How does it work? Behold Your God: Rethinking God Biblically

Hey, I'm Matthew Robinson from Media Gratia, and I want to tell you about our 12-week multimedia Bible study we've produced called Behold Your God, Rethinking God Biblically by Dr. John Snyder. First of all, how does it work?

Well, the study is made up of two components. There's the 13 DVD set and the daily devotional workbook. Let's take a look at the DVD set first. Each week's DVD is broken up into three parts. There's the historical introduction, the sermon, and the interview section.

Each lesson opens with Dr. Snyder on location at sites in England, Scotland, Wales, and the United States. These locations are associated with figures from church history, men and women whose lives have illustrated the truths that we'll be studying that week.

In week one, Beholding God, the Great Attraction, we travel to a train yard just outside of Chicago, Illinois, to talk about the life and ministry of A .W. Tozer and his lifelong pursuit of God. In week two, we visit Yale University to talk about the great reforms under Timothy Dwight and clearing the way for our return.

In week three, Beholding God and the Bible, we travel to Bristol, England and consider George Mueller's labor to know the God of the Bible in the midst of his busy ministry there. In week four, Beholding God in the Face of Jesus Christ, we're tracing Samuel Rutherford's steps through the ruins of Anworth, Scotland.

In week five, Beholding God and the Work of Salvation, we're in Newburyport, Massachusetts, where the Reverend George Whitfield is buried beneath the pulpit of Old South Church. In week six, Beholding God and the Response of Personal Holiness, we're in Dundee, Scotland at St. Peter's Free Church, where Robert Murray McShane lived and died at the age of 29.

In week seven, we're in London, England, where the great prince of preachers, Charles Spurgeon, is our guide to reconsider restoring worship in our lives. And in week eight, we go to the little village of Llangatha, Wales, where Daniel Rowland preached to thousands in revival and ask whether our methods of evangelism are in line with the character of God.

In week nine, we visit Keswick and the Lake District of England to look at Amy Carmichael's life and labors and to ask what we can learn there about the kind of genuine Christian service that's motivated by love to Christ.

In week 10, the infamous Charles Grandison Finney and his all-pervasive legacy in the last hundred or so years in America serves as a challenge and a warning as we consider the very real danger of beholding a lesser God.

In week 11, we're back in London with Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones as his pastorate at Westminster Chapel is an example of how we can avoid the lies of pragmatism. And finally in week 12, we listen to Jonathan Edwards in The Great Awakening as we think biblically about the presence of God and what it means to seek his nearness.

After a half-hour message from Dr. Snyder in the sermon section, we hear from other contemporary ministers whose lives and labors reflect these same truths. These include Paul Washer, Conrad Mbewe, Richard Owen Roberts, Jordan Thomas, Avian Evans, Andrew Davis, and Anthony Methenia.

These men have ministered in diverse cultural climates from Peru, Ethiopia, Virginia, and Memphis to New Zealand, England, Wales, Ireland, and Zambia. Their comments help to underline the fact that these truths are eternal truths about an eternal God who is never altered by any temporal or geographic context.

The second essential component to the study is the daily devotional workbook. The workbook is made up of 60 lessons that take us into the scriptures five days a week for 12 weeks and there's a particular emphasis on the passages where God describes himself.

This is the most crucial aspect of the study and here's why. There are a lot of voices in the study. We hear what voices from Christian history have to say about God. We hear what Dr. Snyder and the other contemporary ministers have to say about God.

But far superior to all those voices, we must go into the scriptures and hear what the eternal immutable God has to say about himself. Each lesson could be done in as little as a half hour, but the best benefit would come from revisiting the lesson throughout the day, meditating on the scriptures there and humbly seeking the Lord, asking him to reveal himself.

When you said, seek my face, my heart said to you, your face, O Lord, I shall seek. To start a study with your church, small group, or family, you need one set of DVDs and a workbook for every participant.

There's a good bit of writing and note-taking that you'll do in your workbook so each person will want to have their own copy. The first time you get together as a group, you'll watch the intro DVD, Welcome to Behold Your God.

In this half hour session, Dr. Snyder explains where we're going over the next 12 weeks and how we'll get there. You'll pass out the workbooks at the intro session and over the following week, each person works through the first five days of the workbook, week one.

A week after watching the intro session together, your group will reconvene and watch the week one DVD. That's the rhythm for the entire study. You'll work through the workbook all week and then watch the week's DVD together as a group.

Again, the idea is to hear first what God says about himself in the scriptures through the workbook, then to hear from all the ministers, both past and present, on the DVDs at the end of the week. Each DVD session is under 55 minutes long, so if you're constrained to an hour for your group meeting, you'll have just enough time to watch the DVD.

But we found that the best context is together as a small group. Watch the DVD, then take a half hour or so to give the group an opportunity to discuss what they've been meditating on in the scriptures all week through the workbook.

Then pray together that God would be pleased to continue to open his word and make himself known. If you'd like to know more about this study, you can visit us online at beholdyourgod .org. The first week of the study is available there for free via disc or download, and you can browse through our other free content as well, from our weekly radio program to songs from the soundtrack and more.