Gems & Hope
Since May of last year, I’ve been reading from the devotional by Rick Renner titled “Sparkling Gems from the Greek: 365 Greek Word Studies for Every Day of the Year To Sharpen Your Understanding of God’s Word“. Looking back over the past 12 months spent in this 1000 page+ book, the time and energy invested in making it part of my daily routine has been both pleasurable and worthwhile. Last week I realized that I had reached the end of the year long read when some of the devotionals came up sounding familiar. Funny, I can recall what I read (not verbatim), but forget to subtract my Insurance payment from my check ledger every mid-month.
As the title implies, Renner dissects key words from Scripture; giving both background stories on their Greek origins, along with modern day equivalents and application to the Christian’s walk in Christ. Dependent upon which verse(s) are discussed for a particular day, plays into the depth and number of words analyzed, interpreted and explained. Daily devotionals usually range from 2-3 pages, some however have covered several more pages.
The reading is easy going as Renner doesn’t come off as an Academilogian (yea I made it up); posing questions for the reader to meditate upon from a relational and Scriptural basis as they apply to the lesson learned at the end of each devotional. Renner’s tone is consistently that of talking to the reader with a sincere sounding concern for their personal growth in Christ, not at the reader.
In the first 4-6 months of study my personal experience was that I received quite a bit of understanding concerning New Testament Scripture,not in the sense of absorbing someone else’s thoughts or interpretation of Scripture as my own, rather in gaining a better grasp of the cultural context of Scripture and how it relates to the message from our modern day perspective. Not a new twist on it but a better linguistic understanding (linguistic, not linguini), there’s a lot to be said for some of the nuances lost between the Greek (Koine)language and modern day English.
For those that read the King James Version of the Holy Bible, I recommend checking this devotional out as the verses covered are pulled from the KJV. For newly immersed Christians using the KJV; the word explanations as a matter of opinion, should prove helpful to understanding Scripture better (as a supplement to actual Bible study time).
The latter half of the year long devotional wasn’t always as climactic as the first half; I would say though that this should not be read as indicative of any shortcomings of the author nor his material. I think in my case it was simply a result of going through a different season at the time, plus I had to assess how I was approaching the devotional time; I found myself for a while in devotional time for the sake of knowledge, instead of seeking a deeper relationship with Christ and seeking/asking for Godly wisdom. (For shame!) With all of that said, Sparkling Gems is now retired to my Wal-Mart special MDF book-shelf; maybe in a few years I’ll pick it up again and start over or perhaps just revisit occasionally as God’s Holy Spirit dictates.
For the near and short term future (40 days), I’m now onto finally checking out “3:16 The Numbers of Hope” by Max, you say Lou-Cah-Duh I say Lou-Kay-Doe. Having read the first 4 days of Lucado’s book/devotional, I’m impressed so far, and happy to have picked it up on a “whim” from the clearance rack of one of the local Christian Stores in town.
Insert your own segue…it’s late and I’ve got to get my beauty rest.
Grace and peace be with you.