Wednesday, February 27, 2013

A headful of rubbish

Muffet from Battlestar Galactica
Churches are often fond of getting their congregations to participate in some sort of study program to get the year off on the right foot, so to speak. To that end, my cell group is working through Rick Warren's Forty Days in the Word. 

The DVD and accompanying workbook is designed to help Christians read the Bible more effectively, which is sorely needed these days.

Each chapter of the workbook is devoted to a different Bible study method, and the third chapter explains what Warren calls the "probe" method.

Warren has devised the following acrostic to apply to a verse or passage that you might be reading: SPACEPETS.

S - Is there a SIN to confess?
P - Is there a PROMISE to claim?
A - Is there an ATTITUDE to change?
C - Is there a COMMAND to obey?
E - Is there an EXAMPLE to follow?
P - Is there a PRAYER to pray?
E - Is there an ERROR to avoid?
T - Is there a TRUTH to believe?
S. - Is there SOMETHING to praise God for?

The phrases in the acrostic are all framed so as to help the reader draw out the passage's meaning. We all found this acrostic very amusing. What was Warren thinking when he came up with it? At least it is easy to remember. For my mind, the first thing I thought of was Muffet the daggett, which was a sort of robot dog from the original 1978 series of Battlestar Galactica.

If his teaching videos are any indication, Warren is an affable sort of chap and he'd probably be amused and not offended if somebody pointed this out to him, as long as it does not detract too much from his goal of getting Christians to read, properly understand and correctly apply the Bible to their lives.