{"id":766624,"date":"2012-08-26T18:01:51","date_gmt":"2012-08-26T18:01:51","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2026-06-23T19:12:59","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T23:12:59","slug":"bible-study-proper-16-b-2012","status":"publish","type":"bible_study","link":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/bible_study\/bible-study-proper-16-b-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"Bible Study: Proper 16 (B) &#8211; 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><hr>\n<h4><strong>1 Kings 8:[1, 6, 10-11], 22-30, 41-43<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n<p>What a day it must have been to dedicate the Temple at Jerusalem. The dedication of the temple can stand in for many things and help us expand our imaginations: the dedication of our own churches, the dedication of our gifts, the dedication of our lives. Indeed, we need to dedicate ourselves daily to the work that God has given us to do. The pageantry of this event certainly helped to set the scene and reveal its importance. We must find ways to commit deeply to our own dedication to God, so that people may come to hear God\u2019s great name because of the way we live our lives.<\/p>\n\n<ul>\n\t<li>How can we more fully dedicate our lives to God, making an offering of ourselves, our souls and bodies? What do we need to do so that we may always deepen our commitment to God and grow into deeper dedication?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<h4><strong>Psalm 84<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n<p>The psalm clearly echoes the themes of the reading from the Hebrew Bible, and it is easy to imagine it has a hymn on that day. Can we live in God\u2019s house? We cannot live in the Temple at Jerusalem \u2013 no one can. Likewise, we cannot dwell in our churches. This is probably a good thing for us and for the gospel. After all, all of creation is God\u2019s house. As a result, we can live in God\u2019s temple always and everywhere.<\/p>\n\n<ul>\n\t<li>Do we live our lives like we live in God\u2019s dwelling? How might our lives change if we remember that we do indeed live in God\u2019s house?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<h4><strong>Ephesians 6:10-20<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n<p>The imagery of this passage is tricky. Most of us live far from military imagery, and even farther from military imagery of the Roman Empire. With youth groups, I have done an activity where we re-imagine this text using modern and personal metaphors. Cell phones, Facebook, cars, and any number of modern devices \u2013 even lucky shoes \u2013 have been suggested by these youth. How might you re-imagine this passage to convey Paul\u2019s point?<\/p>\n\n<ul>\n\t<li>This passage continues the themes that I have highlighted in the Kings reading and the psalm. We must put on the whole armor of God because our whole lives must be dedicated to God\u2019s work. Christ never asks for a little bit. As a result, the closing thought of this passage is of vital importance. Paul\u2019s prayer must become our own. We must pray to be alert and to persevere. We must also make a bold witness for the gospel. What would our lives look like if we lived into Paul\u2019s prayer?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<h4><strong>John 6:56-69<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n<p>The disciples found this teaching difficult. I think we are a lot like them. Jesus is teaching us the words of spirit and life, but there are those among us who do not believe, and often Jesus\u2019 teaching is just plain difficult. Truly, much ink has been spilled trying to figure out what it means to eat his flesh and drink his blood! I\u2019m not sure that it is helpful to become bogged down in those theological debates. Rather, what does it mean to nourish the spirit and live by it instead of the flesh?<\/p>\n\n<ul>\n\t<li>Jesus asks the twelve if they wish to leave. Peter answers that there is nowhere to go; Jesus gives the word of eternal life. As we know, it is easy to turn to sources other than Jesus for sustenance. As Jesus says, those things \u2013 that is, the flesh \u2013 are useless. Are we sustaining ourselves in spirit? Are we taking Jesus\u2019 words, the words of eternal life, and feasting on them?<\/li>\n<\/ul><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>1 Kings 8:[1, 6, 10-11], 22-30, 41-43 What a day it must have been to dedicate the Temple at Jerusalem. The dedication of the temple can stand in for many things and help us expand our imaginations: the dedication of our own churches, the dedication of our gifts, the dedication of our lives. Indeed, we&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":201221,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_tec_requires_first_save":true,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_tribe_blocks_recurrence_rules":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_description":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_exclusions":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[23,52,33,3],"tags":[341],"class_list":["post-766624","bible_study","type-bible_study","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bible-studies","category-sermons-that-work","category-the-season-after-pentecost","category-worship-and-prayer-menu","tag-proper-16b"],"acf":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":23,"label":"Bible Studies"},{"value":52,"label":"Sermons That Work"},{"value":33,"label":"The Season After Pentecost"},{"value":3,"label":"worship_and_prayer_menu"}],"post_tag":[{"value":341,"label":"Proper 16B"}]},"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":[],"comment_info":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bible_study\/766624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bible_study"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/bible_study"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bible_study\/766624\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":952140,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bible_study\/766624\/revisions\/952140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=766624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=766624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=766624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}