least in their time of pursuing this study. 4. With those in mind, another aspect could be helpful to consider: learning Hebrew helps the unreached. How? Someone has to translate the Bible into the everyday language of the tribal people of Papua New Guinea. I say that as if there was merely one language the Scriptures need to be translated into, but that's the furthest thing from the truth. Even though souls are without excuse, because everyone rejects God through their sinful acts of rebellion against the Lord (not loving Him above all else, lying, stealing, etc.), I can't even imagine how horrible it must for people who don't have the Bible in their language. Some don't want it, actually, ALL don't want it, until God changes His people's hearts through the Gospel, but, once He does that, can you imagine being without the Bible in your language. Whoo! The Gospel has been preached to you, you remote tribe without access to anything! Go learn about the God who gave you life? Where? Where can you go to find the truth? You look around, and you're isolated. Do you trust that man over that who says God is a tree? Are you going to try to jump off your mountain to get to another one, because maybe they have the truth? Could this white man be correct, or is he just trying to steal your good spirits so that you're left, cursed? Considering all of this, think on the importance of learning Hebrew, the importance of getting the truth to these people. 5. Finally, learning Hebrew can help in everyday evangelism encounters. How so? An example I can think of is when one of our elders, named Omri, encountered some people on the street who said they knew Hebrew. They didn't, but Omri did. These guys could easily fool an average Christian who doesn't know Hebrew, and deceive them into thinking that the Gospel is about racial equality and the earth being flat. What defense does a Christian have against arguments they have when they say the Hebrew says this or that? Therefore, it's beneficial for Christians to learn Hebrew. On a lighter note...it's also important to spend time at the park!How does this relate to anything? Well, it relates to the Gospel, and it's encouraging!! Taliah had so much fun at the park! Now that she's crawling around and more independent, she enjoys playing so much!! ...and she broke the ice with a girl who was very open to the Gospel! I just want to share how encouraged I was through this specific conversation I had with a girl named Kelsey. I had asked her about the Gospel, and she gave more biblical answers than I think I've ever heard before when out sharing the Gospel! (And that was surprising, because she's from Ohio...you'll get that joke if you're from Michigan...) I don't remember exactly what she said, but she made it clear that she was NOT a good person, and that she doesn't deserve Heaven because of her sin and rebellion against a holy God. She said the only way she could be saved was through the Gospel, through Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, who came to earth to live a sinless life that we could never live on our own. Repentance, turning from sin to Christ is the only way one can be saved. I'm so excited just thinking about that conversation!! But this is NOT okay................I had to include this, because it actually should convict Christians. Um...I don't need yogurt tubes to tell me to be lazy!! I put the best of our lives in this blog, but, being honest, we are not crazy on-fire evangelists who are constantly studying and always happily using our time to the fullest capacity. We are sinful, extremely sinful, and, (especially me) we can waste so many resources and so much time, and be so lazy! I don't need yogurt that reminds me of that and acts like it's a good thing!! While I understand that people can be TOO busy, and that they can overdo things, that is NOT American culture. Westerners might burn themselves out over stuff that's not important, but the majority of people in the world (me included) need to stop laying around and "taking it easy". Slow is not too fast. Slothfulness (I can't believe they have an actual sloth on a yogurt tube) is NOT okay. Just needed to get that off my chest... This is why we don't have TV... Instead, we read books!!This is one of Daniel's books for seminary. He says his class on pastoral leadership is really good, and this book specifically is awesome! If you haven't heard of Alistair Begg (one of the authors of this book), you should look him up! He's a pastor in Ohio that we would strongly recommend. You will love his accent! It's Scottish, so it's not quite as amazing as Daniel's, but it's pretty good. This is one of our favorite clips of him. It's only 5 minutes, you can spare the time...it's really funny... Alistair Begg isn't Nuts about Contemporary Worship, courtesy of Wretched Radio: www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJhCWrdckpc Haha, he kicked a dog... What? Why is that funny? Go watch the video!! :) See? Taliah likes the video!!Look at how big she's getting! We are so blessed to have a little crawler now!! She has been doing so well! Anything and everything peeks her attention, and she's really into whatever fun things we will let her have. :) She likes listening to her father too!!This is Daniel stopping to explain how much he's getting out of the Bible through his reading for his Old Testament survey class!! You wouldn't believe how much you can get out of the Old Testament just by reading it in a short period of time. His class requires specific note taking too, so that's been helpful to retain information. This could be a helpful time to stop and consider what your Bible reading is like, and how it could be more fruitful!! I'll admit that sometimes I learn more from listening to Daniel talk about the Old Testament than I do from personally reading the Bible.... Another seminary book!Here's another one of the books Daniel is reading for seminary! This book is from his Hermeneutics class. Hermeneutics, if you haven't heard the term, is the art and science of interpreting the Bible. Something that's been helpful from this class: how the art of writing lots of papers and studying one specific passage of Scripture in depth is important. It's exciting to watch Daniel start his final paper for the semester!! And it's amazing to watch how he is with Taliah!!I love her shirt in the biggest picture. :) It's so true! She loves her father!! In the pictures under the big one, Daniel is playing with Taliah, jokingly helping her "put on her shoes" (they're my shoes). Before long, she will fit in my shoes! We pray we can teach her to use her feet for the sake of the Gospel!! This verse comes to mind: Rom 10:14-15, "How then are they to call on Him in whom they have not believed? How are they to believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how are they to hear without a preacher? But how are they to preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things!”" Speaking of sharing the Gospel with our feet... Evangelism!!We thought this door was pretty funny. Though we weren't able to connect with the people of this home, we have had some interesting conversations with the door to door evangelism our church has started! The coolest part of this ministry is that we go to residences right across from the church, so, when we explain who we are, we can tell them we're right across the road!! What is the most interesting experience we've had so far? A little while ago, Daniel, Taliah and I (split up from a few other groups from our church) approached a door. Not getting an answer from the other side, we left a tract and were about to leave, when three young guys came up. They said they lived there, and then Daniel proceeded to ask them what they think about what happens after someone dies, to which they responded with information on psychedelics. Fun... To make a long story short, they ended up letting us in, and Daniel was able to share the Gospel with them while one guy (Noah) set up his tattoo station to give one of the others a tattoo in his bedroom. It was something else... After that, it was time to study!!Here's a book Daniel is reading for his Theology class. This is one book I'm reading too, and it's very informative! One point that stuck out in this book is regarding how holy God is, and how sinful we are in comparison. We can't even imagine what Heaven could be like. Our absolute BEST imagination can't even compare to the "worst" of Heaven, if there could be such a thing. So, before we get to there, we're making the best of this fallen world! Having a great time at the library!Taliah loves to hang out at the library. It's one of her favorite places! We try to give people tracts occasionally, but it's usually not too busy. So this is where we go to the religion section of the books and put tracts there... ...after Taliah laughs at herself in the mirror. :) And what is Daniel doing all this time? More studies!Along with reading through the Old Testament, Daniel has been studying this book, one I mentioned in an earlier blog. It's by a guy whos last name is Oehler, and it includes plenty of lectures he gave. The book was written in the 1800's, so it's an older read. Daniel has been diligently reading it and taking notes with that pencil in his ear! Want more info about that class? One of Daniel's binders!This is Daniel's binder for the Old Testament class. He has quizzes in the class frequently, so it's important for him to keep up on reading his notes for the class, too! His professor also teaches one of his other classes, so it's quite a load! Daniel really appreciates how this class goes through the Old Testament in detail... ...and we love learning with him!! Guess what came in the mail?Taliah?!? Haha...obviously she didn't come in this box, but she loved playing in it! But what did we get? Free resources from Living Waters!! These little books were given away free from one of our favorite ministries, Living Waters!! We're so blessed by them! Speaking of Living Waters...I just wanted to point out that, if you haven't seen this little video, it's a must see for your entire family. It's only 5 minutes, the same as the Alistair Begg video. You can do it!! Living Waters Are You a Good Person video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYZw0dfLmLk Everyone needs a reminder of the Gospel! And everyone should study hard!Here's my last picture of Daniel studying for this blog. This is him hard at work at our church! I think he was working on his paper in this picture. I'm so excited that he's doing so well, and that we get a break soon! Excited to see what God has in store for us next! Lord willing...including being missionaries to Papua New Guinea!
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AuthorsDaniel and Sarah Bruce desire to be missionaries to the unreached peoples of the world. Daniel is from Australia and Sarah is from Detroit, MI. They reside in Phoenix, AZ, where they are members at Shepherd's House Bible Church in Chandler, AZ. Archives
March 2024
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