One source discipleship plan

The One Source Discipleship Plan is a personal discipleship program based in the word of God. After all the word of God is God’s tool for developing disciples. We often find ourselves spending more time reading books about the Bible than we do actually reading the Bible.

THE PLAN- 1 chapter a day, 1 verse a week, A resource for Life!
Each week participants will read one chapter of first John each day. This will allow the participants to actually read through the book of first John each week for five weeks. At the end of your daily reading you should spend some time focusing on the key verse. First studying, then memorizing and meditating on this verse. It is hoped that at the end of the sermon series participants will have memorized one key verse from each chapter, and have a general understanding of the basic themes of each section.  Those who want to do a little bit of extra work can follow self-study suggestions to develop a more comprehensive idea of what is in each chapter. This will provide not only an easily accessible outline of the book but an understanding of the key concepts from the scripture to use in our own personal discipleship, and our conversation with others.

THE RATIONALE
Peter uses the illustration (1 Peter 2:2) of infants loving milk (baby food processed by the mother), and adults who eat steak for themselves. His point seems to be that as we grow spiritually we become less dependent on others to explain and teach and more dependent on what we gain from scripture itself. If all we do is attend church services, eventually we will hear the sermon on "Three Ways to Handle Stress".  If we meditate on Philipians 4 we will gain wisdom and insight that will help us manage our emotions; trust God with our daily lives; focus our thoughts on productive things; learn how to use worry as a trigger for prayer; and how to pray in stressful situations. Better yet, memorize philippians 4:6 and you will always have a practical plan ready at a moments notice, to guard our own hearts and share with someone else, any time worry creeps into our lives.

Philippians 4:6 Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. - New Living Translation.

THE PROCESS
There are many good books on how to study the bible available. They cover all the different types of literature the bible uses (narrative, prose, poetry, apocalypse, parables, paralellism, geneologies, songs, hymns, etc). The Bible was written by 45 different authors, using 4 different languages, over 1500 years, in 66 books. You can do a Phd. in Biblical Hermaneutics (how to study the Bible) at seminary if you want to, or you can use a more simple process for your own personal bible study.

Howard Hendricks taught hermaneutics at Dallas Theological Seminary for years and suggests a simple process using the acronym OIL. Observation is the begining of Bible study (What does it say? How is it said?...), Interpretation is the process of understanding and explaining what it means (What questions does the passage raise? ...answer? and how would I explain this to someone else?). Life applicaiton draws out, how the passage should change our lives.

The Hand Illustration - the thumb gives us "Grip"

The Navigators use a simple illustration of a hand to help students remember how to study the bible. They also have a resource page that contains many helpful articles about how to grow spiritually. One resource is a brief explanation about how to do personal bible study, including a simple 7 step process that helps keep you focused.

Series Overview

 This series is designed to encourage personal Bible study along with the current sermon series at Stone Creek Bible Church. For those that would like to follow the sermon series and get as much possible from the word of God this blog will create an opportunity for you to post your ideas, feedback and insights about the chapter we are studying each week. Participants will glean the most out of this experience by committing to memorize the theme verse from each chapter. In this way our discipleship foundation will be strictly based on the word of God. Participants will finish the study with the ability to use “verses that will connect directly to their confidence in Christ. These key verses will also provide you with an outline of the book that will make it easy to refer to these themes in your conversation and meditation time.

1 John uses the word "confidence" 4 times in 5 chapters. This is the highest frequency of any book in the Bible and signals the intention of the author.  In a five week series we will be looking at each chapter from the perspective of building our "confidence in Christ".

Chapter 1 - Confidence in Forgiveness    1 John 1:9
Chapter 2 - Confidence in Maturity         1 John 2:14
Chapter 3 - Confidence in Conflict
Chapter 4 - Confidence in
Chapter 5 - Confidence in

Chapter 3- Confidence in Conflict

Believers often find themselves in different kinds of conflict; opposition from the world; forces of evil, our own doubts; and personal failures. God has given us instruction and guidance through the word. Why would we not cultivate a life of obedience. God has given us the example of sacrificial love in the life of Christ. Why would we not practice this example? God has given us His Holy Spirit to guide us into righteousness. Why would we not excercise this power to live righteous lives?

These conflicts are designed to test us. John appears to believe that the test will leave us more confident having passed them, and so the approach John uses is almost shocking in it's extream boldness. He suggests that confidence comes from complete obedience, sacrificial love for others and radically righteous living. To those looking for a way to win God's favor these requirements seem impossible, and they are. Fortunately these are not the entrance requirements, they are the results of our faith in God, and our love for HIm. While it is true that our relationship with Him will produce these things, our confidence will never come from our effort or performance, it will always come from our trust in Him and His ongoing transformation of our lives.

This week our study will include the passage from 2:18 - 3:24. (Don Stewart explains how the chapters and verses were not added until after the 13th century. Originally the scriptures were written to encourage people to read the books all the way through rather than breaking them up into small sections.)

The first few comments are simply designed to organize replies into groups for convenience. As you reply to these comments your insights will be grouped together for these main topics. Feel free to add comments off topic, or for general questions or ideas as additional comments.

Chapter 2 – Confidence in Maturity

Chapter 2 includes several sections that address the topic of our spiritual growth in Christ. The themes of the chapter include a discussion of who Jesus is and what he has done for us John addresses three different groups of believers based on their spiritual maturity, and gives us some keys to understanding how this growth process works in our life the end result of spiritual growth is to become more like God in every way possible.

 By participating in this discussion you will be contributing to the sermon development plan for Sunday morning.

Please comment on the important themes of the chapter, insights on specific verses or perspectives that help you to apply these truths.

Chapter 1- Confidence in Forgiveness

 First John chapter 1 has the theme of confidence in approaching God. Theme verse is 1 John 1:9