Full Day Study for Saints in Cebu (11/6/13)

Our venue today was the regular meeting place of the church in Cebu City - a room on the third floor of a business building in the downtown area. It was originally intended as a study session for preachers in the area, including some newly converted from denominationalism. However, others heard about it and wanted to join. So, we had all but one of the preachers in the Cebu City area, plus a number of members of the local congregation and several they invited. I think the audience was about 50 people. One denominational preacher was among the visitors. He was extremely happy to have heard the lessons as he learned much from the focus on Scripture and he asked for further studies. None of the lessons dealt with the initial obedience to the gospel, but he was attracted by the fact that he had never heard such concentration on how to study, learn and teach Scripture effectively.

The first lesson of the day was “Lessons on Teaching from the Master Teacher” taken from John 4 as Jesus taught the woman at the well. It emphasized our responsibility to be evangelistically minded, the need to exclude none as prospects to teach, the necessity of getting the sinner to recognize his/her sin, the priority of a spiritual view and the practicality of teaching the gospel.

From that point, we had more of a class arrangement on showing how we effectively study the text of Scripture and let that textual study be the bedrock of our teaching efforts. We dealt with outlining the book of 1st Timothy and how to use that outline as the basis of preaching through the text. We also dealt with developing subject studies, character studies and devotional studies. This study was started during the morning session and concluded in the afternoon session.

Our final study of the day was on “Understanding the Place & Use of the Psalms.” We briefly examined the history and authorship of the psalms. We directed most of our attention to the divisions of the types of psalms and how we can use each group in our spiritual growth. We ended with an example of study from this collection by examining the 32nd Psalm, a penitential psalm of David. The lessons seemed to be well received.

For those of you who may have heard or will be hearing about ongoing typhoon activity in this part of the world, we are monitoring the situation carefully and will take all precautions necessary to be safe. There have already been two typhoons that have moved through the Philippines since I arrived less than a week ago. One did a great deal of damage in northern Luzon, while the other one fizzled out as it approached the Visayan region ( the many islands in the middle of the country between Luzon and Mindanao). Our work on this trip is in the Visayas. The typhoon approaching and forecast to hit this part of the country on Thursday night (local time) is predicted by American tropical forecasts to rapidly intensify and become a “super typhoon” before it hits the Philippines. Lest anyone be overly concerned, typhoons in the Pacific typically have weaker winds than those threatening the mainland U.S. Nevertheless, we will watch all forecasts and may have to change our plans for travel to Masbate if threatened by the weather. Our flight to Masbate is scheduled for 6am tomorrow morning out of Cebu.

Thank you again for your prayers and help in every way. God bless!