Holiday Schedule & Snack List

Below is the schedule over the next few weeks:

December 8th - NO GROUP
December 15th - Accountability (Snack: Bevils)
December 22nd - NO GROUP
December 29th - NO GROUP
January 5th -  Desiring God Chapter 2 (Snack: Heather)

3rd Annual PROOF Christmas Party

The 3rd Annual PROOF Christmas Party will be Monday, December 6th! It will be in conjunction with Koinonia and held at the Dest's house. Click this link to RSVP: Invite

This year's party will be complete with tons of food and fellowship, including our traditional White Elephant Gift Exchange and, time permitting, Christmas Bingo!

Hope you can make it!

November & December Celebrations

November

November 7 - Lesley's Birthday

November 25 - Thanksgiving

December

December 6 - 3rd Annual PROOF Christmas Party

December 8 - Ryan & Dayna's Anniversary

December 20 - Brad's Birthday

December 25 - Jesus's Birthday

New Adventure & New Design!

PROOF will be embarking on a new adventure and stage in its life, so I figured this called for a blog redesign as well! Hope you like it!

This small group has been around for 2 years and in that time we have studied many things (see "About Us"), grown spiritually, and become unbelievably close to each other as brothers and sisters in Christ. But in that time, we've also grown in numbers... with 20 members, we're no longer considered a "small" group. So, though most of us didn't want to admit, a big change has been approaching for a while.

We seem to have mastered what it takes to form a close knit community of believers. Through the structure of our group (alternating weeks of accountability and Bible study) and God's workmanship, we have come to understand what it means to "do life" with other believers. And speaking for myself, I don't know what I'd do without this kind of community in my life.

But at 20 members, the intimacy required for a successful community was being stretched. After much prayerful consideration, one couple from our group has decided to launch a new group with the same "PROOF" structure in mind - a PROOF offspring, if you will. Many PROOF members have chosen (due to scheduling and/or God's nudging) to join this new group, Koinonia.

Those of us continuing on the PROOF journey have decided to move our group to Wednesday nights. We are also beginning a new study, Desiring God, by John Piper. Since we are starting out at only 8 members, we encourage any Terranovans that may be interested in joining our group to come check it out!

We are excited to watch and see what God does through the new adventures of both PROOF and Koinonia :)

OCTOBER CELEBRATIONS

10/1 Happy Anniversary, Diane + Erich
10/16 Happy Birthday, Pamela
10/16 Cottage Birthday Ruth '97 ?
10/18 Happy Anniversary, Marlyn + Jim
10/19 Happy Birthday, Jeff

SNAX Calendar

PROOF Snax Calendar!! Yum!!!

8/30 Sally
9/6 Labor Day
9/13 brenda
9/20 Lesley
9/27 Marlyn

Rightly Handling the Word of Truth

• Principle #1: We must get our theology from Scripture - not force our preconceived theology into Scripture
• Principle #2: Scripture interprets Scripture. Scripture does not contradict itself.
• Principle #3: Context! Context! Context! We cannot take Scripture out of context!
• Principle #4: Audience Relevance - the text has relevance to its original audience
• Principle #5: Consider the cultural context of a passage
• Principle #6: We must determine whether a text is descriptive or prescriptive. 
• In doing so, consider the following:
         -keep in mind the author's purpose
         -be consistent in your approach
         -look for unbroken patterns
         -use all the other principles
         -this is not an exact science!
• Principle #7: We must read the text in light of its literary genre
• Principle #8: Authorial Intent - we must seek to understand the author's intent. The author controls the meaning.
• the text always means what it always meant - it can never mean what it never meant! Its meaning is fixed by God.
• Principle #9: Principlize - formulate a principle (or precept) based on the meaning of the text. 
• The principle needs to meet the following criteria:

         -timeless truth

         -cross-cultural

         -based on the author's intention

         -consistent with the rest of Scripture
• Principle #10: Make application - apply that principle to our lives.
• keep in mind that application can vary based on where we are in our walk of life - but the 
  meaning is fixed!
• when we misapply Scripture, we hurt people.

Most importantly, we must study Scripture with a prayerful, humble heart, allowing the Holy Spirit to guide us.

-Summary of David Boone's sermon series on Rightly Handling the Word of Truth. Audio recordings can be found at: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.