James, the Lord’s brother, urged Christians in the first Century to “not merely listen to the Word and so deceive yourselves, do what it says” (James 1:22). There are all sorts of traps that can keep us as “merely hearers” as some of the English translations put it; busyness, doubts, selfishness, sin, lack of accountability and so on.
To help us as a community of God’s people work hard at being “doers” of God’s Word and not merely hearers, can I encourage you to join with me in something new?
This coming Sunday, on the Welcome Table, you’ll find copies of a booklet of daily readings to accompany our upcoming Building a Kingdom teaching series from 1 Samuel – 1 Kings. I’d love you to collect a copy of the booklet this morning and, for five days each week, set aside a few minutes to read the passage allocated for the day and reflect on one or two of the accompanying questions. In this teaching series we’ll examine some of the significant moments in the relationship between God and his people Israel around the time of the nation’s first kings and we’ll seek to learn how, even one thousand years before Jesus, God was preparing his people for the king whose kingdom would reign forever. There are some great questions raised in these events about where we place our trust, who we turn to in times of trouble and how we view our relationship to God. And since on Sundays we’re only able to pick up some of the most significant events, reading some of the related passages beforehand will help you make the most of what we learn when we’re together.
On the last Sunday in October, Christians around the world remember the Reformation in the church in the 16th Century, in which the gospel of Jesus was restored to the heart of western Christianity. It was October 31 1517, when Martin Luther, a priest and scholar in the church, nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church in the German town of Wittenburg.
Luther’s goal had been to reform the church from within, but in fact he was unsuccessful in this endeavour. What followed was a sharp divide between Roman Catholicism and what came to be known as the Protestant Church. The Protestants, led by men like Luther, Calvin and Zwingli in Europe and Cranmer and Tyndale in England, sought to return the church to the Bible’s message that salvation from sin and rebellion against God is not earned by doing good works, but can only be received as a free gift. In God’s grace, his undeserved favour, we can be saved from the penalty of sin and rebellion by faith in Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.
A few years ago when I was working at Trinity Hills Church, I witnessed a reacquaintance in the foyer of the hall. One of our regulars had bumped into a man who was visiting from one of the other Trinity Churches. When they realised that they had known each other previously, both were shocked. They had been school classmates in Adelaide some years previously, before either of them came to faith in Jesus.
Both men expressed to me afterwards that they thought the other man’s shock would have been greater, with each one saying, “Knowing what I was like back then, I would have been the very last person he would ever have expected to become a Christian!”
My nearly two year old son, Jamie, says one word, I think, more often than any other – “More?!” It’s a question, a request and an expression of pleasure all rolled into one. Anything he likes, whether it’s food, a funny face or a song on the car CD player, is greeted with cries of, “More?! More?!”
As I was reading Habakkuk’s great cry to God in chapter 3, “I stand in awe of your deeds, O LORD. Renew them in our day.” I couldn’t help but think of Jamie asking for “More?!”. Habakkuk is praying, “Do it again, Lord! Do once more among your people, the great things you have done in the past.”
Our currents series in the book of Habakkuk has raised a question for some in our community: How do we as Christians read and understand the Old Testament? We often find it easier to make sense of the New Testament; it was written closer to our time and in the same era of salvation history as we live in – between Christ’s first coming and his second. But the Old Testament seems a bit more foreign, it was written down longer ago and in a time when people were still looking forward to Christ’s incarnation.
Below are a few things to bear in mind as we read the part of God’s Word that is the Old Testament.
The Bible is full of covenant language. A covenant is a relationship between two parties, perhaps best illustrated by our covenant of marriage. The Scriptures employ a whole host of different words to describe covenants and the participation of people within covenant relationships.
Isaiah 42:6 includes perhaps one of the more unusual covenant references. In speaking to his servant, the Lord God (LORD in most English translations, indicating the covenant God of Israel) says to his servant, “I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people.” Or as the ESV translates, "I will give you as a covenant for the people.”
Around the middle of last century the British author and literary professor C S Lewis wrote of his constant desire for stimulation and feeding “I cannot find a cup of tea which is big enough or a book that is long enough." Perhaps whatever it is that we don’t seem able to get enough of is not Lewis’ cup of tea, but I’m sure we all know the sentiment.
Just as he spoke to the Samaritan woman at the well in chapter 4 and offered springs of living water, in John 6 Jesus promises his followers bread that satisfies. “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty" (John 6:35). No more longing for a cup of tea big enough!
On the last Sunday in October, Christians around the world remember the Reformation in the church in the 16th Century, in which the gospel of Jesus was restored to the heart of western Christianity. It was October 31 1517, when Martin Luther, a priest and scholar in the church, nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church in the German town of Wittenburg.
Our currents series in the book of Habakkuk has raised a question for some in our community: How do we as Christians read and understand the Old Testament? We often find it easier to make sense of the New Testament; it was written closer to our time and in the same era of salvation history as we live in – between Christ’s first coming and his second. But the Old Testament seems a bit more foreign, it was written down longer ago and in a time when people were still looking forward to Christ’s incarnation.
