Three Star Night

I should probably say right off the bat that this has absolutely nothing to do with Wayne Grudem and absolutely everything with my not having all the software installed for my mini Tablet yet.  When I stepped back and looked at my notes, I realized that it looked like a third-grader (albeit a rather intelligent and biblically-inclined one) scribbled all over it.

That being said, if you recall my post from last week, I decided to  memorize 1 John.  This has been very rewarding for me.  One of the things I like about Bible memorization is that you start to notice patterns in the text.  The text above comes from 1 John 1:6 (black), 8 (burgundy), and 10 (navy).  As you can see, each statement starts with "if we say," continues with "we [verb clause]," and ends with "and [consequence]."  Here are the verses in context.

There are a few things that immediately stick out to me

• John (and God) are concerned with the ongoing exercise of our spirituality, our present spirituality, and how we view our past spiritual states.
• There is a strong presumption against our holiness.
• We tend to lie a lot, and when we do, we are calling God a liar, too.
• There is almost a transitive property between God, light, truth, and God's word.  Denying one is denying all, but at the same time embracing one is embracing all

This leads to several conclusions

• It is imperative to have and maintain a biblical view of God, ourselves, and our sin.
• We need to be honest with ourselves and with God
• We need to embrace God's word,"the sword of the Spirit," which "is truth."  In doing so, we will embrace God's Word, Jesus, who "was God and was with God in the beginning" and the Father because Jesus "and the Father are one."

When you study the Bible, what makes things stick out to you?  Word choice?  Grammar?  (Does this make you decide to use one translation over another?)  What sticks out to you from the verses here?

PS Bible arcing is really, really confusing.  Do you Bible arc?  Use homeletics?  Something else?