Topic 1 of 35 — Your Place in the Learning Journey
For Whom These Guides Are Intended
Up front. I am not a scholar. I am a bi-vocational church pastor and have been that for nearly all of my adult life. For my academic and professional background see my bio. Suffice it to say that I entered ministry in 1981 and accepted my first position as a church pastor in early 1982. In the last 44 years I've preached hundreds of sermons, taught hundreds of Bible Study lessons, and have spent thousands of hours in the labor of personal study and preparation of sermons and Bible Study lessons. And I'm thankful for every moment!
Having been a student of the scriptures for many years before entering the ministry followed by several decades of active pastoral ministry, I can personally testify that understanding them is not always easy. Perhaps you can too. The challenges are not really word and language challenges. Virtually all modern Bible translations handle that very well - at least for devotional purposes. But see the section on Bible and Resource Options. The problem is understanding the intended meaning or message to be conveyed. Language idioms, ancient cultural norms, history, and the geo-politics of the first century and earlier all, and much more, provide important contexts necessary for a fairer and fuller understanding of the ideas or intended message. Most of these are not readily discernible from the black letter text of scripture alone.
The purpose of these learning guides is to navigate these challenges and, thereby, help unlock the amazing riches of the Biblical text for the non-academically trained church pastor, lay preacher, Sunday School teacher, Bible Study leader, church attendee, and anyone with limited knowledge and high interest in the most amazing texts ever written. I hope these guides will be so engaging and brilliantly enliven your understanding of what I believe is by far the most amazing work of literary composition revelatory of the eternal God and the great hope of humanity! Let's get started!
Pastor James Palmer, III.
What You Will Find in Each Topic
| Element | What It Is | Why It Matters |
|---|---|---|
| Introduction | A plain-language overview of the topic in roughly 100 words | Gets you oriented before diving deeper |
| Visual | A table, diagram, or timeline that organizes the key information | Some things are easier to see than to read |
| Sub-topics | Several focused pages that go deeper on one aspect of the topic | Lets you explore what interests you most without reading everything |
| Scholarly note | Where relevant, a note on what scholars debate or where traditions differ | Honest about the limits of certainty |
| Audio | A spoken summary of the topic introduction | For those who prefer listening to reading |