Many churches no longer give Bible studies, often unsure how to start. Yet, it’s simple, cost-effective, and the most powerful way to reach others. In this workshop, you’ll learn keyprinciples: how to connect, share your testimony, invite others, and lead Bible studieseffectively. Discover the do’s and don’ts, bringing people to Christ, baptism, and activediscipleship.

ASI Scandinavia 2024, One Purpose: Living for What Truly Matters

Many churches no longer give Bible studies, often unsure how to start. Yet, it’s simple, cost-effective, and the most powerful way to reach others. In this workshop, you’ll learn keyprinciples: how to connect, share your testimony, invite others, and lead Bible studieseffectively. Discover the do’s and don’ts, bringing people to Christ, baptism, and activediscipleship.

Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.

ASI Scandinavia

Seminars

K Lenart

How to Start a Bible Study Movement

Our Heavenly Father, as we gather here together, it's so good to have you as a speaker, because we are humans and we need you.

This is spiritual matters, and only spiritual things can be understood by you and as you are teaching it and so we ask you to present it and to make it clear of us so that we understand your concept and so that we can grow in it.

So we thank you for this in Jesus name, Amen.

Yeah so I love to study concepts, I love to to work with concepts.

So not just to do something, it's always good to do something.

As Joachim introduced me, he said, Chris likes to do actions.

It's very difficult for me to sit on a chair and to do nothing.

Even in holidays, I need to do something.

And to understand biblical concepts, it makes me better understanding how we as Adventists can work more efficient, more successful, and to see more as closer you are with the blueprint of the Holy Spirit as more he is blessing you.

Because if you work where the Holy Spirit is working, you are 100 times more successful than only doing your thing and asking for the blessing.

This is a quotation which doesn't come from me, it comes from the spirit of prophecy.

So to work where the Holy Spirit is at work makes you 100 times more successful.

And in order to know whether the Holy Spirit is at work, you need to know the Bible.

You need to understand the biblical thinking versus all the thinking we have around the world, which is taught for us as wisdom, but the biblical way is a bit different.

So that's why I need also guidance in that workshop even though I have done this workshop several times, but I always understand it's led and guided by the Spirit so that you, in your, let's say, Scandinavian head, will understand the biblical concept and that me, in the human way, I can teach it somehow to you.

Yes, like a little bit of journey, right?

So I have a question, a start, right beginning question.

As you attend this workshop, are you aware that you cannot leave within 2 hours?

The second thing is, are you aware that you are not only a workshop attendee, but you, as you are here, at that moment you become a disciple.

Somebody who is teaching what you learn in these 2 hours to somebody else.

Because if you start to teach that concept to somebody else, that makes a difference.

But I don't need it, because I know if you are here, you are more than a big hall.

So, just 12 months ago in January, I have been teaching that what I'm teaching you to 5, 000 people.

And we did something which is not done so often in Adventist history, maybe, at that moment.

And that's what we did for 5, 000 people, can you imagine?

And you bring it everywhere in the world to Italy.

And I don't know which other countries, to France.

I don't know which other countries we have here, but you bring it to Norway as well, because I believe all big and small churches need that message of the workshop.

We heard that beautiful quotation yesterday.

I don't know his name, but he started the ESI meeting.

He said this beautiful quotation from Acts of Apostles.

What is the purpose and what is the mission of the Adventist church?

That's in the first pages of Acts of Apostles, right?

And if we are not living it to our DNA, we are not living our purpose.

You know, from scientific research, we can activate the DNA, but we can also let it sleep.

If you are very worried and you make a lot of negative thinking then there is a protein which comes to the DNA I make it very simple, and then more proteins comes, And then the train which wants to read the DNA cannot go through the DNA because there is much of negative thinking and much of worrying.

And all that which is important for fighting against inflammation, fighting against cancer, is not done at that moment, because your body thinks there is a war time, there is worrying time.

And in war time, worrying time, you don't need these things.

But it's good to take away those things, right?

Worrying, sing a new song, trust the Lord, be happy again.

That's why I have a whole course on happiness mind.

We advanced it for 12 months and 24 months already.

I will talk more about that in the afternoon when we talk about the right arm of evangelism.

But just to know the same thing can, of course, happen with the Adventist DNA, that the churches are not doing their purpose anymore.

They are not doing their mission work anymore.

And traveling around as a speaker, I see a lot of churches.

My first analyzing is, how much are they smiling?

If you look up happiness, if you look up happy in spirit of prophecy, look it up in the Bible, this is not a side effect.

Even the fruit of the spirit, laugh, and then joy.

You have it in the second place already, right?

So, if I go to some of the countries, I see a lot of joy in their faces as they welcome me, as they see me, as we eat together.

In some countries you think you're in a frozen country.

So, but you know in some countries they think it's frozen.

Sometimes they don't know that I'm the speaker because I don't introduce myself.

Fredrik Kosma

AI Tools for Better Bible Study

I hope that we can have an efficient Bible study.

We will try to actually study a topic together today.

The topic of the time of trouble, a little bit related to the end times, God's deliverance, the battle of Armageddon, by using another tool which we will use, Chachipiti actually today, open AI.

And yeah, just to give you a little bit of an overview of what we will do first, before we actually study, before we actually pray, I thought that I will give you a little introduction from the Bible to this topic, and we will get kind of a skeleton and a pattern of this.

We'll go through this step by step and then we will start using actually the AI tool for finding references.

But before we start let's have a word of prayer and we'll take this slow we are not going quick at all.

Father in heaven, I just want to pray that the study that we're going to do now together, that it might be something that actually will be for benefit for us in our daily life but most and foremost for preparation for for your return that we might yeah be even more excited about that you're about to come and also yeah to give the message and the warning that that is needed to to prepare the world for your second coming.

So thank you for hearing our prayer, and we pray this in Jesus' name, amen.

So I just wanted to say, I know the title says AI tools, we'll actually only use 1 tool, which would be chat GPT.

The point is how to use AI to be able to study the Bible.

Has anybody ever used Google to study the Bible?

Or at least to find out answers to biblical questions.

Yeah, I guess sometimes you had a question and you just Googled it, right?

So there are different tools to find out answers, at least to Bible topics, and I would say that this is a very efficient 1.

Somehow I would say this would be a super concordance that we actually could use to find things even more quicker.

I have used the writings of the pioneers.

Anybody listen to sermons to find out more about the Bible?

So in my opinion, when it comes to different tools that we are using, if it's sermons, if it's reading other books about the Bible, if it's reading the writings about the pioneers or the books of Ellen white, everything is just there to help us to understand the Bible better, actually.

And that's also where I want to limit this.

The only thing I actually use this AI tool for is to find Bible references that can help me to understand the Bible better.

Maybe some of you have heard in Isaiah chapter 8, the way we do study the Bible is that here are little, there are little line upon line, precept upon precept.

We are comparing scripture with scripture.

And that is what we are going to do today.

So before we start, do we have any questions, at least related to this workshop?

So the example study today, what we're going to find out, and hopefully, I think actually you might discover things related to this topic that you never found out before and actually the reason why I found some of these things was things were actually thanks to AI a little bit to find certain passages in the Bible that explain other passages.

So we are going to study this theme of time of trouble.

Anybody ever heard of a certain term in the Bible called the time of trouble?

I don't know what thoughts you have about the time of trouble, something exciting to happen, something that you're looking forward to.

Do you actually know what it's all about, when it's going to happen, around what time and timeline?

I don't know what your thoughts are related to time of trouble.

Positive things, positive thoughts, or scared?

Or curious, like you want to know more about it?

I actually think it's 1 of the most exciting topics now lately that I have been studying and it has been so fruitful to actually study it and to see it from a biblical perspective how beautiful it actually is how God will deliver his people.

But I thought before, and this is important, I don't think we ever should go into AI study with no knowledge at all.

We should know what we are looking for and then find the answers.

Maybe we'll take 20 minutes preparation just to find out a skeleton from the Bible to understand some concepts of the time of trouble.

Then we'll start adding to the prompt these things that we want to study and study in different books.

Like maybe we want to find about the theme of time of trouble in the book of Psalms, maybe in the book of Genesis and we will give prompts and it will give us suggestions on passages that we can study to find out more about this topic.

But first of all I would like to ask you a question, like where in the Bible do we like get the concept of time of trouble, like that there will be something of time of trouble that never was, yes?

There are many instances in the Bible where it actually mentions the time of trouble, but here we actually get it on a timeline, and I will make a timeline now shortly and quickly for you.

So let's turn to Daniel chapter 12 and verse 1, and if somebody could read it.

So it's in Daniel chapter 12, I don't think you can see it here on my screen.

I will get to it very soon, but in Daniel chapter 12, verse 1, we read for the first time about this time of trouble that will happen.

The question is like where on this timeline is this time of trouble and when will it happen?

And yeah, that's what we're going to find out.

Daniel chapter 12 verse 1, that's what we're basically going to study.

But I would like to introduce you also, maybe some of, Tom might remember last year, I don't know, when we had the revelation studies that I have a favorite Bible verse in the book of Revelation that will help you understand the end time prophecies like never before.

I'm very serious when I'm mentioning this, that this is the thing that has helped me to understand the book of Revelation like no other verse.

Yes, could somebody turn to Revelation chapter 11 verse 18?

Anybody knows the context of Revelation 11, 18?

Yeah, so that's also what I, it's just in the end of the 7 trumpets.

It's after the seventh trumpet has finished and then suddenly in Revelation chapter 11 and verse 18, I would say, yeah?

Yes, exactly, And this is what I didn't know before.

I thought it actually was part of the seventh trumpet, this verse 18.

It's the introduction on Michael 12 to 21.

Yeah, it's actually an introduction verse of the rest of the book of Revelation.

It's like introducing what the rest of the book of Revelation will be all about.

It's just mentioning all the topics that chapter 12 to 21 will be all about.

And that's what we're going to find out now.

And also we'll confirm it with a passage from Ellen White as well.

So I just want to mention quickly, you can find out later, I will give you some examples, that this is actually a summary of the rest of the Book of Revelation.

There are certain things that will happen in a certain order, actually, I don't need a board here, but the first thing that was mentioned is that nations will be angry, right?

What would happen after nations being angry?

Jonathan Karlsson

The History of Baptism and Re-baptism

All right, well, let's start the session on baptism, history of baptism and re-baptism.

We're going to do a little bit different setup.

I'm going to have 3 sessions, but we have 1 that is 30 minutes, the other 1 40 minutes and the other 1 20 minutes so and you'll have a little break in between just so that you understand what we're doing here.

So my name is Jonathan Carlson For those of you who don't know me, I work as a pastor and the AFCO director in Sweden.

So we are, Yeah, I'm excited about this topic.

Soul winning and passion is something that is a big part of my life.

And so I'm happy to be able to share this with you.

But let's, before we go into this topic, I just wanna ask the Lord to be with us and so let's pray together.

Father in heaven, as we talk about this important topic of baptism we just ask that your Holy spirit will be with us, that she will open our hearts and our minds, and that we will be baptized in the spirit as we're talking about the baptism of water.

Help us understand the truth about this And also to apply it to our own lives.

Before I was converted, I was talking to a person who said that the greatest experience you can ever have in life is to see someone that you've been working for be baptized.

And I thought if that's the greatest joy you can have in life that person must have a really boring life.

You know There's so much other fun things than to see someone be baptized.

But once I experienced that myself, once I was working for someone, and a friend of mine made a decision for baptism and a decision for eternity, that was the greatest event of my life.

So I was bitten by the evangelism bug, if you would, and I couldn't stop doing it anymore after that.

So I've been in this, I'm focusing on soul winning for since 2006 and I I've been in this, focusing on soul winning since 2006 and I want us to talk today about some of the history of baptism, some of the theology, if you would, and maybe theologies.

But we're going to have a Bible study about what baptism is and how we can apply that.

Theology sounds very scary to some people.

So if you have your Bibles you can turn to Ephesians chapter 4, we'll start our presentation there.

In our first session now we will talk about the biblical concept of baptism, we'll have a Bible study about what baptism is and what it's not.

Ephesians 4, verse 4 and 5, our purpose or our theme for this conference is 1 purpose, right?

And that fits very well with this verse in Ephesians 4 that says...

Yeah, maybe we can take some turns to read, but I'll read this first 1 at least.

There is 1 body and 1 spirit, just as you were called in 1 hope of your calling.

1 Lord, 1 faith, 1 baptism, 1 God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in you all." So here we have 1 Lord, 1 faith, and how many baptisms?

Okay, so this is what we want to study today.

What is this 1 baptism that the Bible is talking about?

It doesn't say that there are many baptisms.

Not just this verse, but what does it mean, this idea of baptism, and how can we find out about it.

I want us to start, as I said, to have a Bible study on biblical baptism.

Because when you're studying the forensic detectives that are studying counterfeit money, the way that they do it is that they don't study all the counterfeits that you can ever come up with, like if you have a counterfeit Euro bill or money, in order to distinguish.

And also with passports and with other things, that you need to see that they're authentic, these kinds of things.

And the way that these people study to see if it's a real thing or if it's a fake is by comparing, not by studying all the counterfeits, but they're studying the real thing, the real deal.

So the more acquainted they are with what the actual money looks like, then they will be easily, they will very easily be able to detect all the false counterfeit money, because they see that it doesn't agree with the true 1.

And so that's what I want us to do today to start with.

Obviously, if you look at what the Bible says, then we can easily understand what is not biblical from that perspective.

And I have a slide here basically of the things that we're going to look at this first half hour.

It comes from the Greek word baptizo, which means to fully submerge into something.

And that word, of course, when you look at the world today, you can see that there are many forms of baptism that people say are baptisms.

There are several modes of how people baptize in the world today.

The Bible said, however, that there was how many baptisms?

So that 1 baptism, what does it look like?

Well if we go to Matthew chapter 3 we can see that Jesus, when he was baptized at least, It says that when he had been baptized, because you know Jesus is quite a good example for us to be if we're going to study baptism, right?

So if it's good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for us, right?

So in Matthew 3, 16 it says, When he had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon him.

Okay, so when Jesus was baptized, he came up from the water, as you can see.

So when he came up from the water, that means he was in the water, Right?

That means Jesus must have been fully submerged in water.

So we can see from the Bible that at least when Jesus was baptized, it wasn't like John was just pouring some water on his head.

He wasn't sprinkling him a little bit, but he was fully in the water and then he's coming up out of the water.

Okay, so the same thing we see in throughout the whole New Testament in Acts chapter 8.

Yeah I have it here on the screen, but some of them we will look up.

So it says there about the eunuch that is baptized in Acts chapter 8, it says, So he commanded the chariots to stand still, and both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and he baptized him.

Now when they came up out of the water, the spirit of the Lord caught Philip away.

Both of them are going down into the water.

Not just 1 standing on the shore and throwing some water on a person.

But both of them go down, they step down into the water, they go down into the water, and as they come up out of the water, then the spirit catches Philip away, takes Philip away.

You can say that it's just water, it doesn't matter exactly how it's applied as long as it is applied.

I mean, if you think about the other rituals that you had in the Old Testament, for example, God was very specific about certain rituals.

He said that these rituals, like you have to take a certain animal, and he specified which kind of animal it was to be.

Now if I was to take a pig and sacrifice to the Lord, the Lord would not approve of that, because he had specified that you need to do it in a certain way.

And this animal has a symbol, it represents something else, it represents Jesus.

And he was supposed to be a spotless lamb and so on.

That symbolism of this lamb had meaning and that's why you couldn't just take anything.

So it's important the way the rituals are done.

Now, we don't do those kinds of rituals anymore, but we have 2 other rituals and those are communion and baptism.

Those are ceremonies in the New Testament, and they also have deep significance.

You went back to those first slides or are you going to see them now?

Thomas Frick

Enhancing Your Personal Devotions

Yeah, I would like to share with you something that was really impactful for my personal devotional life.

My purpose with this course is basically that you understand more how much God really loves you.

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Series

Seminars

How to Start a Bible Study Movement

Transcript

Description

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Parts

How to Start a Bible Study Movement

1h 49m

AI Tools for Better Bible Study

1h 12m

The History of Baptism and Re-baptism

1h 59m

Enhancing Your Personal Devotions

44m

Sacred Love: Navigating Relationships with Faith and Wisdom

1h 32m

Three Types of Churches

1h 23m

Sound Doctrine