Customer Reviews

The Miracles of Jesus Participant's Guide: Six In-depth Studies Connecting the Bible to Life (Deeper Connections)

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The three-volume Deeper Connections series produced by Zondervan is unique. Unlike any other Bible study available, this visually stunning DVD series is taught and written by biblical experts - six professors with specialized areas of knowledge. The three volumes in this study series are :

1. The Parables of Jesus
2. The Prayers of Jesus
3. Miracles of Jesus

The Teachers featured on the series are : Dr. Gary Burge, Wheaton College; Dr. David Garland, Truett Theological Seminary; Dr. Mark Strauss, Bethel Seminary; Dr. Michael Wilkins, Talbot School of Theology; Dr. Matt Williams, Biola University; Dr. Ben Witherington III, Asbury Theological Seminary.

Hosted by Jarrett Stevens and filmed in locations as diverse as Gloucester harbor, the Holy Land, Boston's Old North Church, and Chicago's lakefront, each volume consists of six fascinating sessions. Each session is taught by a different instructor and consists of three components:

1. Historical and cultural background
2. An engaging, close look at the biblical text and its meaning
3. Accurate, encouraging, and challenging applications of the Bible's message to life today

Each volume is accompanied by a Participant Guide which is available separately allowing participants to make deeper connections with a knowledge of historical background of the Bible, biblical text, and real life applications.

'Miracles of Jesus: Six In-depth Studies Connecting the Bible to Life' is one of the volumes of the Deeper Connections series focusing on miracles of Jesus. Jesus is known as Healer of diseases, Master of nature and Conqueror of demons & death. Jesus not only preached the kingdom of God in word, but he demonstrated it in power through his miraculous deeds. This unique, in-depth look at the miracles of Jesus will open your eyes to their impact on the lives he touched, what they reveal about God's heart, and their significance for us today.

Six Sessions included on this DVD are:

The Clean Daughter
The Heartbeat of God
Knowing the King
A Faith-full Outsider
Fruitless Lives
Grateful Outcasts

Highly recommended for all students of the bible!

I like this DVD set...the teachers do a great job of really making the Bible come to life. There is a good balance between information, understanding, and application. The study booklets are really helpful, too. I plan to use this with my jr. high students.

I piloted a course/small group and had about 15 people involved using the Deeper Connections Material. I was not sure about the back and forth aspect of going from the video to the study guide and back to the video...
However, it turned out to be a terrific study. The individual lessons are deep and probing, and each segment takes one deeper into the Biblical story for a more three dimensional look at the Gospel Narrative. We only did 4 of the 6 lessons, and the small group was really disappointed that we didn't finish the last two.
My only critique for the material is: 1. the camera angles were awkward. I have done a lot of camera work with some high end equipment and interview production, and I can say that the offset camera (catching the speaker at an angle) was very distracting. After previewing the material, I almost didn't use it because of this. 2. the middle eastern music in the opener is too authentic. It is almost a dissonant sound and my small group constantly joked about belly dancing :) 3. the scholars need to stop reading the tele-prompter. These people know this material better than anyone on earth, and they should be able to follow a few simple notes and speak in a less stilted way. There are times when they sounded as if they were reading off of cue cards and that was distracting at times.
Otherwise, the material was outstanding, and the video production was very well done for the most part. I almost wish each video had the scholar speaking from the onsight/Israel location (but I get what they were trying to do... which was to bring that world into this one). We have several small groups that will be using the material this fall in our next Life Group Season.

We use this series in a small Bible study group in a non-denominational Christian church. The study is across all ages and types of people. The lessons are good and stimulate a lot of discussion from the group. We run our classes between 60 an 90 minutes, but it is controlled by how much discussion we have.

Zondervan's "Deeper Connections" is an excellent resource for the church or any small group. Matt Williams, the general editor of the series, has gathered together a solid group of scholars who are experts in their fields, but who can also communicate to the church. These include Gary Burge, David Garland, Mark Strauss, Michael Wilkins, and Ben Witherington III.

The series consists of three separate dvds - The Prayers of Jesus, The Miracles of Jesus, and The Parables of Jesus - with six Bible studies on each dvd.

The series contains a dvd and participant's guide (both purchased separately). The dvd and guide are designed to follow a three-part pattern: a close look at the original meaning of the biblical text, attention to the historical and cultural background, and an encouraging and challenging application of the text's meaning for today. Thus, each study is broken up into three short segments that take small groups deeper into various texts of the Gospels. Between each of these teaching segments, there is time for group discussion. The dvd is well done, while not being overly flashy or distracting. Jarrett Stevens, the host, introduces each section from a different location in Israel. This may seem insignificant to some, but it truly helps set the scene and context as each location is relevant to the text that will be discussed on the dvd.

So far my small group has gone through the first three studies and it has produced a lot of valuable and fruitful conversations. The dvd teachers have all shown a great balance of challenging us to understand the texts and applying them to our lives. The dvd allows room for discussion, and the participants guide is clear and practical as it helps initiate conversations with relevant and challenging questions. My initial expectation was that I wouldn't learn much from these Bible studies. I was wrong. I have not only learned more about what Scripture means, but I have grown from the challenges and applications presented from each teacher on the dvd. The participant's guide also has a section for five days of personal reflection that centers on the text that was just studied.

Overall, Deeper Connections is a great Bible study series that challenges both our hearts and our minds and seeks to deepen our relationship with Jesus. It has definitely risen above my expectations. Whereas I have often felt like other Bible studies (not all) try to transform lives through good concepts with a Bible quote here or there, this series is solely founded and firmly based on Scripture. As it stands, my small group plans on purchasing the other two dvd studies.

This item was ordered on December 14th and didn't ship until December 21st. I received it on December 26th. I would use caution when ordering from this site if you expect your order in a reasonable time frame.

While this has the potential to be a decent series, it bombards you with advertising for itself constantly. Presented in a 6 week study format, even from the "scence selection" option it forces you to watch, yet again, a commercial-like introduction for the Deeper Connections series. After getting through 4 weeks of this, and all of us knowing the theme song in the commercial, we had enough and banished it to the closet and started in on a new Rob Bell video.

If you can make it though the commercials weekly, you then get to listen to a dramatic reading of the scripture, followed by some decent reflections from different theologians. The content isn't that bad but probably only amounts to about 40% of the actual DVD, the rest is just fluff!

By the way, if you haven't tried Rob Bell, he's great! We always have the most people in attendance when we announce that we will be using his DVD's.

Received in condition as advertised or better. Received in a timely manner. Will order from again.