Hood River Alliance Church

The Scripture Practice - Meditate

Practice of Scripture: Read with Keith. Why were brilliant men and women willing to be exiled, imprisoned, and burned at the stake just to get a copy of the Bible into ordinary hands? In this opening teaching on the practice of Scripture, we begin with William Tyndale, the martyr who smuggled the first English New Testament into England, and ask what he saw in these pages that so many of us have lost. Drawing from Matthew 5, we learn to see Scripture through Jesus' own eyes: not as a theology textbook or a collection of timeless truths, but as a story in search of an ending, with Jesus himself as its climax. And we discover the key reorientation for anyone with trust issues around the Bible: we don't trust Jesus because we trust Scripture; we trust Scripture because we trust Jesus. This is an invitation to read differently, slowly and prayerfully, not just for information but for formation, until our reading becomes a holy meeting where we encounter Jesus on the page. The practice this week is simple: open the Scriptures daily with the heart of an apprentice and pray, "speak, your servant is listening."

The Scripture Practice - Read

Practice of Scripture: Read with Keith. Why were brilliant men and women willing to be exiled, imprisoned, and burned at the stake just to get a copy of the Bible into ordinary hands? In this opening teaching on the practice of Scripture, we begin with William Tyndale, the martyr who smuggled the first English New Testament into England, and ask what he saw in these pages that so many of us have lost. Drawing from Matthew 5, we learn to see Scripture through Jesus' own eyes: not as a theology textbook or a collection of timeless truths, but as a story in search of an ending, with Jesus himself as its climax. And we discover the key reorientation for anyone with trust issues around the Bible: we don't trust Jesus because we trust Scripture; we trust Scripture because we trust Jesus. This is an invitation to read differently, slowly and prayerfully, not just for information but for formation, until our reading becomes a holy meeting where we encounter Jesus on the page. The practice this week is simple: open the Scriptures daily with the heart of an apprentice and pray, "speak, your servant is listening."

The Woman at the Well

John 4v1-45 with Keith. Why would Jesus walk straight into the one place every rule told him to avoid? In this teaching on the woman at the well, we follow Jesus as he crosses every boundary, gender, cultural, ethnic, religious, and moral, to meet a Samaritan woman that everyone said wasn't worth talking to. She comes to draw water alone in the heat of noon, hiding from a town that knows her by her shame. But Jesus has a divine appointment with her. He offers living water that satisfies the ache she has been chasing from well to well, then lovingly presses past her deflections to the very thing she most wants to keep in the dark. Set against Nicodemus two weeks earlier, the powerful religious insider, this nobody from nowhere is the one to whom Jesus reveals the covenant name of God: I am. And once her shame is lifted, she becomes the first to run and tell her town. This is an invitation to stop drinking from empty wells, to drag the hidden thing into the light, and to discover that fake you is doing just fine, but Jesus came for the real you.

Humility

John 3v22-36 with Keith. Why would a man rejoice as the crowds he gathered walk away from him? In this teaching on John the Baptist, we encounter one of Scripture's strangest joys: a man whose gladness grows as he decreases and Christ increases. When John's followers worry that everyone is now flocking to Jesus, John doesn't grasp for his platform. He calls himself the friend of the bridegroom, thrilled simply to hear the bridegroom's voice. Set against Nicodemus, who walked away from Jesus confused, John shows us what it looks like to respond rightly to the glory revealed in Christ: not threatened, but overflowing with joy. Along the way we trace a quiet thread about purification that runs beneath the whole scene, and discover that the One the crowds are running to isn't merely a better teacher. He is the Lamb who takes away sin and the bridegroom who makes his bride new. This is an invitation to the upside down, counter-intuitive joy of decreasing so that Jesus might increase.

Born Again

John 3:1-21 with Pastor Tina. The evidence of new life isn't a prayer prayed once in the past but a life continually being filled and renewed by the Spirit. Tracing Nicodemus from his cautious night visit to his bold devotion at the cross, this teaching invites us to consider where the Spirit is stirring in us, whether we're curious seekers at the beginning of the journey, weary believers longing for a fresh filling, or ready to place the full weight of our trust in Jesus and be born from above.