Because God’s word is living, active, and sharper than any two-edged sword. It penetrates to the point that it separates the soul from the spirit and the joints from the marrow. It’s able to judge the heart’s thoughts and intentions. No creature is hidden from it, but rather everything is naked and exposed to the eyes of the one to whom we have to give an answer. – Hebrews 4:12-13

This morning I launched what is an admittedly ambitious series of sessions for the Tuesday morning Men’s Bible Study.

What I intend to do, between now and Christmas, is to take us on a journey through the scriptures via what I consider to be pivotal stories in my own spiritual journey.

My challenge is to hone in on Bible passages that follow the “Great Arc” of the biblical narrative as well as shedding light on our own experiences as pilgrims and disciples.

Today we talked about Genesis Three, and in particular the following verses:

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.” – Genesis 3:8-10

“This moment,” I said, “is critically important. Because it illustrates the root of the issue the balance of the Bible seeks to address. And that essential issue is the broken relationship between creation and Creator, between Adam (‘human’) Eve (‘life’) and God.”

The Broken Relationship:

There are 31,102 verses in the Bible, scattered over sixty-six books organized in two “testaments.” All of it concerns the need for reconciliation, the struggle to repair that broken relationship.

So we talked about why humankind even exists, about our purpose as created beings, about both the opportunity and the danger inherent in becoming equipped with knowledge (“knowing good and evil”) and how this story sets the stage for what is to come.

And we talked about the amazing potential we have as God’s Children, both for good and for evil, and about how critically important it is that we follow Jesus.

Pray that I don’t blow this!

I came home with two strong emotions:

• First, gratitude for the record attendance this morning and for the unique opportunity I have to be with and to be encouraged by such a strong group of faithful men.
• And then this gnawing sense of concern in the pit of my stomach that I am not equal to the task, of self-doubt, of second guessing myself, worried that I fall short of God’s best as a leader.

Because, y’all (and by y’all I mean everyone this post reaches), this message of hope and of reconciliation and of grace is so critically important and necessary if we are to see healing in this world that we all love so dearly.

I can’t help but think of the following verse from a Charles Wesley hymn written in 1762, “A charge to keep I have, a God to glorify.”

To serve the present age,
my calling to fulfill,
O may it all my powers engage
to do my Master's will! 
(C. Wesley)

I do not want to share anything with these men that is not my best and appropriately representative of the beauty and the power and the glory of the Good News.

So I’m finishing this post with the same words I used to wrap up this morning’s session: “Jesus came so that each one of us might, once again, claim the honor and the glory of friendship with God! (The Unmaking of a Part-Time Christian, p.12)“

Such good news – DEREK