Wednesday Evening Discipleship Study
Our Wednesday evening discipleship studies this Summer will be a combination of video teaching and guided group discussion on how to live as a disciple in a broken world. The video teaching features Ray Vander Laan and comes from his extensive experience leading groups to the Holy Land to experience the message of the Bible in its historical and cultural context. The videos are filmed in the actual places where Jesus and the disciples lived and first shared the Gospel. Ray Vander Laan brings to life the people, places, and stories you have heard about in the Bible and applies them to our journey as modern-day disciples.
Each week, we will learn from the video teaching and then explore together the challenge of “being a disciple in a broken world.”
with Ray Vander Laan. (See below for a description of Ray Vander Laan)
Walk as Jesus Walked: Being a Disciple in a Broken World
Becoming a disciple of Jesus demands more than merely a deep commitment to the text and complete devotion to Christian community. The Messiah is king, and believers are called to pick up their crosses in daily pursuit after becoming like Him. Come rediscover the fierce passion of the apostle Paul and our early Christian brothers and sisters as the rabbi leads you through cities such as Aphrodisias, Antioch Pisidia, Lystra, and Cappadocia in ancient Asia Minor.
June 4th
Run! The Passion of Elijah
As the gospel of Jesus spread across a Gentile world unfamiliar with the teachings and culture of the Jews, the early church faced an interesting challenge meeting different cultures in their own context to demonstrate the redeeming power of the kingdom of God. Follow the early believers through the Roman city of Aphrodisias in modern-day Turkey and see firsthand the effectual nature of cultural metaphor in communicating the good news.
June 18th
Learning to Walk Like Jesus - Paul's Journey to Rome
As the gospel of Jesus spread across a Gentile world unfamiliar with the teachings and culture of the Jews, the early church faced an interesting challenge meeting different cultures in their own context to demonstrate the redeeming power of the kingdom of God. Follow the early believers through the Roman city of Aphrodisias in modern-day Turkey and see firsthand the effectual nature of cultural metaphor in communicating the good news.
June 25th
Paul: An Unlikely Disciple
The apostle Paul was no stranger to the duties of a rabbi, having studied under one of the most famous rabbis in Israel before becoming one himself. He understood exactly what Jesus meant before His ascension, when He commanded the church to go out and make disciples. In this lesson, follow Paul through the region of Galatia and discover the implications of this command as it reached an increasingly Gentile world.
July 9th
Why Christians Suffer - The Weight of Gethsemane
Jesus told His disciples that anyone who wished to follow Him would have to take up his own cross. Many of the early believers did just that, willingly following in their rabbi's footsteps even when it meant certain death. Count their cost as you follow the stories of some of these ancient brothers and sisters.
July 23rd
Don't Forget Us
In his letter to the Corinthian church, Paul wrote that the body of Christ is a unit made up of many parts and when one part suffers, the whole body suffers along with it. Are you aware of the suffering of brothers and sisters, both in your own experience and around the world? In this lesson, follow the rabbi deep into the caves of Cappadocia and honor the suffering, both past and present, of the body of Christ for the sake of the gospel.
About Ray Vander Laan and That the World May Know Ministries
Ray Vander Laan has always believed that to more greatly understand and appreciate the Bible, one had to have a sense of the land and the culture from which it sprang. Biblical analogies and examples, while meaningful and helpful even to this day, were first meant to convey God's truth to particular people in a particular time and place. So the more fully we can appreciate those times and places, the more fully we can respond to the power of the Word.
Since receiving his Master's of Divinity from Westminster Theological Seminary in 1976, Ray Vander Laan has been actively involved in studying and teaching Jewish culture using the methods of Jewish education. He has continued graduate studies in Jewish Studies in the United States, Israel, Turkey and Egypt. He has been a teacher for 35 years and is an ordained minister with the Christian Reformed Church. Vander Laan founded That the World May Know Ministries in 1998. Ray has taken over 10,000 people with him on his study tours of Israel, Turkey and Egypt.
Ray's preaching and teaching ministry is focused on understanding the Bible in light of the historical and cultural context in which God placed it. This perspective on the Bible highlights God's call for His people to be a transforming influence on their culture. He uses research of the top scholars in the fields of archaeology, history, and Biblical studies as tools to explore the Biblical text ever more deeply. His gifts, expertise, and calling are to link that cultural information and the Bible so that its message applies to our lives today in very practical ways.