Biblical Charting?

0:02 Looking at our world from a theological perspective. This is the Theology Central podcast, making Theology Central. Good afternoon, good early evening to everyone. It is Thursday, December the twelfth, twenty twenty four. It is currently five eighteen pm Central Time, and I'm coming to you live from the Theology Central studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. So what comes to your mind when you hear this term? Are you ready? Biblical charting? Biblical charting? What comes to your mind when you hear that term biblical biblical charting? What comes to your mind? Now? I think, at least for me, the idea is, Okay, I'm making some kind of chart in my study of the Bible to help me study the Bible.

1:02 I'm taking things in the Bible. I'm creating a chart. I'm making some kind of chart in my Bible study. All right Now, I'm not a big chart making person, right. I love to make outlines, but to take anything and turn it into a chart, I'm not good at it. I'm just not good at creating charts. I mean, like, you can give me a pencil and rulers, and it's just I'm not gonna be able to make the chart even look anywhere close to the way I could. You could say, well, you could use different you know, you could use different programs to make a chart on the computer. I probably could, but I'm not a fan of that, right, I'm just maybe I should be, but I just kind of like to just grab paper or just start typing out and maybe almost everything goes in kind of an outline form. Sometimes I got a piece of paper like right here, and I just have stuff like stuff will be written, like it'll be like a point, then this will be another point, and stuff just scattered all over the place. Like if anyone was to see it, they'd be like, I can't even make any sense of that.

2:07 What is that? It looks like you know, someone who's crazy. That's typically the way I do things now. I try to present it in an organized way, and I think somehow my mind because typically I can have something like this that's completely disorganized, but if you listen to me broadcast, it comes across as very outlined and organized. Because I kind of talk and outlines. I don't always do it properly. A lot of time, I'll say number one, but I won't say number two. That's that's frustrating. I do that broadcasting. Sometimes sometimes I'll say one, two, and sometimes I do it correctly, sometimes I don't. But my mind is always thinking in an outlining way. Now, the reason I sometimes will say number one and not say number two is because I'm not I don't have anything on paper right, I don't have anything outlined right. I'm just I'm making the outline up as I speak. So that's kind of the way I approach things. Other people like it very organized and lay that, and the people who can make nice charts, I mean, like, I look, I have nothing but respect for that, because if I look at it, I'll be like, wow, that looks really awesome. I look, I can see okay, oh yeah that that that that that so I can I can see that. So I think when it comes to biblical charting, and that's why whenever I teach Bible study methods. Whenever I teach Bible study methods, what I typically do is I try to say, well, outlining is my preferred method, but you could just summarize, or you could just list or you And even when

3:40 I say outline, I always say, don't worry about doing it completely correct, like Roman numeral one and then one two or or you know, capital a small A and break it all down. I don't care how correct it is when it comes to outlining. I just want you to get what's on the text to right because I want you to see it, process it, and then write it down. I just want you to get it on paper. I don't care if it's correct right now. That bothers some people. If you're going to do an outline, it needs to be academically correct. Well, nobody's getting graded here. I just want you to study the Bible right. So I tend to throw out like you could do it this way or that way, because I know people are very different. Some people could sit there and make a chart and they love it. They're great at it, and it's it's going to capture everything in a really awesome way.

4:32 Others are like, if you want me to chart, it's over. It's done. Like put me in an art class. I'm failing art class, ladies and gentlemen. Hi, if they tell me to trace a straight line with a ruler, I'm going to fail. They tell me to color inside the lines, I'm probably coloring outside the line. I'm going to fell an art unless it's just like, just do whatever you want, no rules. No, then maybe maybe maybe maybe maybe maybe so. But I think then when it comes to Bible study, you got to give people a lot of options so that they can construct a Bible study method that at least plays to their strengths, right. They don't want to necessarily play to their weakness. Now, in some cases people are just we can study. Well, then you've gotta have to kind of force them, Well, you need to study, because well, we're called to study the Bible. But you can shape study methods that work with their strengths. Some people need that chart I'm not good at it, right, So but why am I even asking you? What comes to mind when you hear the term biblical charting? What comes to your mind is because just about fifteen minutes ago, I open up the sermons two point oh app clicked on Newest Sermons, and I saw a sermon entitled biblical Biblical if I can read correctly, not even I'm not even reading it. If I can speak correctly biblical right, or biblical charting, however you would like to see it right,

6:04 biblical charting. And so I saw that, I'm like, well, that looks interesting. So I downloaded it and I'm like, let's review it. And then I thought, well, should I listen to it first? I haven't listened to it first, So this could be really embarrassing if this is not about actually biblical charting the way I'm thinking of it. Like, if you want a definition to biblical charting, here's the definition. Biblical charting refers to creating visual tools such as diagrams, tables, or charts, to organize, summarize, or analyze biblical information. It is a method often used in Bible study to help learners see connections, contrast, and overarching themes within scripture. Let me read that to you one more time. Biblical charting refers to creating visual tools such as diagrams, tables, or charts, to organize, summarize, or analyze biblical information. It is a method often used in Bible study to help learners see connections, contrast, and overarching themes with in scripture. Biblical charting aids comprehension

7:35 by presenting complex or extensive information and a structured and visually accessible format. So when I hear the term biblical charting, that's what I think of a Bible study method or a tool used in Bible study. Method like you could do I guess technically, you could do the chapter summary method We've talked about it and create a biblical chart. You could turn it into a chart. You could do a devotional method, you could do biographical, topical, thematic, and many of those methods actually call for making some kind of a chart. I just never teach the charting part. I never teach the charting part because one I'm never going to do it. I'm just gonna be because even if I try to, you would look at my paper and go, what is wrong with you? You would just walk up and slap me in the back of the head.

8:25 What is wrong? Get that demon out of you. There's something wrong with you? Okay, what is wrong? You just start slapping me around. You'd be like, what is wrong with you? And then I'd get mad. I'm like, how dare you? But yeah, and I would look at you and go, You're right, I don't know what I'm doing. I can't make a chart, ladies and gentlemen. So I always teach it without ever going into any of the charting ideas that are typically suggested, because some people need it. But so I see a message called biblical charting. So immediately this is what I'm thinking. It's about this. I don't know if that's the case, right, So this could go this could go completely wrong. But I'm just telling you when I see the title biblical charting, that's what I'm thinking of. We're going to find out if it's going to go that direction or the pastor has something completely different in mind that I don't know, but I'm just telling you my presupposition is biblical charting. Biblical charting is about creating visual tools such as diagrams, tables, or charged to organize, summarize, or analyze biblical information. It is a method often used in Bible study to help learners see connections, contrasts, and overarching themes within scripture. Biblical charting aids comprehension by presenting complex or extensive information and a structured and visually accessible format. So all of you out

9:55 there who are good at charting, well maybe this is going to be for you. So for all of us who aren't good at charting, what we can possibly glean from this is some principles or ideas that we can take and find a way to utilize these concepts. But not in a chart format, in a non chart format. All I know, you give me principles of how to be a better Bible student. I'm listening, so I'm all ears. Even though this could go completely wrong. I could be like, oh, biblical charting, yes, and then he could be like, biblical charting is. I don't know what he's going to do.

10:38 It looks like Acts twenty seven is the text, so we're just gonna find out together. We're not. The goal here is not to necessarily review all of this. It's sixty two minutes, ladies and gentlemen, sixty two minutes. So there's no way we're gonna be If I try to review this, we'll be here till I don't know, August of twenty twenty seven. Okay, we'll never finish it. So let's just see how far we can get and just see. What we can learn. Biblical biblical charting, biblical biblical? Which do you prefer? Biblical biblical? I think biblical? Right? Right? I mean that right? Okay, all right, yeah, we can have that discussion, right, I always do that. I'll say biblical biblical, yeah, and both, I mean both have their plays, right? Is there a right way wrong. Oh yeah, we could. Let's make a chart. Okay, well, I won't get into that right now. Look are you ready?

11:31 Here we go, Biblical charting. Yeah, and I'm looking at the title. Now, I haven't looked at the title Biblical charting, I think would be the correct way to say this. And let's and I think it's called I think the total of the title, because now I'm looking at the title Biblical Charting Principles. Biblical Charting Principles. All right, So now this gives me a little bit greater confidence that this is about biblical charting the way I'm understanding it. We're going to find out, and we're going to find out right now. The following messages preached from the pulpit of Bible Baptist Church, O Carb Washington. I have a little bit of familiarity and practical experience charting and then navigating what has been put on the chart, and then trying to explain that I wanted to back up a little bigger. I was a navigator in the Navy, but broadly speaking, I was a Naval flight officer an NFO, and people when they've asked me what an NFO is doesn't matter what I say at the end of my explanation. They usually say, oh, so you fly planes, And I try and say no, no, no, and then you just give up. You just say, h yeah, I'm a naval aviation So in contrast to a naval aviator, the pilot types an NFO, and we sometimes jokingly refer

13:03 to them in our community as non flying officers. The NFO is the one who performs all the other tasks, not holding onto the stick or the yoke, but everything else going on. They perform the tasks other tasks in the aircraft in coordination with the naval aviators, the pilots for mission accomplishment. And I did that without even making a dig at pilots, and I think I should we as NFOs, sometimes call them automated or voice activated stick monkeys, which is they're just a little animal up there with the stick in the hand, and we tell them what to do, and they make houses get bigger and houses get smaller doing what the NFOs tell them. That that's not necessarily the case. But if you know a little bit about naval aviation. Back in the day when we have the F fourteens fourteen Tom and then started strapping bombs on him, and they called him the bombcats. Well, the NFO, the Naval flight officer in the F fourteen was called the real the radar intercept officer in the A six intruder manly Man plane. We have on a stick somewhere out here in town right near that one of the entrances to the base. A six intruder. The Naval flight officer NFO was called the bn The bombed your navigator. He sat in the rio, always sat behind the pilot. In the A six with the big bulb of snows, he sat on the right side of the pilot.

14:36 I thought, that's what. So is he going to connect charting to his military career being in the plane? This is interesting because his perception of charting. Is he going to utilize something with that to talk about charting because someone else like it. If you're in the medical world, right, a doctor may talk a about charting, it's going to be a completely different concept, right, a doctor's concept of charting versus someone in a plane doing that. All the other responsibilities sometimes referred to as a non flying officer, like there was is this going to I wonder if it was, if it would impact it. And now again, he may not even be going with the idea of biblical biblical charting the way I've explained it. He may be going in a different direction. But it's interesting he's starting with all of his military experience. Okay, I'm just how is this going to end up with biblical charting? And what would it sound like if it was someone who was in the medical profession and they talked about doing their charting right, how would it sound would it be different? Would the do the principles transfer over? Like You've got charting concepts and lots of different areas in life. Do those principles transfer over? When I pick up a Bible, I'm gonna and I'm going to do biblical charting? Do the principle?

15:58 Are the principles transfer deferrible? Now, and typically when it comes to study, reading, comprehension, breaking a text down, interpreting a text, hermeneutical principles are transferable from what we learn and you know, reading and interpreting literature to the Bible, right, I think that's important. Genres of literature, the Bible has genres of literaty, so they are transferable. So is the charting concept transferable? Let's see where this goes. I wanted to do, and then as I was going through my flight training, they said A six is out of here, So I had to find another job. As opposed to bombedier navigator in the Growler that you now see flying around here, the NFO does communications, navigation, electronic warfare, and the old Prowler they used to call the three guys.

16:51 They had the three NFOs, one in the front next to the pilot and two in the back. They used to call them ekmos. Maybe you've heard that from this area in the past, electronic countermeasures officers, those were all NFOs. What about in the everyone's favorite plane, the EP three areas two, which is starting to make their trips down to the boneyard Davis, Mothin and Tucson, Arizona. Let me pause. No, I'm not crying like I normally do when I preached. This is just shedding a tear for the EP three. They haven't shut down the squadron yet. That's coming in the coming coming months. So in EP three we had three NFL positions. You had the navigator and I did that.

17:42 That held all three positions. Then after you got tired of navigating. You got to go in a little further back in the plane and worked with the electronic intelligence operators, and you were the electronic warfare evaluator. And then after you did that for a year and you've continued on your qualifications, you became the senior electronic warfare evaluator. And then eventually, if the skipper liked you and had enough confidence in you, he would make you a mission commander. And so you were an electronic warfare mission commander and held all those positions, But it started with the navigator. Spot Now I'm somewhat impressed, okay, because I spent nineteen years in the military active duty. Then of course everything happened, and medically retired to one hundred percent disabled. I'm not going to go through my whole story, but I always find it fascinating when I either see someone maybe online posting in a comment section or something about their military experience, and they will refer to all these acronyms and all these job titles, right boom boom boom, boom boom boom boom boom, boom boom boom. And if I even meet people who I was in the military with, I may refer to this or this or this or this or this, and I am in capable of doing There's some there's some terminology I remember, but I was never good with the acronyms and this job title and this and what was the job code? And this and this, and I

19:14 did not and and I look at this kind of two ways. Sometimes I look back with regret, right Like, I mean, I haven't been on the military base in a very long time. But if I was getting my car and drive to Diis Air Force Base and go on base, I could drive around and look at all the different things I did on that base, the different you know, experiences I had, and all the different things good, bad and different, But there would be one part of me that I did. I can say this emphatically. In my nineteen years in the military, I never really I mean, I did lots of things. I have lots of stories, but I couldn't tell you job titles and this and the name of this. I could use any of the military terminology. In fact, if someone was talking to me, they could possibly even accuse me. I don't think you were ever in the military, because I could come across very ignorant from someone in the military speaking to me because I just never really embraced all of it. Right, So in some ways I regret it because I was there, I was in it. I could have really embraced it more and gotten more from it, since it took up nineteen years of my life, right, I could have. I could have really done that, but I didn't. And the reason I didn't is from the very moment I arrived at off At Air Force Base. I've told the story a million times. I mean, I had probably not even been on base more than two or three hours. I

20:46 was like, Okay, I got into the military to go to school. I'm ready to find a Bible college. I'm ready to start studying. Okay, what do I have to do to get my educational bill? Okay, oh wait, Grace University is downtown Omaha on my way. I'm signing up for classes. I'm going to great university. I don't care. All I care about is getting Bible education. So while I was in the military, I've told the story before, I'm working full time military. In some cases, I was a full time student and two or three different schools I was going to school. I felt like all I did in the military was go to school. But I was pursuing theological education. Theological education, theological education because I wanted to know more about theology than anybody else. I wanted to know more about the Bible than anybody else.

21:28 I wanted how to interpret it, how to understand it. I wanted to know church history. I want That's what I wanted to know. So I can talk theology with anyone, Right, you want to talk theology, you want to talk church history, you want, man, I can go. I can just just like a I know that, But all the military language I don't really know. In some ways, I regret it. And here's the reason I regret it. Now, if I would have learned all that military terminology, you'd still I guess, and this way you end up in the same boat. Right. If I would have learned all all of that military language, remember all of the terminology, then I could just sit around telling boring stories of when I was in the military. And sometimes I do tell boring stories when I was in the military, all right, But I could I could tell those boring stories when I was in the military and use some of the terminology, maybe in a more accurate or correct way. But guess what, nobody really cares. Right, nobody cares. Nobody cares. Nobody cares that you're in the military, nobody cares what you did, because it's it's just something in the past. So I would still be left, you know, to quote the famous lyric, I just sit around telling boring stories of the glory days. Nobody cares about those.

22:38 And I don't want to be sitting around telling talking about the glory days, even sometimes I will. Overall, I hate doing that. So I even if I would have done that, I guess I would have maybe more experiences to talk about and talk about it in a more authentic way, but i'd be left with nothing. But at the same time, you know what I've come to regret, all of that time, all of those hours, all of that pursuing philological education, pursuing theological education. You know what it ultimately means in the end, Absolutely nothing, Because when it comes to Christianity, especially the non Catholic side in the Protestant world, all of your theological education is useless because someone who's never even read a systematic theology or even read a book on hermonutics will say, you were wrong, you were wrong, you were wrong, you were wrong. You were wrong. You were wrong. So your education is meaningless.

23:39 It's useless. It's a waste of time and money, it really is. And because I gained theological education, not so that I could join a specific theological team and make everyone happy. I got the philological education where I could challenge question and to go a point where I could do theology, not simply parrot what some system of theology said. Okay, well that that did not work well for me, right, that just ticks off people and offends people. And then you don't have a team. And if you don't have a team, you're a nobody in Christianity. You've got to have a team. You got to find that support. You got to have those people who will back you up. Well, the minute you lose all teams, then you are an outsider.

24:25 You are unclean, unclean. And so in some ways I kind of regret that I can't stand there and tell the stories the way he's telling the stories. But and the other way, I kind of even feel stupid that I, well, everybody was, you know, embracing the military culture. I was like systematic theology, systematic biblical biblical theology, the systematic theology. This, okay, this this, Oh, learn this, and it didn't really matter when it all comes down to it. A right, that doesn't get near biblical charting, right. But let's see, I'm curious which way he's going to go. But I just had to at least acknowledge that because he's telling all these stories, he's using all of the terminologies and the acronyms, and it's like, man, he remembers it all precisely, like I would be telling a story and a completely like I could tell the story and people like I don't think you were really in the military, and I understand.

25:25 I mean, I've got all the documentation. I've got my one disabled from the VA and what happened to me, and I've got my retire you know, military ID. I've got all my documentation if anyone needs to see it. Okay, But all right, here we. Go P three, or the better version, the EP three. You got a couple of pilots up there in front. You have a flight engineer behind them, and then right below the flight station on the right side is where we had the navigator pause. All the way back in college in the Reserve Officer Training Corps down in Albuquerque, New Mexico, at the University of New Mexico. We had to take either a semester or a full year. I must not have liked navigation, because I can't remember how long it was, if it was a one or two semester course. And of course they were kind of gearing us up for these big Hayes gray underway things that bob up and down that I've heard about. Carlos keeps telling me he's going to tell me about what these ships are someday. So they taught us some basic navigation skills, as they would. Really.

26:36 Now, this is always and this is just I want to get to biblical charting, but this is about preaching. This is always the danger for the preacher when you're going to use some illustration, right. He obviously he wants to use this to get to biblical charting. This is his kind of like opening illustration. That's supposed to be your hook, Right, You're trying to pull everyone in, But there's there's a limit, Like what You've always got to be careful, right, Like, there's a lot of people who will hear this. Now, maybe his entire church is filled with military members, but even if the military members get it, a lot of the spouses are gonna be like, I don't know what you're even talking about. They're not in the military. The young people, and they're like, okay, planes, got it, got it? Okay, what does this do with biblical charting?

27:22 Right? So you can lose your audience. It's not like I would like I could be using things that I love. Right. I could talk about literature, right, I could talk about film analysis, I could talk about music. I could talk about professional wrestling. Well, I could use that to try to set the hook to bring people into what I'm saying. But after a while, if I go too long, I'm just gonna lose people. Like you got to be very careful. So I'm not saying he's going too far or too long. I'm just saying, at some point, all of these acronyms, all of these names, all of these planes, Okay, you're gonna tell me you made charts where you could have just said when I was in the Navy, I was in a position where we had to make these charts.

28:09 Here's what the charts were, here's what we use them for. Boom, and then you get right into it. But as pastors, we all make this mistake, especially if it's something that like this was his life. The more you have an emotional connection to the more sometimes you will elaborate and spend more time on when you shouldn't. And it's always difficult to know that balance. Oh, I don't think we ever get it right as a pastor. I think sometimes we could say more. Sometimes we could say sometimes it's best not to say anything at all and just go right into We're gonna talk about biblical charting. Boom, Here's what biblical charting is. Here are the different types of biblical charts. Here's how you make one. We're gonna make because I could go through there's chronological charts, the medic charts, there's comparative charts. There's genealogical charts. There's doctrinal charts to the literary st up your charts. There's prophetic charts. There's like seven different charts which chart what's the purpose of each other. You could go into that, like, maybe he still will. But this is just what I'm noticing, and I'm not criticizing because I make the same mistake. I make the same mistake in my podcast. You hear it all the time. I'll spend too much time in my opening illustration, and then are my opening my introduction, And oh, I make the mistake all the time.

29:28 To being on the water as opposed to under the water, or as opposed to over the water, where I wound up navigating. And so after I got into flight training and did some things down in Pensacola, Florida, the Navy sent us to an air force base of all places, Randolf Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, for six months of heat Texas heat in the middle of the summer. But while we were enjoying the heat and the river walk and seeing the alley on all those things, and eating good new Mexican Texas version of Mexican food. I okay, let's stop right there. Let's remember the Alamo.

30:10 He said, the Alamo. And when you say Texas version of Mexican food, it's called text mes. Okay, but he said the Alamo. A moment of silence as we remember the Alamo. Ok Okay, I'm playing around, but yeah, that's where I went to basic training in San Antotio, Texas. I was at Lachlan Air Force Base. See I could I could tell my own military stories, right, but yes, sorry, text mechs the Alamo. All right, good, that's all. That's it. The sermon is over. You don't once you hear the Alamo, ladies and gentlemen, that you have peaked and preaching the minute you mentioned the Alamo. Everything else is downhill from the I'm joking. I'm joking. Hey, learned how to dr dead reckon as a navigator and used HOTTI. Learned how to use an inertial navigation system and learn how to believe it or not, look up at the star and crunch a bunch of numbers out of these big books we used to have. I'm sure it's all calculators and computers now, but we had to literally go through these books and look up numbers and do calculations and plug them in and then look through the sextent and say, mister instructor, I see a million stars, which one is it? I'm supposed to be taking a fix on. So learned that lots of chart work, lots of chart work. That's probably what Andrew and Joel remember, maybe that far back. My wife remembers going into the bedroom aside of it and seeing big table we had, and that was where I sat for hours on end and did charting and then we would go out in the navigation trainer, a T forty three that had a

31:43 bunch of navigation positions on it for the student navigators, and we would fly around Texas and other places practicing navigating what we had put on our charts, turning points and timing and fuel planning and threats, weather threats, geographical threats, physical threats, depending on if you're in a different type of go fast. Right, so we get the idea he made charts. Now he's seeing the charts were used for different things, all right, Okay, so he charted different things. Okay, great, Now he's obviously using this to set up biblical charting. Again. It would be interesting if if we took the different types of charting that's out there in different professions, do they all transfer over? I've already asked that question on being repetitive, But okay, that's where I'm going, all right. I don't know if we're going to even get to the actual biblical charty because he's taking so long here. But that's okay, that's okay, that's okay. We learn about sermon structure here, we talk about all these things. So let's just see what happens.

32:45 Solow type of jet. You mark out where radio towers are and where power lines are and things like that. Then if you're going into combat, you mark out the adversarial threats, the surface to air missile threat rings and things like that, and where all the triple A is on the border of North Korea. Well, soon after completing that, we showed up here February of ninety five and I checked into Fleet E Reconnaissance Squadron one as an unqualified navigator trainee, and my clearance came in and they said, boom, you're on that crew as a navigator trainee. Off you go to the Westpac to fly around Japan, sitting at the navigation pause a position on the aircraft with an instructor behind me to thhack my head hard or to whack me hard every time I made a mistake. And I appreciated that, because you don't want to make navigation errors, which is the whole point of the message tonight. Once you do all your chart work, well, eventually I got qualified as a navigator, and.

33:50 Then this illustration is going on and on and on and on. Now it'd be interesting, I think everyone everyone would hear this is the This is the difficulty with preaching. There's some people who would listen to this and be captivated by it, love it. There would be other people like, come on, get to the biblical charting, right, get to the Now I'm curious. I hope, I hope. I'm getting nervous now because I just looked down. If this is Acts twenty seven, this is Paul, He's sent to Rome.

34:30 Then we have a storm and we have a shipwreck. Is this gonna be about charting in the midst of a storm? Is he just gonna He's not talking about biblical charting the way I'm thinking, Oh, this could get very embarrassing. Now I'm getting nervous. Now I'm getting really, really, really nervous. Okay, oh boy, oh boy, oh come on, do you want to put your bets in there. We're not actually doing gambling, your pretend bets. How many think that he's actually going to talk about biblic charting, and how many think he's just going to use the idea of charting as navigating the difficulties of life. See now I think he may be saying biblical Biblical charting is about navigating the difficulties of life and he's going to use it more in as an allegorical way. When I saw biblical charting, I was like, boom, which kind of chart?

35:23 Chronological thematic? Okay, all right, I don't like charting, but I want to hear the principles. Did I get it completely wrong? Let's find out. Became an instructor and then a navigator evaluator, and continued on into the back of the plane to do other mission stuff. So then I asked myself, as Pastor Sergeant was sharing with me, I am thinking the theme of the year is going to be about charting the course for the church, our future, not just twelve months out, but like twenty five years out. And I heard charting charting, and I had flashbacks. I don't know if they were all good or bad, but I had flashbacks to my time as a navigator. And at that point I started asking myself, is there any charting in navigation in the Bible that we could turn to and draw some scriptural lessons from. Oh?

36:16 No, I have completely missed this. Now they're talking about charting the course of the church, principles of charting your like your life. He's hey, I thought this is going to be about Bible study methods. Oh man, did I met this up so bad? Okay, now stop laughing. Stop I see you laughing. Stop it, stop it. It's not funny, all right, it's not fun If you say biblical charting, you gotta be talking about making an actual chart. Come on, now, this is a setup, right, this was a setup. Now I'm getting ready to look complete. I got notes here on biblical charting, right, I got notes in it. I gave you a definition, I got the examples of biblical charting.

37:07 I got the benefits of biblical charting. I got how to start biblical charting. And then I was going to try to at least make something on Acts twenty I was gonna say, okay, if Acts twenty seven he's gonna be working through his chart of Acts twenty seven. I know what I'll do. I'll try to make I'll try to make my own chart, but without like a chart. I'll be making like I'll be breaking down the chapter more in my like outline kind of way, right, so would and I was gonna try to adapt his principles as I in real time tried to chart Acts twenty seven. Oh man, I was, oh man, I cannot believe. Obviously I did not make a good navigating chart when thinking about doing this sermon review. This is embarrassing.

37:56 All right, here we go. Well, last Lord's Day, Pastor Sergeant had us. God had us through a leading pastor. Sergeant had us in Acts chapter fifteen in the morning in the evening, preaching about decision making for a church in the morning and then chief men in the evening, both from Chapter fifteen. Wednesday night. At our midweek service, the Lord directed us to Acts chapter sixteen, and a good victory with Eunice and her son Timothy, and the unfeigned faith that was in her mother Lois that went through Unice down to Timothy. And we went along that road to the vision that was given to Paul that was immediately confirmed by all. And so, after meditating on again the theme of charting our course far far forward in the future of Bible Baptist Church, I couldn't help but draw from my past naval navigating in meditating on the naval charting and navigation of the Book of Acts again, this time chapter twenty seven Acts Chapter twenty seven. I'm not going to read the entire chapter. I'm going to read a good portion starting at the beginning, and then I'll jump to the last few verses just to kind of close out the historical account here. And you might be thinking, already, really really, pastor geist, we're charting a course and you turn to a passage in the scriptures where there's a shipwreck and the ship falls apart and

39:29 they have to swim to land or grab a piece of the ship that was broken up. And I do find that I have to admit a little humorous that that's where we'd be tonight. But I think the point is it'll be well served. We're looking at biblical charting principles, and you can learn from the negative as well the positive, and I think we'll see some of that here tonight. So Acts twenty seven again, I'm going to read down to verse twenty five, and then if I remember, i'll skip down to the very end. I'll pick up in verse thirty forty two to close out the chapters. So on, don't you follow along if you will in your copies of the Word of God. Here in Acts twenty seven, and when it was determined that we should sail into Italy.

40:19 And interesting again, it's the Wei so good doctor Luke is there, sailing along as well, they delivered Paul and certain other prisoners under one named Julius, a centurion of Augustus band and entering into a ship of ed rem medium, we launched, meaning to sail by the coasts of Asia, one Aristarchus of Macedonia Thessalonika being with us, and the next day we touched it Sidon, and Julius courteously entreated Paul and gave him liberty to go onto his friends to refresh himself. And when we had launched from thence, we sailed under Cyprus because the winds were contrary. And when we had sailed over the sea of Cilicia and Pamphilia, we came to Myra, a city of Lycia, and there the Centurion found a ship of Alexandria sailing into Italy, and he put us therein. And when we had sailed slowly many days and scarce, were come over against Nidas, the wind not suffering us. We sailed under Crete over against salmone and hardly passing it, came unto a place which is called the fair havens nigh, whereunto was the city of Lesaia. Now, when much time was spent and when sailing was now dangerous, because the fast was now already passed. Paul admonished them and said under them, Sirs, I perceived that this voyage will be with hurt and much damage, not only of the lading and ship, but also of our lives. Nevertheless, the Centurion believed the master and the owner of the ship more than those things which were spoken by Paul, And because the haven was

41:49 not commodious to winter in the more part, advised to depart. Thence also if by any means they might attain to FeNiS and there to winter, which is and haven of crete, and lieth toward the southwest and northwest. When the south wind blew softly, supposing that they obtained their purs purpose loosing, thence they sailed close by Crete. But not long after there arose against it a tempestuous wind called Euroclydin. And when the ship was caught and could not bear up into the wind, we let her drive, and running under a certain island, which is called Clauda, we had much work to come by the boat, which, when they had taken up, they used helps undergirding the ship, and, fearing lest they should fall into the quicksands, strake sail and so were driven, and we being exceedingly tossed with a tempest.

42:41 The next day they lightened the ship, and the third day we cast out with our hands the tackling of the ship. When neither sun nor stars, and many days appeared, and no small tempests lay on us, all hope that we should be saved was then taken away. But after long abstinence, Paul stood fourth in the midst of them, and said, sirs, you should have harkened unto me and not have loosed from crete, and to have gained this harm and loss. And now I exhort you to be of good cheer, for there shall be no loss of any man's life among you, but of the ship. For there stood by me this night the Angel of God, whose I am and whom I serve, saying, fear not, Paul, thou must be brought before Caesar. And lo, God hath given Thee all them that sail with THEE. Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer, for I believe God that it shall be even as it was told me. And I do remember now to not keep reading, to go down to verse forty two at the end of the chapter.

43:43 There and the soldier's council, I should say, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, and fill in the blank if you're familiar with with the scriptures of how this went. At this point, they're shipwrecked, essentially, and the soldier's council was to kill the prisoners, let any of them should swim out and escape. But the centurion, willing to save Paul, kept them from their purpose and commanded that they which could swim should cast themselves first into the sea and get to land, and the rest some on boards and some on broken pieces of the ship. And so it came to pass that they escaped, all safe to land. And not to sound like a Calvinist.

44:26 And as I was writing this on my note notes, I realized it does kind of sound that way. God's sovereignty and grace. He is sovereign and he is gracious, and those two characteristics of our Lord, our God I see in this passage can overcome less than one hundred percent perfect charting and navigating. And I say that by considering the whole purpose of God and all of this, he was getting a man to a certain place. The apostle Paul to who had peel to Caesar and if you think, all right. So this is principles of biblical charting. He's using the concept of charting and a kind of an allegorical illustrative way where I guess we're supposed to learn principles to chart.

45:15 But if the whole point of the story is God overcomes man's charting to accomplish his purpose, then is it about our charting or is it about God's chart I'm I'm trying to follow now. I'm a little I'm a little perplexed because again I saw biblical charting and oh man, I okay. All we can do is just we can just we can just ride this storm out and see where going does this end? I think this is ending in a shipwreck. The ship is coming. It's fitting that this is Acts twenty seven where there's a shipwreck, because this entire episode has turned into a shipwreck. All right, let's see if we can, if we can survive it.

46:06 Back to when he got saved on the road to Damascus and an angel of the Lord spoke to a man named Anonius and said, Hey, Saul's gonna come to you. What was his response, Ah, not that guy, he's crazy. He kills Christians but the Lord said, unto him, Anonius, go thy way. This is back in chapter nine, for he speaking of Saul, this one with this crazy reputation. He is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. For I will show him how great things he must suffer for my namesake. So I guess you could say we see some of the suffering here in his journeys.

46:49 They're chronicled in his writings to the Corinthians. But even this shipwreck here in twenty seven must would be some of the things he would suffer for the Lord's names. But it was as he was going not just to see a king, but Caesar himself. And again so he was told in the middle of all that that this vision from God, Paul, thou must must be brought before Caesar. And Lo, God hath given the all them that sail with thee. So yes, it is an interesting chapter. That they didn't do everything right with their charts, and they didn't do everything right when they were navigating or their choices.

47:31 But God graciously and sovereignly had a purpose in all of that, and he got them where it certainly got Paul where he needed to be, And yet wouldn't it be better to simply look at biblical charting and navigation principles and follow them and you would all say, well, yeah, that would be better than going through what they went through. So that's what we're looking at in the message tonight. And there are certainly many pitfalls of improper charting and navigation. I mean, this whole chapter is one big pitfall after pitfall of doing things wrong. But again, as I thought about this theme of charting our future going forward, I thought of a whole lot of improper charting and navigation from my time in the Navy as the navigator myself or maybe as a mission commander with someone else at the navigation table doing things maybe right, maybe doing things not right that I had to catch as the mission commander.

48:31 A one time of failure to brief the flight and fly the brief. I don't know if you've ever heard that. More broadly speaking, train like a fight, fight like you train in naval aviation or aviation in general. There's a pretty solid principle we're going to brief this flight and then we're going to go fly what we briefed, and if you go and fly something different than what you briefed, what you charted out, Basically you charted something and then went and navigated and flew something different happened. Problems happened. We had a mission, we were out in the Persian. Okay, I am having a hard time how this is gonna fit AX twenty seven. I really I'm having a hard time here all right, because what we have basically how this works is Paul receives direct revelation from God.

49:32 These other men do not. They can either go with their experience, their knowledge of navigation charting, or they can listen to someone who gets direct revelation from God. So I don't know if this is about charting. It's about one person gets direct revelation from God and others don't. Well, none of this is applicable to us today because none of us is getting direct revelation from God. God has given us a revelation and his word. So if you want to talk about charting, then the key would be to do proper biblical charting, would be to do proper Bible study and proper hermeneutics right, and then when it comes to then, well, then the Bible. We have to learn how to study the Bible and chart it out, and then we have to follow it. Well. Then this seems to give the idea that as long as we've got the right chart of what the Bible says, that we can follow it. But we know we can't follow it even if we can correctly understand it, because we are sinners with a sinful nature. Therefore, I can read a verse that says be holy as God is holy, I can clearly chart that out, be perfect, I can't do it. So then this whole concept just seems to fall apart logically, philologically, contextually. Who charted this out?

50:53 I don't know. So now he's going to tell stories. It sounds like when they were in the Persian Gulf. Here we go golf area, sorry, State Department Arabian golf. On most maps and charts that says Persian Persian golf depends on which side of the golf you're looking at and who you're politically aligned with. But out in that part of the world, there's a narrow body of water that connects the Red Sea down to the Gulf of Aden and out to the Indian Ocean. It's called the Strait of Babel Mandeb, and when we were doing our chart work, we would never remember that. We would just call it the Strait of Barbara Mandrel because it just looked similar. But it's the Strait of Babel Mandeb. It actually means the Gate of Lamentation or the Gate of sorrows.

51:37 I believe the Strait of Babel Mandeb. And the problem with the Strait of Babel Mandeb is that at its narrowest point it's less than twenty four naric miles across. You say, who cares, it's a strait, it's narrow. Well, my job as a navigator was to always keep us twelve nautical miles away from any target nation we were flying against out in international airspace, even though some countries claim much further out than that. International law is twelve nical miles. And so my job as a navigator or mission commander over the navigator was to tell him keep us twelve narical miles from anyone and everyone. Well, that's pretty hard if you're going through a straight and you have Yemen on this side and Djibouti and Eritrea on this other side, on the Horn of Africa, and you're trying to keep twelve miles from all of them, and you can't because there's not twelve on either side. So what did we do In our charting and our briefing.

52:34 We said, we're gonna fly right down the middle. We'll just get as far away as we can from both sides, and we plotted some points through the strait of Babel Mandeb. So, in this particular mission, I was the mission commander and the navigator was sitting there and we had briefed that, and I was sitting up in a spare seat next to him, and I'm listening on the headset, and the you manic controllers did not like the fact that this American spyplane was off of their coast. And so as we were flying up the straight with them on our right side, the controllers are yeah yeah, yea, yeah, yeah yeah to our pilots, and they said you shouldn't be there, and they're giving them all sorts of direction, and I'm saying, we briefed the flight, fly the brief, stay right in the middle of the straight of Able Mendez, and all of a sudden one of the pilots got unnerved and took a heading order from a suggestion scream from the controller in Yemen, and he starts deviating from what we had briefed in the flight and I calmly said, that's interesting. No, I didn't calmly do anything. I jumped out of my seat and I stuck my head in the flight station and I told him fly center line, fly the fly what we briefed. The can cause proper.

53:55 Oh, man, I don't know what to say. I can't. I can't critique this. I can't there's nothing to do. Somehow He's gonna pull this story to acts twenty seven. But the story in Act twenty seven is Paul received direct revelation for God saying, hey, don't go here. They're like, no, this is the way we're gonna go. When we're gonna go, and well, it all goes it all goes bad. But then we find out that in a sense, God has used all of this to get Paul exactly where he wants him to get. So is it man, does Man's charting even come into play anywhere in this story? Or is it all God's charting?

54:35 Problems If you don't if you fail to fly the brief, you can also have problems if you do proper chart work, and then when you get in the plane and go to fly what you had charted you Those charts are big. I mean, if you had it all the way and you couldn't see anything, you couldn't see your boloney sandwich over here when you got bored on your flight. So navigators would like fold up their charts in a certain way so you can have the part that you're flying right in front of you. Well, the problem is there might be a danger just on the other side of the fold. This not me as a navigator. This was not even my squadron. It was one of the patrol squadrons that was flying in the same area that the Persian golf or Arabian golf, however you choose. And there's an island kind of right in the middle, awkwardly in the middle of the Persian golf. It's called Farsi Island.

55:39 Who do you think owns Farsi Island? The people that speak Farsi, that speak Persian, the Iranians. It's Iranian controlled, but it's awkwardly right smack dab in the middle of the golf. And so what do you do as a navigator. It's one of the things you're told by ironstructent. Make sure you have like glowing blinking lights on your chart around Farsi Island. Do not overfly Farsi Island. Do not overfly Iranian territory. Well, this particular navigator had Farsie Island just on the other side of his fold, and sure enough their P three was flying along, flying along, flying along, and then he flips up the bottom of his chart and he went and the rest of their flight was trying to figure out how they were going to keep that from US authorities, their chain of command, that they had overflown Iranian territory. Bottom line, they weren't able to hide it. And yes, they got in a bunch of trouble because they had charted properly, but they navigated poorly.

56:43 Okay, we're at fifty six minutes, all right, so this is turning into a shipwreck, no pun intended. So let's do let's do a thematic chark. So there's Acts twenty seven. He read most of it. I'm gonna just try to throw out a what I would call a thematic chart for Acts twenty seven, right, just from listening and reading and trying to look at the text, going how am I going to save this message? Now? I'm not going to do this, Like, if you want to make this into a chart, you could. We could do something like this, a thematic chart. What's a major theme in this even he acknowledges in that message just briefly, the major theme God's sovereignty. We have this in Acts twenty seven one through two. Right, So we have acts twenty seven one through two, and then twenty two through twenty five, all right, twenty two through twenty five. Paul is placed under Roman custody and embarks on the journey with God's plan for him to testify in Rome intact. God's plan is for Paul to testify in Rome. No matter what anybody else does, no matter what other chart they make, this is going to happen. God's plan prevails despite obstacles. That's the key insight.

58:04 So we could break this down. The theme is God's sovereignty. The verses are Acts twenty seven one through two, twenty two through twenty five. The details Paul is placed under Roman custody and embarks on the journey with God's plan for him to testify in Roman tact and the key insight God's plan prevails despite obstacles. That's that's what we get here. We could go with human decisions could be a second theme, right, Acts twenty seven nine through twelve. The sailors and Centurion ignore Paul's warning about continuing the journey. He read this section right, Well, human wisdom often conflicts or is in conflict with divine guidance. Human wisdom finds itself at times in conflict with divine guidance or or God's word. Right, we could talk about that, right. How about how about a third? We could go Storms and Trials, Acts twenty seven thirteen through twenty A violent storm threatens the ship and the lives of all on board. That's right there in the text. He read it, all, right, So we could go with maybe something like life storms, test faith, and perseverance. Now, I'm not a big fan of going that direction. But if he really wanted to turn this into an allegory that the storm represents live storms, I don't know about that. I just know that in life there can be real storms, real obstacles, real difficulty, real tragedy. Right, but guess what God's plan is not impacted?

59:38 Maybe we could go something along those lines. Could we go with possibly God's assurance. Acts twenty seven, twenty one through twenty six, Paul reassures everyone with God's promise of survival through an angelic message. Faith in God's promises brings hope amid despair. Well, in this particular case, I don't know if I can apply it to me. Because God gave them pacific promise about survival, he does not give me that I'm going to even survive tonight. So but I know that I'm gonna have eternity in heaven, So I don't know how About leadership and influence. Acts twenty seven, twenty seven through thirty two, Paul takes leadership, ensuring the sailors stay on board to secure everyone's safety. Godly wisdom often earns trust in crisis. Maybe maybe the people don't know what else to do, and this person claims to be hearing directly from God. So I.

1:00:30 Don't know. Yeah, there's more I could There's more. I could go here, but I mean there, we could start breaking down the key themes. So we could go through Acts twenty seven and find key themes. If we want to chart this out now, I can do that without making a chart. I can do that with just like I'm gonna do a thematic study of Acts twenty seven and find the key themes and then outline them. Now that's just going through. Look, none of that is perfect, none of that is great. But I gotta give you something here. Because we've gone almost an hour, he's he's probably almost half done with this sermon. We haven't gotten one thing. We haven't gotten anything. I mean nothing, not a thing. At this point, I'm gonna let this go a little bit further just to see if he gives me something.

1:01:19 One other example, come over to my house sometime for hours of coffee. You know, there are many more stories from where these came from. You can chart properly, have again, have a right plan and go to enter the coordinates in your navigation systems. And we call it fat fingering doo doo doo doop ah. And there are all sorts of procedural things in place to check that, and those fell aparts. And that's way down another rabbit trail. But bottom line. Had some friends flying an EP three across the Korean peninsula, and the navigator put the wrong coordinates for one of the waypoints in the inertial or GPS whatever They were flying off of and so they were supposed to go back and forth, back and forth. It's just like ping pong, hours and hours of boring flying.

1:02:12 You fly east and you turn around and fly west, back and forth as you're looking north into the Democratic people were Democratic People's Republic of North Korea. Well, if you put a wrong waypoint in there instead of going due east, you might find yourself as these friends of mine flying pretty much north, they were kind of going north northeast towards North Korea. They had charted it properly, they had, you know, the right coordinates and everything planned out, and then they just punched it in wrong. And as my friend tells me the story, he was the senior electronic corp for evaluator on that flight, the mission commander.

1:02:53 He said, he's on the headset listening to these radio calls from the Air Force and I hate Andrew might listen to this. I hate give the Air Force credit for saving the day. But the Air Force is seeing this little blip that they're controlling going closer and closer to North Korea, and they start calling out code words, saying hey, idiot in a professional way and using code words that we have when you're going someplace you're not supposed to go. And he's telling me. I was thinking, who's the idiot? Number one that's that's about to fly into North Korea and number two is not heating the warning calls from the air force controllers that are that are trying to protect them from hurting themselves.

1:03:36 Who's the it? And his eyes got like this big as he looked on his screen the situation of wehearing screens showing where they were tracking, and he ran up to the navigator position, hit the navigator in the back of the head, said, navigator, plot our present position. Now you like freezes, inertials or gs or whatever, and goes as My friend then ran into the flight station and. Said, how does any of this work feel logically. To me? Theologically, here's what I learn that, even in actual navigation, human beings make mistakes will Philologically, if I'm supposed to be trying to chart my life using the Bible, it's going to be filled with mistakes because the one doing the charting, I'm a sinner. I have a sinful nature.

1:04:29 My charting is corrupted because it flows out of a sinful nature. And even if I get the chart right, I still can't, and I'm incapable of performing what the chart tells me to do. The chart tells me be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect, be holy. So I even if I get be holy as God is holy, I can't even get that. Even if I get the chart right, I can't follow the chart perfectly? So how does this even work philologically? I don't even know. This would have made far more sense if he just said, we're going to talk about principles of biblical charting, and we're gonna use Acts twenty seven to create a biblical chart, which is what I thought he was going to do. But I don't even know where this is going. This is just turning into story after story after story.

1:05:12 Not I know. I know that we've talked about recently why churches don't like podcasters, Right, they don't like it. Right, you need to go to church to hear the word of God preached. What I don't fly Turn one eight zero, No. Before they flew into North Korea? What would it happen? I don't know. We put twenty four people on one of those airplanes, and the North Koreans, according to World History, are still at war even to this day. And so I'm glad that my friend finally said, don't I'm the idiot, We're the idiots, We're a planeful of idiots, and corrected their navigation. Now I could, I could just take those in a bunch of other c stories and force them to fit into the text. But I tried to be as disciplined as I could and instead read through this text over and over again and let some of the biblical lessons learned on how to you know, figuratively chart our way and of course this would apply to us on vision Sunday, how to chart our course ahead and then and then scripturally biblically navigate that. So I looked for those lessons learned, and then you'll be glad to know when I found those those lessons learned, those principles, I did have some illustrations in the back of my head to apply to make it more visual to you.

1:06:44 So number one, so this is just me reading through this text because it's a place where they were navigating poorly or just navigating in general, and the Bible saying, okay, we're charting our course for the future far far out. How can what can we learn from this text to make sure we do that correctly, won't first thing I noticed here in the opening couple verses, and it really struck out to me as again as a navigator, probably would for brother birmister who was a navigator under the ocean, maybe some others with that experience the departure and destination determination. As a navigator, I can tell you what. I was never told to chart a course from an unknown departure to an undetermined destination.

1:07:31 Now just go chart the course. Well, like from where wherever? Just you know, pick an airfield, just random, well where are we going, that doesn't matter, just somewhere. Just take your chart and do something never happened to me ever in my navy career. My chain of command always higher authorities instructed me from where to take off and where we were going to am. I'm guessing it's the same in a submarine. They didn't say, hey, navigator, burmister, just chart your course and just go somewhere maybe even working well, both pretty strategic assets, maybe submarine and a naval reconnaissance aircraft. So we were always told where we were to chart from. And we see that, you know, right at the beginning of the text and when it was determined, determined by who. It was determined by someone in a position of authority. His name was Agrippa. And when it was determined by Agrippa that we should sail in this Italy, why was he choosing that as a place. Well, because Paul had appealed to Caesar, and you appealed to Caesar under Caesar, shall you go? And he even said I wish he hadn't because we could have just led him off because he's an innocent man. But he demanded to see Caesar. So when it was determined by those in positions of authority that we should sail in Italy, they delivered Paul and yeah, yeah, on from there. So

1:09:02 the application would be this. In charting a course for Bible Baptist Church, God tells us, as the ultimate higher authority, from where and when to start, not necessarily a geographic location, but a point in time. Well, I guess the geographic location would be Okarber would be on in Washington. But really from where to start, which would be the point in time? It's his perfect timing and God's Holy Spirit and the Holy scriptures tell us where we're going, both generically under all the world and every creature and specifically as the case here in the Book of Acts a little further back, chapter sixteen, come over into Macedonian help us, So all the world, every creature will where specifically for us or our evangelistic team Macedonian call man.

1:09:56 I don't even know where to go with any of this. He's just taking the text and just using it. How about chart a course and how to interpret the text? Right? And then the key is who's determining this? Is it? Is it Augustus is determining? Or is or a grip I should say? Is it Agrippa or is it God? I mean, like I think this is all demonstrates God's sovereignty, Right? Is it God the one directing this? I don't know. We're gonna have to stop. We're at seventy minutes. I don't even know what to say, ladies and gentlemen. That Wow, that's hilarious. I see biblical chart, biblical biblical If we want to have a conversation, that's what we really need to solve, because none of this other stuff really Okay, now I'm joking. Biblical charting. I see that, and I go Bible study method. Okay, what kind of chart, chronological, thematic, literary, like you know, prophetic, all the different, and I'm thinking, Okay, he's gonna get principles. I wonder what principles and guess what I found had nothing to do with that at all.

1:11:12 Thank you for listening into this complete total shipwreck. I don't know what else to say. God bless