Gospel Light Christian Church Thru-The-Bible Series
Q&A A Gospeliter's chat with Pastor Paul Choo about the Thru-The-Bible
(TTB) Series
Q: Pastor, you mentioned the Thru-The-Bible Program that will be started on 7th January.
Can you please tell us a little more about it?
A: Sure. As the name suggests, it is not meant
to be an in-depth study of the Bible. It is designed to help us read thru the Bible. Its objective is to help Gospeliters
to read through the entire Bible in five years. This works out to reading a chapter of the Bible every weekday
- from Monday to Friday. In other words, it will come to five chapters a week. As some books of the Bible are more
important, some chapters are longer or more difficult - the reading schedule will not be exactly one chapter per
weekday.
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Q: Pastor, I heard that there are many pages of notes to read in this program.
I'm afraid that many of us are so busy and are not good readers - so I think that it will be a big challenge for
us just to read one chapter a day, let alone read all the notes!
A: The notes are meant to be supplementary - they
must not be allowed to distract us from reading the Bible. Remember the name of the program is Thru-The-Bible.
Therefore, the focus of the program is the Bible, not the notes. Anyone who is very busy should only read the Bible
- and file the notes, in case he needs to refer to them when he is less busy. Those who have some time left over
after reading the chapter may use the notes to help him to understand certain verses that he has difficulty understanding.
For example, if after you have read the chapter -and you have found verses 5 and 10 to be difficult to understand,
then you just refer in your notes to the explanations on verses 5 and 10. Furthermore, the notes are divided into
"notes" and "footnotes." The "notes" give more general information but the "footnotes"
give more detailed information or some information just for interest. Therefore, unless you have much time or much
interest in a certain verse, there is no need to read the footnotes.
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Q: Pastor, Singaporeans are so "kiasu" that they must read all their
notes, important or not important, or they cannot sleep! I'm afraid that when they see so many pages of notes,
they will get scared! Furthermore, they will be scared that their Spiritual Family leader will ask them questions
and they don't know the answer!
A: I guess that you are right though I hope that
we will be able to see the notes as just what they are meant to be - something useful to help them when need help
and not something more important than the Bible itself. Also, our SF leaders have been taught how to lead their
SF bible-study. By the time SF's gather on Friday, Sfers will have read through five days of Bible reading and
there are so many lessons that they have learned. There is no way to try to review five chapters in the 45 minutes
allocated to bible study, nor to try to cover every useful or interesting lesson learned. Furthermore, we must
not turn our SF gatherings into a classroom - and lose our time to minister to each other's needs.
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Q: Then what will the SF leaders do?
A: They will have to depend on the Holy Spirit
to guide them what to say. They may share one lesson that they learned, or request some of their Sfers to share
one or two lessons that they learned. They may try to answer some Questions that arise regarding the chapters that
were read. They may chose one of the topics in the chapters read and bring it up for discussion. If there are visitors
or unsaved people in their SF, they have been taught to choose relevant verses from the chapters read to bring
up the Gospel or other suitable information for them. In other words, each SF will be led in different ways according
to their differing needs, to discuss the chapters that they have read.
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Q: Pastor, won't we be ending up like those so-called bible studies where everyone
gives his opinion - and we end up hearing man's opinions rather than God's?
A: I'm very scared of these so-called bible studies
and we have taken every safeguard to prevent our program from becoming like this! Though we will allow discussions,
we will all have read the Bible before we give our suggestions and therefore our minds have already been informed
and transformed by God's Word. It will not be a free-for-all discussion but a discussion that is guided by God's
Word. It will be the best of both worlds because we will learn from God and we will also learn more about each
other as we share and discuss His Word. This is what a spiritual family is all about - knowing God and each other!
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Q: Pastor. I'm sure that some SF leaders are fearful that they do not know how
to teach. Will their SF's be handicapped?
A: As I've said before, the most important quality
of a SF leader is not brilliance or eloquence but love. He must love his family members and pray for them. In fact,
a brilliant or eloquent leader can be a handicap because he will tend to dominate his SF and his Sfers will tend
to want him to do all the talking - and the Sfers will not have a chance to develop spiritually. The same is true
of physical families where one of the parents dominates - and the children are not given the chance to develop
fully.
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Q: Then who will teach in these SF's?
A: The Blessed
Spirit of God! The real leader of GLCC is the Holy Spirit - I'm just an under-shepherd
whose job is to keep reminding you to be led by Him and depend on Him. I must never stand between any Gospeliter
and Him. Similarly, SF leaders are facilitators whose job is to see that things run in orderly way because God
is a God of order and remind you that the real leader of each SF is the Holy Spirit. You can rest assured that
the Holy Spirit will lead your Friday discussions in such a way that is just right for your SF, if you depend on
Him to lead you. When He leads, - you can be sure that the right people will say the right things at the right
time. You will often be surprised to see how He has revealed wonderful insights to young believers because He is
no respecter of persons. All Sfers who diligently read the Bible can expect Him to teach us and use us to teach
each other. This type of bible study is different from classroom bible studies is much more exciting and profitable.
In a typical classroom bible study the one who benefits the most is the teacher because he has been specially instructed
by the Holy Spirit but in this type of BS all benefit because He teaches all.
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Q: It all sounds a little mysterious to me. I guess that I'm used to our typical
classroom type BS.
A: You're right, the working of the Holy Spirit
is a little mysterious and sometimes doesn't seem to fit into our logical way of thinking. But you've already experienced
His mysterious working in your life and it's very exciting, isn't it? Let's just trust Him to do a wonderful work
in our lives and in our SF's as we go thru-the-bible!
Q: Pastor, any words of advice for us before we begin this program?
A: Set aside your best time of the day to pray
and read God's Word - and don't allow anything other than an emergency to rob you of this time. You do this and
God will do the rest! Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. Blessed reading and growing in 2002!