Hey guys! As of this last Friday, The Bible Quizzing Journey is officially THREE YEARS OLD!!! I'm always super excited to hit these big milestones in my blog-writing, and content creating, because it reminds me to take a step back for a moment, and appreciate where I've come from - and where I still have to go. Three years ago, on November 17th 2014, I had just finished the qualifying quiz to go to the St. Louis Top Ten Invitational. I had prepared really hard for this qualifying quiz, and I was over the moon about making the top ten! So what did I do? I decided to start to write a blog about this thing called quizzing, that I was so ecstatic about.... and the rest is history! :P Throughout the past three years of writing this blog, I've learned things about writing, encouraging, mentoring, formatting, computers, and content creating in general. But I've especially been able to encourage myself, to keep trying to give Bible Quizzing my best effort, and to keep learning how to improve. The first two years of writing this blog were good, don't get me wrong, but I'm especially thankful for this past year. A lot of change has taken place, not just in moving to Colorado, or in finding a totally new place in my quiz district and quiz team - but in myself, and in my relationship with God. I believe that all of this positive change has been a huge factor in me growing TBQJ. I've gone from posting every once in a while - sometimes not for a month or two at a time - to planning a post every week, filming and releasing a vlog every other week, and sending out a newsletter on the opposite weeks, and making a resource library. I owe all of this creativity to God, because He is the author of inspiration! I don't want to spend a lot more time on this section ('cause I know you're super bored by now :P), but I do want to make sure that you all know that I appreciate, so much, all of the awesome support and love you have responded with! Kind comments, either online or in person, really mean so much to me, and I love hearing that a piece of my writing has helped or inspired you. Thank you, my wonderful, wonderful friends! And with no further ado, let's get into the intro for today's post!! Today's post, even though it is partly a celebration for the third-year anniversary, is also the first post in a new series! It's a lot like the series I had last season, "Favorite Parts of Luke"... Today we are starting... Highlights of Corinthians! In this series, I'm going to be periodically sharing with you, three verses or passages that stood out the most to me (overall, or in the time since the last Highlights post). I won't be going through - like last season - just chapter by chapter, or taking a part of the material in each post. Rather, I'm going to simply take all of the material into thought, and choose three highlights I haven't mentioned before. So lets do it! Number One: 1 Corinthians 8:1-3 In these verses, Paul says, "We all possess knowledge, but knowledge puffs up while love builds up", and "whoever loves God is known by God". And I'm going to tell you what I really love about that first phrase, first. "Knowledge puffs up while love builds up". That sounds an awful lot like the saying, "they don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care" - and it's so true! The world today doesn't need a bunch (more) of condemnatory preachers, or self-righteous, even well-meaning, Christians yelling at them for them to repent of their sins. The world needs to know the love of God, and that there is redemption for them, and that there is forgiveness just waiting to be accepted by them, from their loving Heavenly Father. Knowledge about God and about His word won't profit the world anything, if we don't have love, because it's love that catches people's attention. If we start with accusations right off the bat, pressuring them to accept Christ as soon as possible - because He could come any second - then they'll get on the defensive immediately, and their hearts will be further hardened towards the truth. Instead, this verse and many others, tell us that we should just be Jesus to people. We aren't called to make converts, or to "win souls for Christ". No. We're called to love the unlovely. Amen? Number Two: 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 I LOVE THIS PASSAGE SO MUCH!! To be real, I love pretty much every passage of scripture that paints such an awesome picture of how our God has called us to live. "Run in such a way as to win the prize". Oh that just gives me chills! God is not a God who calls people to follow Him, and then abandons them without another glance or word, or instruction - He's a God who tells us exactly how we can get the most out of this life; How we can live it to the absolute fullest! Our calling, while we're on this earth, is partly to become as much like Christ outwardly, as we are inwardly. Our Spirits, according to Ephesians 1, are completely sealed - that means that that 1/3 of you is 100% Holy Ghost. One third of you is one hundred percent the Spirit of God. That's insane. Because of that, and because God loves us so much as His beloved children, He has called us to not give in to what is easy, but to work towards what is hard, so that we may manifest the truest beauty of our best selves. That means letting God teach us about self-discipline (as it is the title of this passage :P). We go into "strict training", just like those competing in the games, so that we will be able to run in such a way as to win the prize. We train as soldiers of the Powerful, Loving, Living and Almighty God, because we don't want to walk through our lives aimlessly! Each and every one of us has been entrusted with an imperative role to play in this world, because there is a fight, right now, waged between good and evil. You are an important instrument of God, to bring evil to it's knees once and for all, and obliterate it from the universe and beyond. So you see, we have a responsibility to all of the people whose lives we are each going to transform through the love and power of our Father, to learn this self-discipline, and train - as hard as we can - to run our race, and win first place. I don't want to waste my life. I don't want to reach the end of my days here on earth, and not be able to say that I ran as hard as I could for my God who loves me so much, and who has given me life. Rather, as Paul says, I would like this to be our war cry: "I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air." I believe in you, God believes in you - what can stand in your way? Number Three: 1 Corinthians 13 (all of it, pretty much :P) This chapter, strategically placed between chapters 12 and 14, is absolutely incredible. Yeah yeah, people talk about this chapter a lot, and it's easy to just skim over it because of that, right? Throw all of that nonsense out. I would like you to, if you haven't already, look at this passage with a fresh pair of eyes. Don't look at it through the lens of it being a popular, "over-used" part of God's Word. Rather, try to look at it as if you had never heard of it, or heart it, before. Let God speak His own message, His own view point to you. I'm not saying that all of the "generic" things people say about this chapter is wrong, but it's been chewed up so much that we can't really seem to get a lot of nutrients out of it for ourselves when we're only eating from other people's revelations. God has a revelation specifically, and exclusively for you, because you're the only person who can understand it, and hear Him, like you do. Remember that. So, looking at this passage with a fresh, original pair of eyes, what do you see? I saw God's name replace the word "love", everywhere in the chapter, because my sister off-handedly mentioned it when she saw me studying it. We can do this because in 1 John, it literally says that God IS love. It's really cool when you read it through, replacing the word "love", with "God"! "God is patient, God is kind. He does not envy, He does not boats, He is not proud. He does not dishonor others, He is not self-seeking..." etc, etc... I've spent a fraction of the time that I would like to, just meditating and thinking over each of these statements. If you ever hear or experience something that claims to be God, but fails to meet ANY ONE of these requirements, you have the right to rebuke it and push it out of the way and out of your mind, because I promise you it's not God. God's Word is perfect, and if it says that God is love, then love is God, and nothing can ever change that, amen? (Don't forget to ask God what special, personal, specific revelation and understanding He would like to give you, His wonderfully made and loved child, from this chapter!) That's all for today, wonderful people!
If you'd like to find out a little bit more about me and this blog, you can head over to our (newly revamped) about me page, "Start Here", for more information and some fun pics! Also, I would like to remind you of our Newsletter, that goes out every other Sunday afternoon - for more info on that, you can head over to our Newsletter page :). Man, I love you guys so much, and God is absolutely enthralled with you - I hope you know just how much He loves you this week. Have a fantastic Thanksgiving week and weekend, and I'll see you on Saturday for the TBQJ Vlog, Episode 8, and back here again on Monday, for another post ;). Never forget... We, the Quiz-Journeyers, quiz and live victoriously! Keep calm and quiz on (and out)! Your fellow quizzer, Mallory
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Trending Posts:Author:Mallory is a graduated Teen Bible Quizzer originally from the Southern region, moved to the Northwest, coaching quizzing over the book of Matthew. Check out our
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