The Christian Bible Study Fellowship Group - #375

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Welcome to the new readers of this message! Here is your Devotion, A Moment of Introspection, JCSM's Challenge, the Word of the Week, a faith-builder from "The Skeptic's Annotated Bible: Corrected and Explained," and the Quotes of the Week. Have a fantastic week and God bless you!

Ecclesiastes 4:12 "Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him.
And a threefold cord is not quickly broken."

2 Corinthians 6:14 "Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness?"

1 John 1:6, 7 "If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin."

Hebrews 10:24, 25 "And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching."

Insight: Christian Bible study fellowship groups are very important. They help us grow spiritually. If you've ever been in one, then you understand the many benefits. If you aren't in one now, pray and see where God leads you. You could be blessed and a blessing to others.

Prayer: "Dear Lord, thank you for wanting us to grow in You. Thank you for giving us the local church and its ministries to help us. Let us have discipline to take time out of our busy schedule to pray, fellowship, and read your Word with other believers. Thank you for the great blessings through Bible study fellowship groups. Remind those that haven't been to one in a long time. Help those that feel like they are all alone in this world. Remind us all that You are faithful and You have a wonderful plan for us. In Jesus' name, Amen."

Mark Twain (1835-1910), whose given name was Samuel Langhorne Clemens, took the pen name "Mark Twain" from a Mississippi river pilot. He wrote many famous novels, including: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, 1884, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, 1976, Life on the Mississippi, 1883, The Prince and the Pauper, 1882, A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court, 1889, Joan of Arc, 1896, and many more.

In Innocent Abroad, 1869, which solidly established his reputation, Mark Twain wrote:

"It is hard to make a choice of the most beautiful passage in a book which is so gemmed with beautiful passages as the Bible....

"Who taught these ancient writers the simplicity of language, their felicity of expression, their pathos, and above all, their faculty of sinking themselves entirely out of sight of the reader and making the narrative stand out alone and seem to tell itself? Shakespeare is always present when one reads his book; Macaulay is present when we follow the march of his stately sentences; but the Old Testament writers are hidden from view." - Innocents Abroad, or the New Pilgrims' Progress, p. 492. Stephen Abbott Northrop, D.D., A Cloud of Witnesses (Portland, Oregon: American Heritage Ministries, 1987), p. 88.

"We dismounted on those shores which the feet of the Saviour had made holy ground.... We left Capernaum behind us. It was only a shapeless ruin. It bore no semblance to a town. But, all desolate and unpeopled as it was, it was illustrious ground. From it sprang that tree of Christianity whose broad arms overshadow so many distant lands today. Christ visited his old home at Nazareth, and saw His brothers Joses, Judas, James, and Simon....

"Who wonders what passed in their minds when they saw this brother (who was only a brother to them, however He might be to others a mysterious stranger; who was a God, and had stood face to face with God above the clouds) doing miracles, with crowds of astonished people for witnesses? - Innocents Abroad, or the New Pilgrims' Progress, p. 499-502. Stephen Abbott Northrop, D.D., A Cloud of Witnesses (Portland, Oregon: American Heritage Ministries, 1987), p. 88.

"One of the most astonishing things that has yet fallen under our observation is the exceedingly small portion of the earth from which sprang the new flourishing plant of Christianity. The longest journey our Saviour ever performed was from here to Jerusalem - about one hundred to one hundred and twenty miles.... Leaving out two or three short journeys, He spent His live, preaching His Gospel, and performing His miracles, within a compass no larger than an ordinary country of the United States....

"In the starlight, Galilee has no boundaries but the broad compass of the heavens, and is a theatre meet for great events; meet for the birth of a religion able to save the world; and meet for the stately figure appointed to stand upon its stage and proclaim high decrees." - Innocents Abroad, or the New Pilgrims' Progress, p. 513. Stephen Abbott Northrop, D.D., A Cloud of Witnesses (Portland, Oregon: American Heritage Ministries, 1987), p. 88.

In The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson, 1894, Mark Twain penned:

"Adam was but human - this explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple's sake, he wanted it because it was forbidden." - 1894, in Pudd'nhead Wilson, Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar, chapter 2. John Bartlett, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1855, 1980), p. 624.

"Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is, knows how deep a debt of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great benefactor of our race. He brought death into the world." - 1894, in Pudd'nhead Wilson, Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar, chapter 3. John Bartlett, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1855, 1980), p. 624.

"It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them. - 1897, in Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar, chapter 20. John Bartlett, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1855, 1980), p. 625.

Have you ever been mentored? Did you know that we have several examples of mentor/protege relationships in the Bible? If you're already in a Bible study group and you want to draw even closer to Christ, then consider finding a Christian mentor!

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