On the weekends (Fri-Sat), we plan to stay at church to fellowship with the young people at HBC and/or witness to college students we meet during the middle of the week. Today (Sat), our team got to spend time with some of the Hope (college and young adult) students! The night before, Mako, Tami-chan, and Maaya slept over with us at church, and Fumika joined us in the afternoon.
After eating some French toast—the making of which was led by our very own Carissa Brown!—we began a discussion on the importance of the Bible for both the believer and the unbeliever. Just as the Word is what we as believers need to grow in the renewing of our minds, the God-breathed Word is what pierces the heart of the unbeliever of sin and gives light to the darkened mind. God speaks into and breathes life into people in power through His written Word. This served as the foundation for our morning lesson: using Scripture in our evangelism. Eric gave us 15-20 min to write out the gospel on our own, including supporting verses.
We broke off into guys and girls and worked on a gospel outline, turning to relevant verses in our Bibles that highlighted a point in our gospel presentation, such as “God is ________ and perfect. He will _________ sin.” This exercise is humbling in that it often shows how much we don’t know about our Bibles as we struggle to articulate the gospel using His Word.
For lunch, we went out to Namba and ate some kushikatsu, which is fried meat and veggies on skewers. On the way to Daruma—the name of the restaurant—we bumped into the Sakaguchi family, members at HBC. Providence! They joined us for lunch and, on the way back, we took a picture with Glico Man.
After eating some French toast—the making of which was led by our very own Carissa Brown!—we began a discussion on the importance of the Bible for both the believer and the unbeliever. Just as the Word is what we as believers need to grow in the renewing of our minds, the God-breathed Word is what pierces the heart of the unbeliever of sin and gives light to the darkened mind. God speaks into and breathes life into people in power through His written Word. This served as the foundation for our morning lesson: using Scripture in our evangelism. Eric gave us 15-20 min to write out the gospel on our own, including supporting verses.
We broke off into guys and girls and worked on a gospel outline, turning to relevant verses in our Bibles that highlighted a point in our gospel presentation, such as “God is ________ and perfect. He will _________ sin.” This exercise is humbling in that it often shows how much we don’t know about our Bibles as we struggle to articulate the gospel using His Word.
For lunch, we went out to Namba and ate some kushikatsu, which is fried meat and veggies on skewers. On the way to Daruma—the name of the restaurant—we bumped into the Sakaguchi family, members at HBC. Providence! They joined us for lunch and, on the way back, we took a picture with Glico Man.
In the afternoon, we reconvened at church for our second lesson, which was on how to study the Bible. Eric led us in a discussion on why we don’t often study the Scriptures and why we should. For the former, we came up with answers like “tiredness,” “laziness,” “it’s hard,” and “don’t know where to start.” If we had eyes to see the Bible for what it truly is, as treasure showing us who our triune God is, we would want to dig deeper into His Word. We then asked the Spirit to teach us and began a study on Romans 5:1-2. It could have been any text. The point was to think together how to go about appropriately handling the word of truth. We broke off into groups of guys and girls again and ended our study by thinking of ways we could apply the text.
For dinner, we ate at an Okinawa-style restaurant called Manna (!) owned by a family at HBC, and we retired to our homes afterwards to get ready for church the next morning.
One highlight and prayer request: On separate occasions, both Mako and Tami-chan shared with some of us the delight they felt in drawing out so much truth from only a few verses! Please pray that our brothers and sisters at HBC would develop this personal habit of getting deep into Scripture, not to be puffed up with knowledge, but because this is eternal life, that we know Him the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom He has sent (John 17:3).
Thank you for reading and supporting us!
Proverbs 2
“My son, if you receive my words
and treasure up my commandments with you,
2 making your ear attentive to wisdom
and inclining your heart to understanding;
3 yes, if you call out for insight
and raise your voice for understanding,
4 if you seek it like silver
and search for it as for hidden treasures,
5 then you will understand the fear of the Lord
and find the knowledge of God.
6 For the Lord gives wisdom;
from his mouth come knowledge and understanding”
-Seichi
For dinner, we ate at an Okinawa-style restaurant called Manna (!) owned by a family at HBC, and we retired to our homes afterwards to get ready for church the next morning.
One highlight and prayer request: On separate occasions, both Mako and Tami-chan shared with some of us the delight they felt in drawing out so much truth from only a few verses! Please pray that our brothers and sisters at HBC would develop this personal habit of getting deep into Scripture, not to be puffed up with knowledge, but because this is eternal life, that we know Him the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom He has sent (John 17:3).
Thank you for reading and supporting us!
Proverbs 2
“My son, if you receive my words
and treasure up my commandments with you,
2 making your ear attentive to wisdom
and inclining your heart to understanding;
3 yes, if you call out for insight
and raise your voice for understanding,
4 if you seek it like silver
and search for it as for hidden treasures,
5 then you will understand the fear of the Lord
and find the knowledge of God.
6 For the Lord gives wisdom;
from his mouth come knowledge and understanding”
-Seichi