Arlie,
I Thank the Lord for Ariel Ministries! The Come and See (Messianic Bible Study) series has been extremely helpful in making me aware of major themes that I did not know about before. Things that I would read (and that I still read) don't immediately make sense, but as I work through the material, more and more of the Bible is illuminated through Arnold's teaching and though the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Very exciting!
Last year I realized that my spiritual health was very much like this very sick church that I find myself at. I've fooled myself long enough. If I (or anyone else) am not in God's word on a daily basis, there will be nothing from which to draw from for ministry purposes. How much work can you do if you're starving, spiritually or physically? Not much.
This year is different. I've been on a daily reading schedule since August 1, 2008. From January 10, 2009 till today, I've completed 53 of 60 Come and See MBS quizzes. And because of what I'm learning, God has been able to use me to deal with problems in the church and problems with people in the church. A friendship is close to being restored with a friend of mine because of how the Lord has been working in his life, and I've been able to be one part of that. I was able to talk to a young man who wants to be involved with youth ministry but is struggling with sexual purity. He wants God's will to be done in his life. I was able to mention the Come and See MBS series and he may be an additional person, besides my wife, for which to disciple over the next year with those materials. Also, after living here for two years, we finally have entertained our neighbors just west of us on a couple of occasions. Come to find out, Hana is a Jewish woman who used to live in Israel! She mentioned that she was from Israel in previous conversations but finally mentioned that she was a Jew the other day. I had just been taking some of those quizzes and told her how important the Jewish people were to the world. She told us that we'd be Jews too if Jesus hadn't died and raised up from the grave. At that answer, I was able to describe to her what Jews, Gentiles, and Christians were and also distinguish between Jews and Judaism. I don't know if she understood all of what I said, but I wanted to make sure that she knew it was impossible for me to be a Jew because I didn't have Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in my line like she did. We look forward to more conversations with her.
Last week I was asked if I have ever considered being in ministry by our interim Pastor. I told him because of the spiritual drought conditions that I've observed in the church and in my own life, I have thought about it. A lack of Bible teaching seems to be a problem in our church. It is more than likely that way elsewhere too. This afternoon I mentioned the ministry idea to the district secretary and he seemed very supportive. He stated that he didn't know if I had any formal training but I seemed to have a good working knowledge of the Bible. He also said something to the effect that they prefer to use people that can handle the Bible over seminary training, because seminary training seems to promote religion. (Of course, lack of proper training yields just about the same problems or more, as well as his statement seemed to reveal why there are so many problems in this denomination.)
So now I'm at Ariel's Follow Me Discipleship Training phase 2, teaching the Life of the Messiah from a Jewish Perspective. I've thought back over all that I've learned this year and how to disseminate all the information. The MBS series is very good. You mentioned the idea about not dumping all the information at once, but put the hook out. So I've also considered covering the first five of Come and See and then going to Life of Messiah. Though the A/G seems very supportive of Israel, I've asked where they were on their view of the Bible. Though supportive of Israel (they have a National Day of Prayer for the Peace of Jerusalem scheduled Oct. 4th) the interim pastor seemed to think that most of the professors in Springfield probably did not have a Dispensational view of the Bible. I don't know if they have a replacement view either because if you did, why pray for Israel's peace? Another idea was to first teach "The Church and the Jews" to get the reason for why the Jewish perspective is so important. I think because of the denomination I'm ministering in and who I'm ministering to and their spiritual health, I'm thinking just starting out with the Life of Messiah might be the best place to start. It lays out a good overview and like Arnold says, there are a lot of MBS studies that go into greater detail which find their basis in the Messiah's life here on earth.
That's about all for now.
Neil K.
Auburn, NE
(09/21/09)