CONVERSATIONS WITH THE ALMIGHTY (August)

August 2019 (04 - 31 Aug), see the Resource Pack PDF for full details and our Discussion Questions PDF to see the material adapted for small groups.

This month we thought it would be interesting to highlight the importance of interpreting and understanding scripture in a contemporary context. 

So we offer various contexts and situations in which the writer, reader and God find themselves in conversations which are being illustrated before their very eyes by the surroundings they find themselves in. We are asking our writers to try and use their imagination when describing a situation.

In planning the outlines sometimes the daily scripture reading has helped us to suggest a modern day context and other times we have simply chosen a context to bring contrast and diversity sparking off the conversation between God, writer, and reader; allowing the Holy Spirit to direct the conversations into different areas of thought.  At other times we have introduced a third party’s voice in order to reflect the complications and conflicts we uncover as we read scripture.

Context is important in helping us understand scripture. Both the context in which it was written and the context in which we find ourselves reading it today. Some scripture has significance for a community that has still to be formed while other scripture helps us understand how God has spoken to people in the past. The voice of God as heard in scripture is never spoken in a vacuum. It is always spoken in context in order to give us meaning and direction in our lives.

This month as we read scripture together it is our prayer that we will take these God conversations and use them as starters to bring about conversations with others in order to connect our friends and families into the great conversations in Scripture.

See the Resource Pack PDF for weekly subthemes and daily Bible readings and thought triggers and the Discussion Questions PDF to see the material adapted for small groups.