Drew in Contemplation

If you consider Thomasville First United Methodist Church your home church, you know that next week me and 9 others will be traveling to Rwanda for a short-term mission trip. TFUMC has a long history (close to 17 years) with some people there and make an annual trip to continue those relationships. Since I came on staff here, I've been assisting the team in training activities. Most of these trainings have been centered around cross-cultural awareness because, as you probably know, when you go into another culture it's important to recognize that the way you think, communicate and perceive the "good life" might be different from those you are visiting. When stepping into another culture it's important to be a learner. One aspect I wanted to highlight for the team was how money is dealt with in Rwanda and surrounding countries. How money is handled here in the US and in many parts of African is very different. I wanted to learn more about this and so I int...

You’ve probably heard this before: Context is everything . Most of us would agree with that. For example, when we hear a shocking story on the news, we want to know more about the situation that led up to that event. We want to know the context. So, what do we do? We follow the story on the news and sometimes go to other news sources, or social media, to find out other angles and more information on the story. This is like how we should study the Bible. Of course, bearing in mind that the medium is different . When we find something interesting in Scripture we should ask, “Why was this written in this way?” “What events led to this writing?” “What is the author’s goal in this writing?” The way of studying the Bible that I want to propose in this blog is focusing firstly, and primarily, on the Literary Context . So, what does it look like to study the literary context when studying the Bible? Let me first tell you what it’s not. It’s not interpreting certain passages of Scr...

Hey Everyone, I'm working on a post about how to study the Bible more effectively. In it, I walk through how to read The Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:2-17) in their "Literary Context" (That's a good thing to Google if you want to know where I'm headed) and how they are (1) a remarkable gift and (2) a reorientation tool for the purpose of turning a group of slaves (with a broken identity) into worshippers (with a restored identity). Exodus is an amazing story of God being generous to His people. It has many correlations for us today in the Christian faith. My study has been meaningful so far, but it's still a work in progress. I look forward to sharing it with you next week. Here's something to read in the meantime by the person who taught me this method of studying the Bible that I discuss in the forthcoming post:  https://scriptureandlife.com/2012/03/31/literary-context/ Many thanks, -Drew West

I think it’s about time that I write the follow up post to my Short-Term Missions blog back in March. In the first blog, I talked primarily about the Savior Complex. The Savior Complex is the idea that we as Americans/Westerners are the ones who are to “save” those in poverty, as if we have all the answers. As much as we might have good ideas and the know how to help those in poverty, the Savior Complex creates an “Us” and “Them” mentality, which, in my mind, is heretical according to the overall teaching in Scripture. Simply put, this teaching in Scripture is we’re all created in the image of God and everyone (regardless of income, education and culture) is need of a Savior, which should cause us to embody a radical sense of equality in cross-cultural Christian work. Christians are called to humbleness because, at the very core of our faith is the reality, Christ did for us what we couldn’t do for ourselves. Humanity was in an unrecoverable mess without the intervention of...

You've probably come across this verse before: "The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but wishing that all should reach repentance." (2 Peter 3:9, ESV) In this verse, the writer of 2 Peter is inviting the audience to re-imagine what seems to be God's inaction. The writer in this verse is using the word "but" to make a pretty strong distinction. In the ancient Greek language (what the NT was written in) there are two different forms of the word "but",  δέ and   ἀλλά . The first common word for "but" in ancient Greek is the word  δέ (de).  δέ is not often translated into our English translations because it's typically  insignificant in the meaning of the sentence. The other form of the word "but" is  ἀλλά (alla).  ἀλλά is almost always translated into our English versions of the Bible because it's used when the writer i...

If we're honest, people in poverty can frustrate us. Sometimes it's hard to sympathize with someone who seems to have a destructive lifestyle or doesn't embody a strong work ethic. It's easy have negative thoughts when we encounter someone in a financial crisis. Sadly, the ideal of the American Dream has taught us, whether consciously or subconsciously, that someone's financial state is a direct result of their ability to work hard. Therefore, people in poverty are often thought of, at least in the American context, as lazy. Although we know better than to give people in poverty such a narrow view, we should at least, I think, acknowledge these feelings and address them. So why do people in poverty sometimes get under our skin? We may not realize it all the time, but our attitudes toward certain people come from our own cultural practices. In sociology we call this  Social Norms. For example, here in Thomasville, it's a social norm to ride around town in ...

Hey everyone, First off, I want to say "thanks" for reading my blog! I love being able to share my thoughts with a wider audience and I hope they've been beneficial to your faith. The reason why I didn't want to write a blog post this week is because during Holy Week at Thomasville First UMC there's been a lot of great content through sermons and services. If you haven't had a chance to listen to any of them, including mine, you can find them here toward the bottom of the page:  https://tfumc.com/worship/ I hope that this Holy Week isn't too busy, but that it has within it time to contemplate and think on Christ's death and resurrection. Augustine of Hippo once said that at Easter we are reminded that the occupation for a Christ-follower is to worship God. Of course, we know that, but it's another thing to live that out in our day-to-day lives. I hope during this Holy Week and Easter season that we learn to worship God with the entirety of...