Prata Potpourri: Susie, Begging, Puritans, a marriage restored, more!

By Elizabeth Prata

How does it feel to be living in a time of obvious judgment of God? I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, it sparks a lot of mourning in me as I see families falling apart, false teachers increasing, lusts indulged, perversion everywhere. But on the other hand, what IS of God, burns more brightly. Christians who stand for truth unwaveringly are more of a joy to see. As the world sinks, the believers rise. Christians who have the Light of Christ in them are more visible, starkly different than the easy believers mixed in with true believers of former generations who clung to a veneer of Christianity for social capital’s sake, persecution makes true believers more easily seen and then God is more glorified.

If you have a church where your elders are strong, where your fellows in the pew are loving, where truth is proclaimed without compromise or without plagiarism, then you are blessed. Cling to that, the Lord who raises up teachers for His name and a multiplying local church who evangelizes. They are things of beauty today that stand against the dark.

Begging: The Place to Start I disciple some younger women online and in real life. I often get the question, how should I study the Bible? I always begin with this answer: First, pray and ask the Holy Spirit for help. It’s my standard answer because that is ground zero of the place to begin. I was pleased to see Dale Ralph Davis explain this concept so well.

“We are guilty of arrogance, not merely neglect, when we fail to beg for the Spirit’s help in the study of Scripture. We may have such arrogance even when we seem to be seeking the Spirit’s aid – I think of those times when in a light-headed tokenism we utter our slap-happy prayer ‘that the Lord would guide and direct us as we study this passage.’” Click on the link above to read the article.

G3 Ministries has published a beautiful article by Jennifer Buck on how the Lord helped her and her husband Tom in the early years of their marriage get beyond some anger and bitterness issues and make their marriage strong. Sadly, in the aftermath of its publication, some wicked people who are opposed to Tom’s candidacy for President of the SBC have used the article as a weapon to smear them. This activity has caused me to ponder very deeply the issues I wrote about in the first paragraph. Darkness and light…what the Lord is doing to glorify Himself, betrayal by professing believers (who maybe aren’t possessing believers) and so on.

Anyway, here’s Jennifer’s article: A Story of Restorative Grace

When G3 enlarged its ministry one of the things they committed to doing was generating study curricula for small groups and Sunday School. Here is a new, free teaching curriculum on the Sermon on the Mount by Ryan Bush. It is a 9-lesson Bible study was written specifically for small groups, though it could certainly be adapted to fit other needs. Sermon on the Mount small group Bible Study.

At Dash House we read the following:

It may be one of the most overlooked ministries we can perform for others: to struggle on their behalf in our prayers. The idea comes from Paul’s description of Epaphras in Colossians 4:12-13: “Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, greets you, always struggling on your behalf in his prayers, that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God. For I bear him witness that he has worked hard for you and for those in Laodicea and in Hierapolis.” Struggling on Your Behalf in Prayers

I love studying about the Puritans. This summer I plan on buying the streaming version of the Puritan Documentary Plus, the documentary plus 35 short lessons on individual puritans. Here, Tony Reinke has a Puritan Study series and this link brings you to the index.

I enjoy Derek Thomas’ series going through Pilgrim’s Progress lecture series. He gives explanations of the different scenes in Bunyan’s allegory, and also biographical and cultural information for background context. This helps e understand it a lot more. The series is currently free on Ligonier. (I don’t know how long Ligonier will keep the series on the Free side of the ministry.) I’m going thru it a second time, I enjoyed it so much..

The numbering is a bit confusing.

The first video is The City of Destruction.
The Wicket Gate
The Interpreter’s House
The Cross & the Sepulcher
The Hill Difficulty
The Palace Beautiful
The Valley of Humiliation
The Valley of the Shadow of Death
The Godless City: Vanity Fair
The Castle of Giant Despair
The Delectable Mountains
The Celestial City

A friend is going through the book Susie: Life & Legacy of Susannah Spurgeon with her book club group, she said the book is terrific! Here is an interview with Ray Rhodes, the author.

The slowly disappearing doctrine of hell: hell was created good for the destruction of evil

I hope any of these links suit you, help you, or provide any edification!