EMMAUS SCHOOL OF BIBLICAL STUDIES

Zephaniah is about humbling yourself before God and seeking him in humility.  But what I learned from Zephaniah is that God rejoices over his children and that I can find my identity in him and him alone. So in a way this book about learning to be humble has taught me how to have confidence in the Lord. Strange how sometimes we learn something that seems contrasting. I guess my application from this book is to love those who are hard to love, those who God would love, the outcast, lame and just hard to love. I think that if I continue to find my identity in Christ then he will give me the love to be able to love all people. 

Habakkuk was a book about learning to question God properly and then in the end realize the proper relationship is created to creator and God is still God and still good. Habakkuk choose to have faith and wait on the Lord and find his strength in him. This is my application point learning to choose to have faith and trust in God in all circumstances. It is really neat that this is the message of Habakkuk because of late I have seen how God has been working in me and hard situations to grow my faith. So overall I am glad that I am learning to trust and how to question properly and not blame God because he is always good. 

The main idea of the book of Nahum is the the destruction of Nineveh. They are being punished for cruelty and idolatry. Nineveh was the capital of Assyria. The Assyrians were very cruel in their methods of war. So the main thing that I learned from Nahum is that God is a judge and gets righteously angry about sin. My application is to wrestle with the truth that God is wrathful and slow to wrath at the same time. I also want to have a righteous indignation about sin. This is always hard to do because I want to hate sin but love the sinner like Jesus did. Overall I learned a lot about God’s character and how it is multi-faceted and that I have to accept all of him and realize that the message of the Cross is so much sweeter when I know the true character of God.

What I learned from Jonah is that God loves all people even those who are hard to love and have no respect for him.  God will also use whoever he wants to accomplish his purpose.  In my life those two things really help me let God be God with my life and also inspire me to really purposefully love those who are hard to love. God please inspire me with the love to do this! HS come!

Obadiah is a book of judgment for Edom and their relationship to Israel.  They were always fighting.  The lesson here is that God cares about how family treat each other. And our family as Christians extends beyond blood. My family right now is everyone up here at the school.  So from this book I learned that as a sister I should really love my family and protect them in my speech and let all my words whether they are around or not be affirming.

Micah showed me mostly a lot about the character of God. It seems so strange and contradictory all this judgment and yet God is merciful throughout. The other thing that I loved seeing is that Jesus was prophesied about. How encouraging is that to see that God had a plan from the beginning. I learned from this book that God wants people to be just and kind to each other. I realize that I need to watch my mouth in order to do this. But I want my motives to be pure and to be from love for God and not just to do it. I do not want to check off a list, I want a heart change!

Hosea is such an amazing vivid picture of God’s love to the Israelites and us today. Hosea is a prophet that is told to marry a whore and have children with her and he does so and continues to prophesy the judgment that is coming on the Israelites if they do not repent. What God revealed to me was that he bought me just as Hosea had to buy Gomer back from a pimp. God bought me from my slavery to sin. I could not get out on my own and the other thing is I didn’t want out because there was no way I could get out on my own. Christ came and got me. WOW! He bought me, he shed his only son’s blood to buy all of humanity out of slavery. I have always heard about being redeemed and thought I knew what it meant but God really showed me; he opened my eyes gave me a EUREEKA moment. Thank you, God! So how do I apply that to my life? First gratefulness and love should flow from me to God and others and secondly God bought me from my sin and so I am his. He owns me, I am now a slave to him to righteousness. I want my life to reflect that slavery and I want to get to know God so that I can trust him and obey him and produce righteousness in my life. The way of the transgressors is hard as proverbs tells us and it is. I want to stick close to Jesus and walk in this crazy world hand in hand with him. Love you Lord!

What really hit me in Amos was that God is really merciful. At first glance the book looks like gloom and doom judgment but then the character of God shines through as you see how he is warning them and giving them time and time again to turn back to him. An application point that I gleaned from this book was that God’s answer to the sin problem is for us to seek him. I am renewing my relationship with him. My one on one time seems to be pushed aside when I am faced with the busy schedule up here on the mountain and that is ridiculous because I am here for him. So with that I am going to start seeking him for my lifestyle problems and not force myself to some list of do’s and don’ts. That is not to say that I am going to make unwise decisions, no I just want my change to be at the root and not at the branch.

The two books of Samuel are full of God revealing to his people what a leader should look like over them. This book is full of so many different wonderful lessons but the one I feel like impacted me the most was the theme of Leadership. Great leaders are willing to admit when they are wrong, have smarter and more powerful people under them, be confident in who they are in God and praise their people when appropriate. They also have to be humble and remember to always fear God more than man. Why did leadership hit home with me? I have always seen myself as a leader, and since I am up here at this school learning who God is and in turn who I am I thought I would look at it more closely. I decided that leadership is a huge responsibility and privilege. I do know that if God calls me to lead I will know where to go in the Bible to get some pointers for good leadership. The application point that I got out of this book was to be humble. This project alone humbled me because it broke me at one point and I just gave up, but where I gave up is where God picked me up. So I have come to realize that I am flawed but if I admit it and yearn for God’s best he will pick me up brush me off and give me another go at it.

The book of Ruth is so exciting to me! It is a story of the love that God has for the margins of society. He shows this love through the faithfulness of one man to his covenant, Boaz. Boaz has become a dear character. He goes above and beyond his call of duty to the law in almost every interaction with Ruth. First he tells her to only glean in his field, he feeds her lunch and she has food left over, when she asks him to marry her he sends her away with food, and finally he tricks the closer kin out of acting as next-of-kin just to protect Naomi and Ruth from getting a raw deal. It is so beautiful to see that he put God before his finances and had faith to obey the law and trust God for the outcome. My application point might seem silly but the blog was not required but because Boaz went above and beyond I too want to go above and beyond what I am supposed to do. I want to be outlandishly generous! So here is my blog! Another application point is to be more ready to give true praise and encouragement to other students up here.

I have come to the realization through studying Judges that humanity is in a fallen and depraved state. Everyone in Judges seemed to do what was right in their own eyes and the result was chaotic sin running rampage on everyone. Even the judges that God appointed to save his people were fallen people and were not the perfect Bible characters that we learn about in Sunday School. This book makes me deeply grateful that God chose me and saved me from my own depravity. The truth is that if he had not saved me I would be no different than these characters in Judges who lived in such a depraved state because they did not know God. Even though I do know God and have a relationship with Him, I want to understand him more so that I do not fall into my flesh nature and act out my misunderstanding of God. Idolatry was also a huge deal in Judges. These people kept turning to the gods of the people that they did not drive out. They disobeyed and it led to bigger problems and there were always consequences. This makes me wonder what are the areas in my life where I fudge a little bit and do not think it is a big deal. Wow! Scary! I just have asked the Lord to protect me from my own idolatrous ways. I do not even know where they are but I pray that I will turn from them and cling to him when I recognize them.

Exodus is such an AWE-INSPIRING book! God is so present and working his majestic signs and wonders throughout! I love how God does all that he does just so that the Israelites, the Egyptians and the whole world will know that he is God. He is revealing himself to humanity through the power that he displays in Exodus. Why would he do this? Because he wants to be in relationship with his people. That is why he speaks for ten chapters giving Moses the law and the ritual laws and instructions on how to set up the tabernacle. One thing that I learned from Exodus is that God is powerful and really should be viewed with awe. I do not feel like I have been taught about this powerful, majestic, mighty God, as much as I have the loving, forgiving God. I am so glad to see that they both do exist in the same God. This is shown over and over again in Exodus when the children of Israel are complaining, and disobeying God yet he continues to provide for them and protect them. I do feel like I got a good look at how much God hates idolatry, and it made sense to me. God hates it because it is a lie. The Israelites replaced the truth of YHWH with the lie of a golden calf, claiming that the calf had led them out of Egypt. If Exodus has taught me one thing it is that God is uncontainable and so glorious we cannot look into his face. My application for this book is to remember the Exodus and to never forget God’s power. One way I can practically do this is to not put him in a box. Remember the EXODUS!

Genesis, the book of beginnings. What an immense book to sit down and blog about. I was overwhelmed with the greatness of God in the first chapter. I have always love the creation story and been a believer of it, but this time around God revealed something new to me. All of humanity was made in his image, not just Christians. This thought got me really excited about talking to my non-Christian friends about their dignity and worth as a human being. I have already written to one of my friends about it.
I also love the story of Joseph and of how God really has a plan and works it out in horrendous situations. First he is sold into slavery, then because of his uprightness he is thrown into prison, after he interprets the chief cupbearer’s dream he forgets to tell Pharaoh and two years go by. All of this happens and when he is released and comes before Pharaoh his first words are that God is the interpreter of dreams. He has not become bitter but has become more mature and knows God. His whole story is so beautiful but especially the reconciliation of his brothers to him. They are so aware of their sin that when Jacob dies they ask Joseph again to forgive them and have another weeping fest. All throughout this book I saw God healing broken relationships, Jacob and Esau, Issac and Abimelech, Jacob and Laban, Joseph and his brothers. I love that these picture of reuniting point to the ultimate reunion, the one between God and man that Jesus Christ will make possible. I want to thank God for meeting me and really showing himself to me through all of these true stories. Thanks!

At first glance Ecclesiastes seems to be a depressing book that speaks about the meaningless of life. But in reality it is a book about the true meaning of life, which is to fear God and keep his commandments. Life really is meaningless without God, all the work, pleasure, wisdom, words are void and without cause without the source of life being from God and not ourselves.
I am glad to realize that a lot of Ecclesiastes is not straight truth. Solomon says a lot of things before the book concludes with the source of everything with meaning is God.
I am learning that my life as a woman has meaning. Sometimes it is hard for me to really respect myself as a woman and think that God loves me just as I am and actually created me with the personality that I have. So I am grateful that I am fortunate enough to know God and have meaning in my life.
Gracias a Dios!

The main idea of the book is exclusive love and how beautiful it can be. Passion and sex find a safe haven in the parameters of marriage. This exclusive relationship is the safe place for all that goes with love to be expressed.
My application point was to stay celibate until married.