Challenge ideas

Question

Well, I certainly enjoy issuing challenges and trying to ask questions to answer that call, but so far participation has been somewhat limited. Part of the reason might be that I'm coming up with the ideas myself, promoting the challenge myself, and I'm the only person who really has any ownership of the challenges.

So I'd like to include you in the overall planning of future challenges (and also gauge interest in the whole enterprise). Please answer this question with any ideas you have for future challenges. One challenge per answer would be best so that we can vote up good ideas (and, I suppose, vote down bad ones).

Answer 1

Silence

I could try to be clever and tie this theme to some part of the calendar, but mostly I thought of it because Psalm 131 came up in my reading recently and I began to think about how much the theme runs through Scriptures: people asking that God would not be silent, God asking that people would be.

Only thing is I can't think of many questions off the top of my head. I think there is one that was already asked from 1 Cor. 14 (that maybe was closed too?). But I guess a big part of learning is finding good questions to ask.

Answer 2

Rest

Rest seems to be a theme throughout the Bible, played out in different way, from God's rest in creation, to the rest promised to the Israelites, to a rest that believers have in Christ.

Where else is "rest" mentioned? How do these tie together?

Answer 3

Education

One of the surprising things to me is how often Ethical Monotheism as expressed in the Bible is accused of anti-intellectualism. The Bible itself clearly teaches just the opposite—that knowledge and wisdom are necessary parts of living a righteous life. Perhaps the problem is that modern secularism seems to assume that education is sufficient.

What does the Bible have to say about education and how it should be accomplished?

Answer 4

Kingdom

The Kingdom of God is a theme that features throughout scripture, from God's direct rule over Adam and Eve, to the Davidic Kingdom of Israel, to the kingdom-of-God theology prominent in Jesus' teaching in the synoptic gospels, and through to the New Kingdom that believers will meet in the life to come.

How do these administrations relate? Can we flesh these out further? What other administrations are there in scripture? What other ways are there of understanding the kingdom of God?

Answer 5

Christmas

This is the first week of Advent (!?) and when it comes time to celebrate the Christian holiday, we might be able to drum up some interest by focusing our challenge of the week on Christmas.

But I worry that our site is already too closely associated with Christianity at the expense of our Jewish and non-religious friends, so I don't know if this is a good idea. Feel free to vote this idea up or down as you see fit.

Answer 6

Praxis

What good does it do to speak learnedly about the Trinity if, lacking humility, you displease the Trinity? Indeed it is not learning that makes a man holy and just, but a virtuous life makes him pleasing to God. I would rather feel contrition than know how to define it. For what would it profit us to know the whole Bible by heart and the principles of all the philosophers if we live without grace and the love of God? Vanity of vanities and all is vanity, except to love God and serve Him alone.—Thomas À Kempis, The Imitation of Christ

Another challenge that might be better for the Christianity site, but I've been wondering a lot lately how my study of the Bible is changing the way I live or even if it has. I picture this challenge idea looking for questions about how God used specific experiences to teach people about Him and His will. What lessons are we supposed to learn from various biblical narratives?