For difficult passages and theological questions, don’t be afraid to take some time to prayerfully think it through. Be okay with leaving a text saying “I don’t know. I need to think about that more.” Rushing to a conclusion might make you feel better, but you might be missing something that you could have observed if you had taken more time to think or study. As a rule of thumb, the more uncertain a passage or the more viable interpretations of a passage exist, the longer you should take thinking it through.

Although there is almost nothing as basic as thinking, there are always ways to improve your thinking skills. This is especially important for Christians: you and I are called to read, meditate on, accurately interpret and apply Biblical texts that are often complex. Thinking well takes time and effort, but it is natural to try to short circuit the thinking process by moving too fast. One of my favorite secular authors who writes on how to think better is Edward De Bono. In one of his books I have been slowly working through, he helpfully lays out 3 distinct outcomes of thinking. Knowing which outcome you are seeking will keep you from trying to do all three at once and thereby make your thinking rushed or less clear.
There are many possible outcomes of thinking, but we can simply them into three types of outcome:

Better map (exploration)
Pin-pointing needs
Specific answer

Edward De Bono, Teach Your Child How to Think pp 101
Getting to the Desired Answer Takes Time
When you sit down alone or with others to think or study, your ultimate goal is often some specific answer. Whether addressing a theological question or making a family decision, you and I very rarely think for no other purpose than to think. We have problems to solve, answers to discover, arguments to assess, decisions to make. However, when dealing with complicated questions or problems, the desired answer may take a long time to reach. If you spend hours or days thinking carefully through a topic and you haven’t reached a conclusion, is that effort wasted?
De Bono helps us out by giving two other outcomes of thinking beyond simply coming to an answer. Sometimes thinking about a topic gives you a “better map”. This metaphor points to the fact that sometimes you and I need to think about a topic just to understand it better. To make sense of the issues surrounding it. To understand what other people have said about it. By exploring a topic mentally, even if you haven’t come to a conclusion, you should have a better idea of the alternate options (or alternate interpretations in the case of most Bible study) and to simply learn more. Rushing to an answer or conclusion without actually exploring the topic can, in the end, cause you to make a poorly informed decision.
The other outcome of thinking besides getting an answer is “pin-pointing needs”. As you seek to answer complicated questions, oftentimes the process of thinking yields further questions to answer. Additionally, you may find that you don’t actually have the information you need to answer the question at hand. In this way, you can figure out what specific roadblocks exist that hinder you from reaching an answer. The key word here is specific.
Read More
Related Posts:

It is sin that has procured the shortness and the miseries of this life, as Moses lamentably sets out before the Lord, who is full of pity. But his prayer opens with a fourfold comfort for the church against temporal troubles and this world’s miseries.
1. The Lord’s Kindness to His People in All Ages
The first comfort is drawn from the Lord’s kindness to His people in all ages. “Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations” (Psalm 90:1)
When we pray therefore, we must lay hold on the offer of God’s kindness according to the covenant of grace, and look on God as gracious to us in Christ. Moses here, and others elsewhere, when they come as supplicants in prayer they begin with renewed acts and expressions of faith.
God’s people in any given place and age are one body with God’s people in all ages preceding and following. They may lay claim to all the privileges of God’s people before them. Here the church in Moses’ time joins itself with all the Lord’s people in former times, for the use of succeeding ages which were yet to come. “Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.”
The Lord’s people are strangers in the earth, partly because they have no certain residence in this world, and partly because they have such a poor reception among the people of the world, but especially because at heart, in their affections, they are pilgrims in this world. However, this does not mean they lack a resting place. They have a dwelling in heaven, that is, God Himself, in whom they dwell by faith. They find in Him rest, and food, and protection, and comfort. In fact, in His heart they have had a lodging “in all generations.”
The troubles and miseries of this life make the godly to search out what participation they have in God, and another life. What pinches them on earth makes them seek their abundance in heaven.
2. The Decree of the Eternal Covenant
The second comfort of the believer against the miseries of this short life is taken by Moses from the decree of their election and the eternal covenant of their redemption, settled in the purpose and counsel of the blessed Trinity for their advantage. In this covenant it was agreed before the world existed that the Word to be incarnate would be the Saviour of the elect. Moses says, “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God” (verse 2).
Read More

A local church delivers a person to Satan when it excommunicates an unrepentant professing believer from that church. As God’s dwelling place by the Spirit (3:16–17; Eph. 2:22), the church protects its members from Satan’s sphere, but when a church can no longer affirm that a professing believer is a genuine believer, it must return that person to Satan’s sphere.

1It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father’s wife. 2And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you. 3For though absent in body, I am present in spirit; and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing. 4When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, 5 you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. 6Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?1 Corinthians 5:1–6
Sexual Immorality
The report Paul has heard has two parts: (1) “there is sexual immorality among you,” and (2) “you are arrogant” (cf. v. 6a).
The specific kind of sexual immorality is incest—a man is pursuing sexual relations with his father’s wife. In the phrase “has his father’s wife,” has indicates ongoing sexual relations but does not specify if the two people have married or are cohabiting.1 Because Paul writes “his father’s wife” (rather than “his mother”), he probably refers to this man’s stepmother. She may be roughly the same age as (or even younger than) the incestuous man, since men often married women who were much younger.
The sins Paul corrects throughout this letter were common practices in Corinth. The church in Corinth has grown up in this pagan context that views sex much differently than Jews and Christians did. And since the Corinthians have converted only recently (no more than three years before Paul writes this letter) and do not have generations of Christians in their culture, it is not surprising that they continue to share Corinth’s worldly values regarding sex. Jews, of course, forbade a father and son from sleeping with the same woman (Lev. 18:7–8; 20:11; Deut. 22:30; 27:20). But so did the ancient pagan Romans. Thus Paul describes this sexual immorality as “of a kind that is not tolerated even among [the] pagans.”2
So how is it that the Corinthian church tolerates a sin that even their own culture repudiates? The text does not answer this question, so we can only guess. It could be related to their view of the body and the resurrection (cf. comments on 1 Cor. 6:12–20; 15:1–58). But it is unlikely that the Corinthians boast about tolerating incest, since incest was scandalous in both Jewish and Roman cultures. Most likely, the Corinthians ignore the incest and boast that a man with such a high social status is a member of their church. The incestuous man is likely socially powerful, and the church is simultaneously (1) honored that a person with such a prominent status would be part of their congregation and (2) unwilling to confront him about his incest. He might be a generous benefactor to the church and a patron to clients within the church. Thus the church does what their culture occasionally does for socially prominent people: turn a blind eye to that person’s sin rather than risk losing his favor and becoming his enemy.3
A Rebuke
Paul rebukes the Corinthians and commands them to correct their error. Paul first rebukes the Corinthians with a rhetorical question. In contrast to how they are being arrogant, they should mourn over the man’s publicly scandalous and characteristically unrepentant sin, which entails that they should remove the incestuous man from their church.
Throughout this passage Paul exhorts the Corinthian church to excommunicate this man, a church member who claims to be a brother in Christ.4 Consequently, chapter 5 is one of the most significant NT passages for three interrelated theological issues: excommunication, church membership, and congregational church government (I list those three issues from what is more explicit in Scripture to less explicit).5
Read More
Related Posts: