12 Word Eye Opener

Every week, we hold a men's Bible study class on Sun mornings at Grace Church.

One of the first things we always do in class is take the passage we are working on and each write a 10-12 word paraphrase of that passage.

I first learned this study technique from Pastor Derek and have found it VERY helpful when I first begin studying a particular passage.

It pretty much works like this:

"If you had to re-tell that passage in only 10-12 words...what would you say?"

It really seems to help one dig a lot deeper into scripture.

It makes you read and then re-read trying harder and harder to pick out and understand the details...so you can then turn around and state them in a short note.

Sometimes..its quite a challenge.

But that's what makes me love this technique so much...its the journey not just the destination.

So, every week, as I prepare for the class, I use this technique to start and guide my study.

But this week was different.

This week...I didn't want to.

Because this week...I didn't think it would be possible.

Before you read any further, please consider doing me a favor and read this week's passage:
Mark 5: 1-20

I thought: "There's no way this can all be put into 12 words or under."

But then...I was shocked...because, if you break it all down, in this passage Christ:

Came to "other side",
Rescued man from satan,
Commanded to evangelize
Returned

Holy cow.

He landed in a hostile gentile land, plucked a man from satan's grasp, commanded that man to go out and spread the good news and then returned back to the place he had come from.

Holy cow..again.

This report of Christ saving a man from a legion of demons and casting them into pigs, when broken down into it's smallest pieces....reads like a "mini-Gospel" in it's own right.

Matter of fact, the same 12 word paraphrase could almost be applied to the entire New Testament.

As above - so below.

Time and time again, it seems to me that God keeps trying to get the same fundamental messages into our heads via scripture.

What a gift His Word truly is.