Application?

I keep getting feedback from believers who have handed the "Framework" book to their local church pastor. First, the book is not written for pastors. It is written for believers who want to build a framework of understanding concerning the Christian faith. It is targeted at believers who are not being taught the word of God in church. It is not intended for the pastors who are already not teaching the word of God.

The consistent comment used by local (Des Moines, Iowa) church leaders to dismiss the "Framework" book, and the entire Generation Word Bible Teaching Ministry, is that I do not make application in my teaching. The complaint is I simply teach the Bible. The people get nothing but the word of God. They have no discussion time, no opportunity to express how it makes them feel and are not given three points or five steps on how to live for God. Nothing but verse by verse teaching.

This is true. I agree with this description. This is what I do and I do it on purpose. I teach the Bible. I do not labor to come up with sermon illustrations or dream up ways to be relevant. I teach the Bible exegetically, verse by verse and try my best to provide expository teaching. It is not that I am forgetting to make application. I don't even care about the application. Pastors must think I missed that class in seminary. . . but wait, that is an understatement, . . . I skipped all my classes because I didn't even go to seminary. I missed that entire phase of preparation.

This ministry is called Generation Word Bible Teaching Ministry because we provide Bible teaching. Why do you think James Dobson called his ministry Focus on the Family? Do you think it was because he was focused on the family? The clue is in the name of the ministry.

Here are a few thoughts concerning Bible teaching and application:

1. How can there not be application already in the text of scripture? Read First Corinthians, or the last chapters of Ephesians, Romans. It is all application! So, when a local pastor asks, "Does Galyn make any application when he teaches?" What do you think the answer is? Can you teach verse by verse through Galatians without making application? I can't. It is in the text!
2. I am not teaching morons. The people I am teaching are believers who have the Spirit of God, who carry a Bible to class and pay attention when I talk. They even write their own notes with out having to use the little fill in the blank statements on the back of their bulletin. They come to class and they listen online because they want to learn. They are intelligent enough to make their own application of the Word of God.
3. "My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge." (Hosea 4:6) It is not unusual to provide God's people with information. Ephesians 4:13 clearly links knowledge and maturity. (Read the verses that follow "My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge" in Hosea 4:6-9. Application in this verse is clear and simple when the words spoken to Israel's priest are applied to many modern pastors. Believer, apply that on Sunday morning!)
4. Some verses do not have, nor should they have, application for the modern reader. They are simply to provide information or knowledge. For example Genesis 15 is the recording of God establishing the Abrahamic Covenant. What does this chapter mean? It means God chose Abraham and Israel. To teach this chapter for application purposes means you are missing the point of the chapter. All Scripture is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training, but not all Scripture has to be watered down to find modern meaning and application. The plan of God is bigger than a Sunday morning application. The very word "exegesis" means to let the meaning come out. When you force an application into the verse you are practicing eisogesis. Eisogesis is a problem.

There are many more things to say concerning this subject but I think I have made my point.

Galyn Wiemers
http://www.generationword.com

Persevere and Teach Truth

In light of current civic events and the state of the church in America I have tried to capture my thoughts in these following points. All of them could use some explanation and commentary but for now here is a list:

1. Elijah and 7,000 – there are many people and groups today ready to side with the truth if we do not give up and run away. You need to persevere.
2. Teach Truth, not answers – truth will lead to correct thinking and decision making. Opinions will be abandoned because people do not have a foundation to understand why they are important. You need to teach toward understanding.
3. Do Not Respond to Winds – preach the word in season and out. Issues change like seasons. When the issue changes the word/truth will prepare people for the next issue.
4. Do Not Seek Government Assistance – The church can stand alone. If you lean on the government it can control you. The early church grew even as an illegal religion. You don’t need help.
5. Schools are not Divine Institutions – Fix the family. Good families make good public schools and good private schools. Corrupt families ruin both public and Christian schools.
6. Rapid Change and Polarization Will Help – The shock value of rapid change and the clear contrast of extremes is on the side of truth. The frog in the boiling water will jump out. You are the frog and the water has been getting gradually hotter for years. Do you feel it now?
7. Heathenism Can’t Survive – Heathenism can not survive without governmental support (evolution, atheism at public schools, state universities). When faced with survival the Truth of the church will always win (see point 4). This is the point of Gates of Hades in Mt. 16.
8. Teach Truth in Hardship – The early church continued to proclaim the truth in the face of death and eventually converted the Roman Empire. We are still free and Christianity is not yet illegal. You do not yet know what hardship is in the United States.

Galyn Wiemers
http://www.generationword.com

Daily Archaeology Update

Here is a link to a daily archaeology update from Biblical Archaeology Review:
http://www.bib-arch.org/news/dailynews.asp

Galyn Wiemers
http://www.generationword.com

David's Palace

When we were in Israel during the summer of 2007 I took the following slide show of photos of the excavated eastern wall of the ancient City of David, or the original Jerusalem. Excavation and these photos reveal:

• the Jebusite wall (1100 BC) of the city that David and Joab took from the Jebusites around 1003 BC
• dwelling places, or residences, on the outside of the city wall (1000-600 BC)
  
• the southern and northern towers on the wall built during the time of the kings of Judah (1000-600 BC)
• portions of the wall that Nehemiah rebuilt (445 BC)

I was excited to see that in this month's issue of Biblical Archaeology Review there was an article by Eilat Mazar who discovered David's palace in 2005. She is a third-generation Israeli archaeologist and granddaughter of the legendary Benjamin Mazar. In this article she describes some of the finds from her work in and around the ancient royal palace of Judah's kings:

• A section of Nehemiah's wall
• Seal impressions featuring scenes and names of some people mentioned in the Bible
• A building now called the Large Stone Structure with walls between 7-11 feet thick at the high point of the City of David believed to be David's palace.
• Two towers, the Southern and Northern Towers, which sit just a few feet away from David's palace.
• A bulla (an impression made in clay with a seal) that bears the name Yehuchal ben Shelemyahu, or Jehucal son of Shelemiah, found in David's royal palace mentioned in Jeremiah 38:1 and 37:3. In Jeremiah 38 Jehucal accused Jeremiah and helped lower and confine Jeremiah in a cistern. In Jeremiah 37:3 Jehucal was sent by the King along with a priest to ask Jeremiah to pray for the crumbling nation.
• A bulla found underneath the northern tower that bears the name Gedalyahu ben Pashhur or Gedaliah son of Pashhur, who is also mentioned in Jeremiah 38:1 as assisting in Jeremiah being confined to a cistern in the courtyard of the guard. In Ezra 2:38 the family of Pashhur returns to Jerusalem from Babylonian captivity and is listed with the names of the priests. (Note: these two men, Jehucal and Gedaliah, are mentioned in the same verse in Jeremiah 38: 1 and are described as working together in the royal palace against Jeremiah. Now,sometime during the last few months, since I was in Jerusalem and had a chance to look at Mazar's excavation, bullae with the names of these same two men impressed along with their family names have been found within a few feet of each other in the same royal palace the Bible says they worked!)
• Bronze and iron arrow heads from the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC where mixed in with stone weights, clay figurines and bullae (clay seal impressions).
• Pottery from a stratum from the Babylonian period between 586-538 BC
• A seal carved in a shiny black stone engraved with a Babylonian religious scene with the name Shelomit engraved in Hebrew . Shelomit was the daughter of Zerubbabel. Zerubbabel was the heir to the royal throne of Judah who returned to Jerusalem to serve as governor under the Persian Empire. He would have taken up residence in a rebuilt royal palace.
  

These are interesting finds that help confirm the historical accuracy of the Old Testament. I refer to the value of finds like this in my latest book Framework for Christian Faith on page 21:

When there is not much evidence to support an event recorded in Scripture, then negative evidence is of small account. For example, if there is little physical evidence to prove or disprove that Noah built an ark, the fact that we do not physically have Noah's ark does not prove that it did not happen. When evidence and information on a subject is lacking, the smallest amount of support will carry great weight. If we were to find an ancient inscription that included Noah's name or made some geological or archaeological discovery that supported the Flood story of Genesis, these would support the validity of the Flood narrative, and the whole book of Genesis.

Skeptics will claim, "Archaeologists have shown the Bible to be a legend at best." With discoveries like the finding of David's palace, Nehemiah's wall, bullae with the names of biblical personalities, remains of the Babylonian destruction and much more the critics have to admit that archaeology continues to be on the side of proving the validity of the Bible.
The "Shelomit" Bulla, daughter of Zerubbabel
Gedaliah' Bulla; he confined Jeremiah to a cistern
Galyn Wiemers
http://www.generationword.com/