Precepts Training

Just home from two days at Precepts training. On Friday I took a free course entitled Biblical Prayer, and today I took the Advanced Leader Training. Life changing is the only way to describe it.

The mission of Precepts Ministries is "To Establish People in God's Word." Inductive Bible study is different in that the student does the digging. The student is encouraged to thoroughly study the Word on it's own, using context and cross references, before using any commentary. An inductive study Bible contains no commentary, no study notes. The student adds her own study notes, and also color coding.

For today's leader training, we had done three weeks of homework in advance. One week was on 1 Samuel 21-23, comparing the history to the emotion David recorded in Psalms 34, 56, 142, 52 and 54. One week was on Daniel 7, Old Testament Prophecy. And one week was on Matthew 5:1-4, the first two beatitudes. Varied homework to typify varied teaching methods.

The *best* was the insight into the Beatitudes. The meaning of blessed, poor in spirit and mourn.

Each of the words deserves it's own blog. I'll start with blessed.

The Greek word translated “blessed” is makárioi (3107), which means to be “fully satisfied.” This satisfaction is not the result of favorable circumstances in life. It comes only from being indwelt by Christ. Therefore, it would be wrong to translate makárioi “happy” because happy is connected with luck or favorable circumstances. (definition from Zodhiates, Spiros ; Baker, Warren: The Complete Word Study Bible : King James Version. electronic ed. Chattanooga : AMG Publishers, 2000, c1991, c1994)

Full satisfaction regardless of life circumstance; that is what the beatitudes are all about.

This is Christ's recipe for living the abundant life of John 10:10. It is a recipe containing the opposite of what our world wants to tell us will make us happy.

Blessed. We all want to be blessed. Christ tells us how.


Matthew 5:3-12
3 "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
5 "Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth.
6 "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
7 "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
8 "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
9 "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
10"Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 "Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.
12 "Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.NASB95

The recipe for blessed. That's worth some study.