Good Friday Ramblings

Today is Good Friday. I was not raised as part of a tradition that celebrated religious holidays. Sure we took Good Friday off and visited family on the Easter weekend, but we never celebrated it in a religious sense. Christmas was much the same - we did gifts and celebrated family, but did not regard it as a religious occasion. So the concept of fulfilling religious obligations on Good Friday is still foreign to me. However, I do appreciate having the excuse to take a day away from work.

I have been struck recently by the necessity of good Bible study skills. It occurs to me that sin entered the world through poor interpretation of God’s Word. After all, Satan managed to convince Eve that God’s words did not really mean what she thought they did - that the obvious (and correct) interpretation was not correct (“Did God really say?”). It is strange, then, that churches do not invest a lot of time in teaching people who to properly interpret Scripture. How many of the church’s problems are directly attributable to poor interpretation of God’s most obvious commands? Perhaps the reason is that even church leaders are uncomfortable with their Bible study skills. I wonder…

On a related note, a book I ordered just arrived at my local Christian bookstore. It is a guide to proper interpretation to Scripture and through the first few chapters is excellent. I will keep reading and will review it when it is complete.

And on that note, I will everyone a wonderful weekend. My plans involve reading, writing, watching a bit of golf and baseball and just taking it easy. My church is also having a whole lot of services this weekend so I’ll be spending a lot of time there…

Incidentally, it seems Google has decided to increase my Pagerank from 5 to 6. I guess I should be honored.