How to use this Book

You might ask what I wrote this book for. The answer is: Several purposes.

First, I wrote it to be an aid to Masons who are not as familiar with the Holy Bible as they would like to be. In this case, study it alone or with a group of people. Bring up these topics at church and delve into your faith in the ways that will help you along your Walk with God.

Second, this book is for those masons who want to integrate the meaning of the words they say and hear in Lodge or in the Appendant Bodies, and need a tiny bit of help to connect the dots.

Third, while all Masons are believers in God, not all are Christian. For those brothers, I hope that this helps explain some of the deeper "shorthand" that Christians use in our scriptural references. While I am Christian, only in cases where it is essential to focus on Christ that I go into the deeper meaning. This was honestly very difficult as an evangelist to not sing His praises, but that is hopefully a subtext that does not offend brothers of other faiths.

Fourth, too often Lodges and other Masonic bodies do not provide appropriate education, so this book might help. Almost all of these study guides are short enough to read the passage and information in Lodge. A couple of them are quite long (c.f., Ruth 1), but need to be so because of the complexity of the passage. If you decide to use this book in that way, and find that you do not recognize any of the lines, remember that it might be a different piece of the puzzle from another Body, or from another Jurisdiction.

Fifth, I wanted to write something that non-Masons can read and see how central the Scriptures are to Masonry. Too often people only hear from uninformed non-Masons, so do not realize how focused on God we are. Lodge is not church, but it is a place where we try to strengthen every Mason's faith in God. The hard part here was to balance this final goal, understanding that anyone can pick this up and read it, with the explanations that would be provided in Lodge where we can single out words or phrases. Thus, all of the material here is in full context whenever possible or appropriate. At times smaller passages are discussed, but these are so common as to not risk anything that would break an obligation.

Finally, it was and is my goal to glorify God through helping all of His image-bearers to be closer to Him. I am a professor and a devout Christian Evangelist. When my words and work can bring people to faith, I feel that my work is worth whatever price I have paid in effort. Amen.