by Jen | Mar 12, 2024 | 6-11, Acts 1, DISO studies, Introduction
Welcome, and thank you for joining me for this Digging into Scripture Ourselves (DISO) study!
Let’s Study Acts 1:6-11!
When I suspended our studies in October 2023, we were working through a select group of miracles of Jesus, and now it’s time to complete that series with Acts 1:6-11, which recounts Jesus’s ascension.
This week, I’ll work through two of the five steps in the new process using Acts 1:6-11. If you want to work along with me, here’s what I recommend you start with:
- A copy of Acts 1:6-11, plus access to the entire book of Acts.
I copy the text from www.blueletterbible.org, paste it in a word processing program (Google docs or MS Word), change the formatting to suit my preferences, and print it out. If you want to use the ESV translation, here’s a copy I created that you can use.
- A study journal.
I’m old-school and like the pen/pencil and paper method for journaling my studies, but you can do this any way you want. If you don’t think you have time to physically write or type your notes, consider recording an audio of your thoughts, or use your smart phone to dictate into a notes app.
But really, if you studied with me before, you know you’re welcome to just read the posts I publish here. They’ll help you become more familiar with the process and show you how the Spirit speaks to my situation. I’m praying that there will be enough similarities between my life and yours that you’ll find it worth your while to keep checking in with me, even if you can’t study along on your own yet.
Dig-In Challenges
So here’s what I’m going to do this coming week:
- PRAY: I’ll be creating a prayer that I can pray every time I study Acts 1:6-11. I’m going to write it in my study journal, so I’ll have it handy each time I study.
- SURVEY: And then I’ll read Acts 1:6-11, noting anything that makes me say, “huh?” (as in, “I wonder what that means?”) or “wow” (as in, “that is so awesome!”). I’ll record these so I can come back and choose one I think the Spirit wants me to dig more deeply into right now.
I’m looking forward to sharing what I discover in this process with you—I hope you’ll stop by next week!
GO TO WEEK 2 >
by Jen | Mar 5, 2024 | 1-15, DISO studies, Matthew 28
NEW TO THIS STUDY? START HERE.
Welcome to the last blog in this series on Jesus’s resurrection! If you’ve studied with me online before, you might have noticed we’re finishing a little faster than we used to: eight weeks instead of nine weeks. Let me know what you think of the changes I’ve made on my contact page or via email.
And if this is your first study, I’d love to hear from you at either of those places, too.
Last Week’s Work
LESSON(S) LEARNED
Overwhelmingly, the lesson I’m taking away from this study is the reassurance that seeking Jesus is a strategy for overcoming fear. The divine messenger in this story clearly told the women (whom he’d charged with Christian communication—a similar calling to mine) not to fear because he knew they were seeking Jesus (v5).
CONVICTION
I felt convicted that I don’t always follow this strategy: often I allow our enemy’s seeds of doubt and fear to disable me. My struggle to finish writing the book I first mentioned in this blog more than a year ago comes immediately to mind, and though I am making slow progress toward a new and much improved version of it, I am still sometimes completely undone by feelings of inadequacy.
CORRECTION
As has often been the case in these studies of mine, I felt the Spirit correcting me in one of the cross-references. This time it’s from Matthew 14:
But when he [Peter] saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, “Lord, save me.” Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” (Matthew 14:30-31 ESV)
So many times, I relate to Peter! I want to try what I see others are doing, but part-way through I take my eyes off the goal, or Jesus, or both, and focus on the things that scare me. Even when I know—as I’m sure Peter did—that my Savior is in control of all those scary circumstances and will come to my aid when I’m doing what He commanded me to do. I still allow the demons of doubt and fear to weaken my faith to the point of giving up and going under.
ACTION PLAN
By memorizing these verses, I want to cement in my mind and heart Peter’s simple prayer seeking His help: “Lord, save me!” If, as Peter, I am doing what He’s told me to do (Matthew 14:29), I have every assurance He will come to my aid. Thank you, Jesus!
Our Next Study
I’m excited to begin the final posts of the 2023 Miracles of Jesus series next week. I hope you’ll join me to dig into Acts 1:6-11 and learn everything we can about Jesus’s ascension.
I’m also looking forward to uploading my older blogs from the other four studies in this series. They were lost late last fall when I had to change website providers, but I do have my drafts and should be able to start reconstructing them next month.
In the meantime, I hope you’ll join me next week to kick off Acts 1:6-11. See you then!
by Jen | Feb 27, 2024 | 1-15, DISO studies, Matthew 28
NEW TO THIS STUDY? START HERE.
Hello again! I appreciate you dropping by! Isn’t God’s timing—that we are studying the resurrection of Jesus just weeks before Easter Sunday 2024—just amazing?! As part of my personal observance, I plan to revisit my steps here in the days leading up to my favorite holiday!
Last Week’s Work
In the meantime, though, let’s have a look at what I discovered this past week in other parts of Scripture and through other translations.
CROSS-REFERENCES
As I worked through the cross-references for vv5-7, I was again drawn to the angel’s statements do not be afraid, and I know that you seek Jesus. Remember a few weeks ago when we discovered the angel’s reason the women didn’t need to fear was because he knew they were seeking Jesus? That’s really good news! Friend, if we are seeking Jesus, we don’t need to fear, either.
My review of cross-references for verse 5 reminded me again of that truth when I read Matthew’s account of Jesus night-time water walk (Matthew 14:22-33). The vision so frightened the disciples, they cried out in fear. Jesus told them do not be afraid in v27. Then Peter wanted to walk on the water, too, Jesus invited him, and he went. Partway there, Peter saw the wind, became afraid, started to sink, and cried for help(v30). Jesus replied, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” (v31).
Throughout my studies of Jesus’s miracles last year (which I hope to make available here very soon), I observed a strong link between faith and miracles. Maybe that explains why the women in this text could act even though they were afraid (v8). Maybe their great joy was a byproduct of faith that Jesus had done what He said He would do (seven times according to Matthew 12:40, 16:21, 17:9, 17:22-23, 20:18-19, 26:31-32, 27:63)!
The second part of the angel’s statement in v5 mentions the women were seeking Jesus. I realized that, too, occurred in all the other miracles I studied. The cross-reference that resonated most there was from John 20:14-15. This is part of John’s resurrection account, where Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene, but she doesn’t recognize him. Jesus Himself asks her, Whom are you seeking? but she’s so distraught she can’t focus on his question, she just cries out, They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him. Of course, Jesus absolutely knew whom she sought before He ever asked. But His question made me, thousands of years later, sit up and take notice. Whom am I seeking? And why? Do I just want Him for what He’ll do for me? Or, like the women in our study passage, am I looking for Him so I can serve Him?
OTHER TRANSLATIONS
If you’ve studied with me in the past, you might remember I like to review at least a couple word-for-word (following most closely the original text and its arrangement) translations. Then I’ll look at least one thought-for-thought (more loosely following the grammar and vocabulary of the original) and paraphrase (less likely to reflect the actual words or phrases while trying to convey original meaning) translation each.
This time I felt led to include the Amplified Bible in my review. This Bible, published by the Lockman Foundation (which also publishes the New American Standard Bible), incorporates synonyms and clearly marked extra-biblical explanations to help us better understand the meaning of the text.
I didn’t find anything remarkably different in Matthew 28:5-7 among the translations I compared: the English Standard Version (ESV), the New American Standard Bible 2020 (NASB20), the Amplified Bible (AMP), the New International Version (NIV), and the Good News Translation (GNT). Nor did I perceive the Spirit calling my attention to anything in particular this time.
Dig-In Challenges
Wow, we’re almost to the end of another study already! This week, let’s
- Read the prayer we created in Step 1.
- ALIGN: Then review our study notes and other work, focusing specifically on what we’ve learned.
- ALIGN: As we consider those “lessons learned,” notice what the Spirit is using to convict us in this study. In other words, where is He showing us misalignment between what we’ve discovered and how we practice our faith?
- ALIGN: Next, we’ll think about a part of this study that offers us a way to correct that misalignment. For me, this has often—but not always—been a verse either from the study text or from one of the cross-references.
- ALIGN: And finally we want to reflect on how we can change our walk or talk (or both) to align more closely with God. To really make this work, I commit to changing something and do my best to act on that commitment everyday for at least three weeks.
That may seem like a lot to consider in one week, but my experience has been the Spirit often leads me through steps 2-5 very quickly (though sometimes I have to pray about it more than a couple of times during the week). If you’re working with me, just do what you can. Any study done with the Spirit is good study, my Friend!
Also, I’m looking forward to sharing what the Spirit reveals next week, as well as a preview of our next study text, the final one from our series on miracles of Jesus from last year.
GO TO WEEK 8 >
by Jen | Feb 20, 2024 | 1-15, DISO studies, Matthew 28
NEW TO THIS STUDY? START HERE.
Welcome back! I’m a little overwhelmed by my research this week: it wasn’t as clear and succinct as I’d have liked. But I’m trusting the Spirit to work this all out for me!
Last Week’s Work
WRITING TYPES
To start, as I reviewed the literal context, I noticed it tells the story of what two Marys experienced upon returning to Jesus’s tomb after the Sabbath, and reports some of the guards were bribed to lie about what happened that day. From these observations and my previous studies of Matthew, I concluded the overall writing type is narrative.
In addition, I found two other types of writing in the verses I’m concentrating on:
- instruction by the angel (do not be afraid, come see where [Jesus] lay, go tell his disciples in vv5-7) and by Jesus (do not be afraid, tell my brothers to go to Galilee in v10); and
- prophecy by both the angel (v7) and Jesus (v10) that the women and the disciples will see Jesus in Galilee.
LITERAL CONTEXT
To understand the literal context of Matthew’s gospel, I read chapter 1, which contains Jesus’s genealogy (vv1-17), and a mention of another unnamed angel who appears to Joseph explaining Mary’s pregnancy (vv18-25).
Next, I reviewed chapter 27, detailing events leading up to and following Jesus’s crucifixion. Most notably, I discovered Matthew tells us these two women personally saw Jesus dead, buried, and risen! In 27:55-56, he reports Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of Zebedee’s sons looking on when Jesus died on the cross. Then at 27:59-61, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were present at the tomb when Joseph of Arimathea placed Jesus’s body in it and rolled the stone against its entrance. And in our study text, they were given a chance to verify his body wasn’t in the tomb (28:6), and later actually saw him alive again (28:9)!
In other background reading, I came across Matthew 13:53-58, where he describes Jesus’s teaching in his home synagogue in Nazareth and the people reacting with scorn. In 13:55, they ask each other, “Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas?” This makes me even more convinced “the other Mary” was Jesus’s mother. If so, she’d encountered another angel 30+ years before, who also said, “Do not be afraid” (Luke 1:26-30)!
I also read the remaining verses of Chapter 28 (16-20), which indicate the disciples did as the women told them, meeting Jesus on a mountain in Galilee. There he gave them what we know as the Great Commission.
Isn’t it awesome Jesus trusted two very different women—one who’d been possessed by seven demons (Luke 8:2) and one who’d been pure from childhood (Luke 1:26-30)—to relay such an important message!
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Based on the book’s title and what I discovered from introductions to Matthew’s gospel online, this author is believed to be the tax collector formerly known as Levi. Jesus personally invited him to become a disciple (see Mark 2:14-17; Luke 5:27-32). His writing focuses heavily on fulfillment of the Old Testament. His purpose seems to be to prove Jesus of Nazareth was the expected messiah, evidenced by Jesus’s genealogy (1:1-17) and resurrection. Since it doesn’t mention the fulfillment of Jesus’s prophecy about the temple being torn down (24:2), scholars believe this book was finished before the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD, possibly 55-60 AD.
It’s thought Matthew wrote for early Jewish converts to Christianity located in Antioch (Acts 11:19, 27). After the stoning of Stephen in Jerusalem, persecution there began in earnest (Acts 8:1), and many Jewish people fled to Antioch in Syria to continue following Christ. Antioch was a strategic stronghold at the intersection of north-south and east-west trade routes. It had been annexed by Rome several decades before Christ’s birth and featured, among other things, magnificent pagan temples, as well as the headquarters of the Roman garrison in Syria.
Though their customs and daily life differed greatly from ours, I believe we share some similarities with Matthew’s audience, since we also live among a diverse, mobile population that tolerates many different religions and is governed by central authority.
ORIGINAL LANGUAGE TOOLS
As I looked over vv5-7 in their original language, I was drawn to a single phrase in each verse:
Do not be afraid (v5) is rendered from mē [G3361, negation] phobeō [G5399, “startled by strange sights or occurrences”]. This same phrase was also used by Luke when he described Gabriel’s announcement to Mary that she would bear Jesus.
He has risen (v6) was translated from egeirō [G1453, “to arouse from the sleep of death, to recall the dead to life”].
Go quickly (v7) comes from tachy [G5035, without delay] poreuō [G4198, go to do something]. This conveyed to me the idea of purposeful haste—don’t just stand there, do something! And that is exactly what the women did, even though they were afraid (v8). That’s a different reaction than I’d have probably had: I tend to put off what I’m afraid to do. I think their great joy must have at least somewhat counteracted their fear.
Whew! This has been a bit overwhelming, but I know the Spirit will help me understand it and put it to use by the time we finish this study. Till then, I hope you’ll keep studying and coming back to see what I’m digging up.
Dig-In Challenges
This week, we’re going to wrap up the second half of our Refine step by examining cross-references and other translations.
- Don’t forget to begin with your prayer from Step 1.
- REFINE: Then consult a concordance or cross-reference study tools online to find and read through the available cross-references for the verses you’re most interested in (I’ll be checking for verses 5-7). Note what the Spirit shows you.
- REFINE: Finally, compare at least a few other translations’ version of the same verses and write about what you find in your study journal. I’ll be comparing ESV, AMP, NIV, and GNT.
It’s hard to believe we’re almost through this study, my friend: just two more weeks! I hope the Lord has used it for your good and His glory! See you next week!
GO TO WEEK 7 >
by Jen | Feb 13, 2024 | 1-15, DISO studies, Matthew 28
NEW TO THIS STUDY? START HERE.
Thanks again for joining me here! If you’re studying with me, I hope you’re benefiting from what you’ve discovered so far. If you’re not, no problem. All of us have seasons where we can’t squeeze even one more thing into our overscheduled lives. I’m just grateful that you’re finding this series worthwhile enough to keep checking in, and I pray that something about what I share here helps you connect with God’s Word in a meaningful way.
Last Week’s Work
COMPARISONS
Following my instructions from last week, I didn’t find any comparisons using like or as in the verses I’m digging into most (vv5-7). But from my very first reading of the passage in this study, I was drawn to the contrast between the reaction of the guards (vv2-4), and the women. Wouldn’t you have expected the women to faint at the sight of an angel rolling a giant stone away from the tomb? But no, it was the tough, he-man guards who “became like dead men!” Matthew doesn’t indicate the women reacted at all to the angel, other than to hurriedly obey his commands “with fear and great joy” (v8).
CAUSES/MOTIVATIONS
Next, I looked for connectors in vv5-7 and found two action – connector – explanation patterns, along with one explanation. Its connector lies in verse 8, along with the action. I charted what I discovered this way:
Verse 5:
Action “Do not be afraid…”
Connector “for…”
Explanation “I [the angel] know that you seek Jesus who was crucified.”
Wow! I just realized this divine messenger said seeking Jesus is reason enough the women shouldn’t be afraid! Feels like that is a principle worth keeping in mind even today!
Verse 6:
Action “He [Jesus] is not here…”
Connector “for…”
Explanation “he has risen, as he said.”
The reason they wouldn’t find Jesus’s body in the tomb was because, as He’d told them numerous times, He’d risen!!
Verses 7-8:
Explanation “… go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him…”
Connector “So…” [therefore]
Action “they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples.”
Here, I see why the women departed quickly with fear and joy to tell the disciples: because the angel told them to. Talk about courage—I admire their action in spite of their fear!
CONDITIONS/METHODS
Last, I made a note of how Matthew describes the women’s compliance with the angel’s commands in v8: “they departed quickly… with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples.” This seems to be another contrast: to me, fear is a negative, limiting force, while joy is positive and motivating. I am so awed these simple women didn’t let fear overpower their joy.
Dig-In Challenges
Now that we’ve collected all these fact gems, we need to make sure we’re viewing them the same way Matthew and his audience would have interpreted this story.
Why that standard? Mainly, because God chose Matthew to write this to an audience in the first century. Our Lord could have decided to send the message through a contemporary American writer—maybe even me (ha ha!)—and then we could have skipped Step 4, Refine, altogether. But He didn’t.
So, this means if we really want the correct understanding of the treasure the Holy Spirit is revealing to us, we need to know how Matthew and his audience would have interpreted it. Here’s how we’ll work toward that this week:
- As always, start with the prayer we created in Step 1.
- REFINE: next, let’s read chapters 1 and 26-28 of Matthew to determine which writing type(s) he used, and list them in our study journals or on a copy of the passage.
NOTE: I’ll be looking for an overall type and individual instances where Matthew used instruction, law, letter, narrative, poetry, and/or prophecy.
- REFINE: At the same time, notice and record any relevant details or events leading up to or following our study text. This will help us establish the literal context of the study passage.
- REFINE: Next, find out what you can about the historical context by identifying the author of this book, and when, to whom, and why he wrote it. You can usually find this information in your bound Bible if it contains an introduction to Matthew’s Gospel. If you don’t have a bound Bible with introductions, check out one of these resources: the ESV Bible Introduction, or the Introduction to Matthew’s gospel from the ESV Global Study Bible.
NOTE: Bible introductions aren’t the inspired Word of God, but they usually provide factual details about the author and his audience we can use to adjust our perspective. Keep in mind, if you decide to research this further, stick with factual, historical resources and avoid commentary if possible.
- REFINE: Finally, examine key words and/or phrases using an interlinear Bible, and note what the Spirit reveals. These Bibles are available on several study websites (I’ll be using the Blue Letter Bible Interlinear tool). They show a verse in the original Hebrew or Greek and provide detail about each word, including its meaning in context. As usual, I encourage you to log anything the Spirit illuminates from this exercise.
This week’s work is a little more involved than the observation we did earlier, but I encourage you to use these tools and dig as much as you can this week. I pray the Spirit will bless your efforts, my friend!
GO TO WEEK 6 >
