Uncategorized – Page 6 – Creation to New Creation

November 30, 2017

‘The Journey’ Video 16 – “All Things New”

In this final session of The Journey, we’ll begin by looking at the emergence of the Antichrist and the final rebellion against God that will occur at the end of this age.

And at the end of this age, Jesus will return to Earth. We’ll look at everything that happens when He comes – the destruction of Antichrist and the evil world system under his control, and the resurrection and final judgment, and how the present heaven and earth will be transformed – a process that we can compare to the emergence of a beautiful butterfly from a caterpillar. We’ll also look at the apostle Paul’s picture of the seed to explain how our present mortal bodies will be transformed into the new glorious bodies we’ll possess in the new creation.

We’ll also take a moment to look at what the Bible tells us about Hell – where Satan and his evil angels, and every human who has rejected God will exist for eternity.

And we’ll look at the wonderful description of the New Heaven and Earth that we read in the final two chapters of the Book of Revelation. We’ll explore what life will be like there, and what believers will do there. There will be Heaven on Earth for all eternity. God’s people will live in God’s paradise in God’s presence for ever.

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Click on the MP4 icon below to download
the MP4 version of this video.

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Leader’s Guide for group study

This Group Study Guide contains three questions, with Bible passages to read, together with some notes to help the group leader to guide the discussion.

Click on the PDF icon below to download
the PDF version of this Leader’s Guide.

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You may want to begin by asking if anything particularly struck people as they watched the video.

Question 1
In Session 1, we saw several things in both the first two chapters of Genesis and the final two chapters of Revelation. What do we find in the new creation that we do not find in Genesis? What does this tell us about our future lives in the new creation that we look forward to?

Bible passages to read
Revelation 21.1-4, 22-27, 22.1-5.

In our first session, we highlighted four things found both in the original creation described in Genesis and in the new creation described in Revelation:

●Heaven and Earth. In Genesis, God creates Heaven and Earth (Genesis 1.1). In Revelation He creates a New Heaven and a New Earth (Revelation 21.1).

●Light. In the beginning, God created light (Genesis 1.3-5). In the new creation, God is its light (Revelation 22.5, see also 21.23-24).

●A river. A river waters the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2.10). In Revelation, we see a river flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb (Revelation 22.1).

●The tree of life. There’s a tree of life in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2.9). In Revelation 22.2 we read that “on either side of the river” is “the tree of life” .

The most obvious difference between the original creation and the new creation is this: in the original creation there was a garden – the Garden of Eden; in the new creation there’s a city – a garden city. This city is the New Jerusalem. It’s where God lives (Revelation 21.1-3,22). New Jerusalem is a real place, of course – though it won’t be like any city we’ve seen here on Earth. But it also symbolises something. What is a city? A city – any city – is an interdependent community. God’s people – God’s community – live in New Jerusalem. God lives there with His people. In the city is “the river of the water of life” and “the tree of life” . New Jerusalem is a garden. This city is a picture of God’s people living in God’s presence in God’s paradise – in other words, the Kingdom of God. New Jerusalem symbolises God’s perfect world.

There’s something else that distinguishes the new creation from the Garden of Eden. God is present in both the garden and the new creation. In the garden He is “walking” (Genesis 3.8). But in New Jerusalem He is enthroned. God reigns there in all His glory. There’s no temple in the city (Revelation 21.22) – “its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb” . The whole city is the temple, the dwelling-place of God. God’s presence fills the entire city. The city’s shape tells us that. It’s a cube (Revelation 21.16). That’s like the Most Holy Place, both in the Temple (1 Kings 6.20) and in the Tabernacle (this can be calculated from the description in Exodus 26.1-37). The Most Holy Place was the innermost sanctuary, the place of God’s immediate presence (see Exodus 25.22, Numbers 7.89). The whole city is the eternal Most Holy Place, where God lives on Earth. So everyone in the city is in the Most Holy Place, too. Once, only one man could enter the Most Holy Place in the Tabernacle and the Temple, and only under the strictest conditions. Now all God’s people live there in His immediate presence!

Question 2
Jesus has justified us believers; our names are written in “the book of life” . Nonetheless, “each of us will give an account of ourselves to God” (Romans 14.12 NIV). How should this impact our priorities in life, and what we think, say and do?

Bible passage to read
Romans 14.10-12, 2 Corinthians 5.10, 2 Peter 3.11-14, Revelation 20.11-15.

After we die, we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. In Revelation 20.11, John does not say whether the Father or the Son is seated on the “great white throne” of judgment. But we know that the Father has handed over all judgment to the Son (John 5.22,27, Acts 10.42, 17.31, Romans 2.16). It’s reasonable to conclude that Jesus will be our Judge.

Why has God given Jesus this role? One reason is surely this: because Jesus is not only God, but a human being like us. People can’t say to Him: “You have no right to judge us; you don’t know what it’s like to be human – you’ve never suffered like we have, you’ve never been tempted” . He has. In life as well as in death, Jesus suffered more than we could ever know. He was tempted just as we are (Hebrews 4.15).

When Jesus returns we will all stand before Him. Each one of us “will give an account of ourselves to God” (Romans 14.12 NIV). Sam Storms comments: “Is it not sobering to think that every random thought, every righteous impulse, every secret prayer, hidden deed, long-forgotten sin, or act of compassion will be brought into the open for us to acknowledge and for the Lord to judge? And all this, we are reminded, without any ‘condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus’ (Romans 8.1).”

We are accountable for our lives. In the end, none of us can blame heredity or environment, or what others have done to us, for the kind of person we are. It’s our reactions – what we have thought and said and done in response to the circumstances of life – that makes us what we are at the moment of death.

Our childhood years were our ‘formative’ years. Our present life on Earth, too, is like a childhood. These are our ‘formative years’, a period of training and maturation that’s preparing us for our life in the world to come. We will reap what we sow (Galatians 6.7-9).

God is laying a foundation in our lives, and we must co-operate with Him. How much do we allow God’s Spirit to mould us into the image of His Son (see 2 Corinthians 3.18)? Are we presenting our bodies “as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God” (Romans 12.1)? Are we allowing the Spirit of God to transform us by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12.2)? Are we allowing Him to refashion the way we think, to come to see things as God sees them – so that we discern what His will is, agree with it and do it?

Have we yielded our lives fully to God? Have we walked in the Spirit, rather than in our own strength? Have we resolutely trusted God, come what may?

Our faith is proved by acts of obedience (James 2.14-26). Have we obeyed God – in the small things that other people don’t see, as well as the big things? Have we overcome temptation, compromise and persecution for Jesus’s sake? Have we loved? Have we forgiven?

Question 3
We have a glorious hope of heaven – that is, living in the New Heaven and Earth with all God’s people in God’s paradise in God’s presence. How has this session helped you in your understanding of heaven? How should the hope of heaven affect how we live?

Bible passage to read
Romans 8.18-25, Colossians 1.3-5, 1 Peter 1.3-9.

We need to remind ourselves – and each other – often that our eternal home will be the New Heaven and Earth, where we will see God and be part of His royal priesthood, sharing in Christ’s rule over creation and serving God and other people in unimaginably wonderful ways – as we saw in the video. In fact, that is the world that God made us for.

We should keep “the hope laid up” for us “in heaven” (Colossians 1.5) at the centre of our thinking and allow it to mould our lives – our relationship with God, our ambitions, our friendships, how we spend our time and money, and how we treat other people.

Keeping our minds on the world to come gives true perspective to our present lives. C.S. Lewis wrote, “A man who has been in another world does not come back unchanged.” When we see what the Bible teaches about the world to come and allow these truths to sink in to our minds and penetrate our hearts, we will not be unchanged.

The hope of heaven has a special impact on how we view the struggles and disappointments and sufferings that we experience in our present lives. Peter writes, “In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials“ (1 Peter 1.6; the phrase “in this” refers back to the whole of the previous verses 3-5, in other words, “a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ . . . an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, . . . .” ). Randy Alcorn, in his excellent book Heaven, writes, “Anticipating Heaven doesn’t eliminate pain, but it lessens it and puts it in perspective. . . . . . . . suffering and death are temporary conditions. . . . . The biblical doctrine of Heaven is about the future, but it has tremendous benefits here and now. If we grasp it, it will . . . radically change our perspective on life. This is what the Bible calls ‘hope’, a word used six times in Romans 8.20-25, the passage in which Paul says that all creation longs for our resurrection and the world’s coming redemption.”

CREDITS ► Text copyright © 2017 Robert Gordon Betts ► Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. ► Scripture quotations marked ‘NIV’ are taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

September 27, 2017

Video and study guide on local church life (part 14 of The Journey)

In this video we explore:

●what the local church is, and what it means to be part of a local church;

●the four key pictures that the New Testament uses to describe the church – the body of Christ, God’s household, God’s temple, and the Bride of Christ;

●the spiritual gifts that God gives believers;

●how God’s people can fulfil the royal and priestly roles that God intended mankind to fulfil from the very beginning;

●why we gather together regularly as a local church, and what we do when we gather – including the Lord’s Supper.

This video is accompanied by a a group study guide. The video and guide are suitable for use in a small group study or Bible class on local church life.

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Click on the MP4 icon below to download
the MP4 version of this video.

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Leader’s Guide for group study

This Group Study Guide contains three questions, with Bible passages to read, together with some notes to help the group leader to guide the discussion.

Click on the PDF icon below to download
the PDF version of this Leader’s Guide.

Invisible text

You may want to begin by asking if anything particularly struck people as they watched the video.

Question 1
What is the purpose of our church gatherings?

Bible passages to read
Acts 2.42, Acts 13.1-3, 1 Corinthians 14.1-5,26, 1 Timothy 4.13, Hebrews 10.24-25.

Acts 2.42 seems to suggest a broad outline for what happens in our gatherings – “teaching”, “fellowship”, “breaking of bread”, and “prayers”. The word “fellowship” translates the Greek word koinonia. This word suggests partnership in something done together.

What should a gathering of the local church include? There might be teaching and public reading of the Scriptures. There may be praise, thanksgiving and adoration of God – both spoken and sung. There may be prayer for the needs of people or situations. There may be prophecy, messages of wisdom, messages of knowledge, words of encouragement, tongues and interpretations. There might be testimonies – that is, people sharing what God has done for them. Not all these things will necessarily occur in every gathering. Each time we meet will be a unique occasion. And there may be times when the main focus of the meeting is, for example, prayer or teaching.

Everything that takes place when we meet together should build up the body. Paul writes: “Everything must be done so that the church may be built up.” (1 Corinthians 14.26 NIV). For example, too, those that prophesy, do so for believers’ “upbuilding and encouragement and consolation.” (1 Corinthians 14.3).

It seems clear from the New Testament that there should generally be opportunity for a variety of people to contribute. We can all take part in encouraging and building up our fellow-believers.

The Lord’s Supper is central to the life of a local church. It’s a shared meal that celebrates the new covenant between God and His people (prophesied in Jeremiah 31.31). This new covenant was sealed with Jesus’s blood. Through His blood – in other words, His sacrificial death – Jesus paid the penalty and made full amends for our sin. Now we can come into relationship with God. We can be bound to Him by the New Covenant.

In the Lord’s Supper, the bread symbolises Jesus’s body given for us. The wine symbolises His blood shed for us. When we eat the bread and drink the wine, we remember that it was His death that enabled us to be in covenant relationship with God – and to enjoy all the blessings that this brings.

All believers are bound to God by His New Covenant. And that means we’re bound to each other, too. We are one body. The Lord’s Supper is a time of fellowship with God. And it’s also a time of fellowship with each other. The Lord’s Supper provides an opportunity for believers to reflect on their relationship with God and with other believers. Are they really living according to the terms of the New Covenant, loving and obeying God, and loving and serving their fellow-believers?

Question 2
The Church is God’s temple. What implications does that have for our lives?

Bible passages to read
Exodus 40.34-35, 1 Kings 8.10-11, John 14.23, 1 Corinthians 3.16-17, 1 Peter 2.4-5.

The church is God’s temple – the place where God lives. Each believer is a temple – as Paul tells us: “your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you” (1 Corinthians 6.19). God lives within them (John 14.16-17,23). The whole Church, too, is a temple (1 Corinthians 3.16-17, 2 Corinthians 6.16, Ephesians 2.21-22).

God is holy (for example, Leviticus 11.44-45, Isaiah 6.3). His holiness is more than His moral purity; it is the sum of His divine attributes that sets Him apart from everything that He has made. He is the Uncreated, eternal, transcendent, divine Being, overwhelmingly and awesomely glorious in majesty. He is absolutely separate from evil, infinitely perfect, immaculately pure, faultlessly righteous. Central to God’s holy being is love – perfect, pure love.

When the Tabernacle was complete, “Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.” (Exodus 40.35). God’s glory filled the Temple, too, at its dedication ceremony (1 Kings 8.10-11). Remember, too, Mount Sinai quaked and smoked as God descended on it (Exodus 19.18). Now God lives in each believer, and among us as a local church! The lesson is clear: we, and our church, must be in a state fit for God to live amongst us. In other words, we have to be holy. Peter writes: “. . . as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy.’” (1 Peter 1.15-16).

God is uniquely holy in a way that is totally unattainable by any created being. But we believers are holy, too, in the sense that we now belong to God. We are His own special, distinctive people, set apart for His purposes. God made us believers holy (or, to use another Bible word, “sanctified” us) at the moment we became a child of God. We’re “sanctified in Christ Jesus” (1 Corinthians 1.2).

Yet becoming holy (in other words, our sanctification) is also a process that continues throughout our lives. We’re to turn away from sin and pursue godliness. We have to put off our old way of life – our wrong attitudes, wrong ways of thinking and speaking, and sinful habits. New attitudes, right ways of thinking and speaking, and godly habits, need to be formed (see Ephesians 4.21-24, Colossians 3.5-17). God’s Holy Spirit guides us and gives us the power to do all this. But we must co-operate with Him and obey Him. As we obey Him, His Spirit purifies us, so that all that we think and say and do reflects more and more exactly the character of the holy God Who lives in us.

A vital part of our obedience to God is this: we’re to read the Bible and pray regularly, and meet often with other believers (see Hebrews 10.24-25). These things will strengthen us and help us to live holy lives.

Holiness means to belong to God for His purposes. Our purpose as God’s people is to be a community of people who extend His Kingdom across Earth through the power of His Spirit. Each believer has a special role in this magnificent calling. But to fulfil our role, we must be holy. So you can see how crucial our own personal holiness is to God’s plan for this world.

Question 3
What do these three images of the Church – a human body, a temple, a household – have in common?

Bible passages to read
Romans 12.3-8, 1 Corinthians 12.12-27, Ephesians 2.19-22.

Three ways in which the Church is pictured in the Bible are as a temple, a body, and a household. A temple is a single structure made up of many different components. A body is a single organism comprising a complex assembly of cells, tissues and organs, each of which has a part to play in the health and function of the whole body. A household is an economic and socially interdependent group of people who share a common life.

Each of these three images implies an integrated, interdependent community. Why is there such emphasis on community and interdependence? Because that’s how God made us. As we saw in Session 3, mankind isn’t just a group of unrelated individuals. The human race is a family, all descended from Adam and Eve. We’re all connected. John Donne wrote: “No man is an island, entire of itself. . . .” At the heart of our beings is the capacity for love. We are relational beings. Donald Macleod wrote: “A life lived apart from community is a life that violates human nature”.

So when God speaks about the Church as a temple, a body, and a household, it isn’t a completely new idea. He built the idea of community into human nature right from the beginning. The Church is God’s new humanity. The Church is a community of people who love each other, support each other and share their lives with each other. When people see a local church functioning as a community as God intended, they are seeing what it really means to be truly human.

And all this means that we affect one another – for good or bad. ● We have the power to be a blessing to each other. In the church, God has given each of us gifts to build up our brothers and sisters in Christ (see 1 Corinthians 14.12,26, and see also Ephesians 4.11-16). ● Conversely, we have power to harm each other. Failing to use my gifts damages the body. One person’s sin can defile many (compare Hebrews 12.15). We hurt people by breaking off relationships, or refusing to forgive.

March 23, 2017March 23, 2017

New series of videos: ‘The Journey’. Video 11: ‘The Crossing Point of History’

The Journey is a series of 16 videos (of around 25-30 minutes each) that will take us through the Bible story. The YouTube video above is number 11 in this series. Entitled The Crossing Point of History, it tells about Jesus’s trials and crucifixion, and His resurrection and ascension into Heaven. These events are the great turning point in the history of this world.

This video series can be used for group study (in fact, it’s currently being used in the author’s home church in the United Kingdom for group study). Each video is accompanied by a two-page Leader’s Guide, in PDF format. These give a few questions for group discussion, and provide guidance for the leader in helping the group to answer the questions. Click on the PDF icon below to download this.

As we approach Good Friday and Easter, this and the previous video (entitled Immanuel, God With Us), and their accompanying Leaders’ Guides, might provide a suitable study for your church or Bible study group at this season when we remember Jesus’s crucifixion and resurrection.

The writer Dorothy Sayers pronounced the Christian faith to be “the most exciting drama that ever staggered the imagination of man . . .” It’s helpful to step back and view this drama in one great panorama – a kind of large-scale map from Genesis to journey’s end in glory.

This series of videos (supplemented with the written studies entitled The Big Journey provided on this website) aims to be that map. It’s a panorama of the Bible narrative from creation through redemption to new creation. We explore the Old Testament story, Jesus’s life, death and resurrection, and the story of the Church from the Day of Pentecost to the present day. Finally, we’ll look at what happens at the end of this age, Jesus’s Second Coming, and the New Heaven and Earth. In particular, we’ll see how Jesus’s life, death, resurrection and ascension is the focus of all history, and the key to God’s plan for us and our world.

Along the way, the series introduces some of the foundational doctrines of the Christian faith at appropriate points in the narrative (for example, the Incarnation is explained in the video above, which tells about Jesus’ birth and life).

August 13, 2015January 6, 2018

Audio series of The Big Journey now available

le Marche – passeggiando in bicicletta © gigi 62 / luigi alesi ~ Flickr (CC BY- 3.0)

The Big Journey is now available in audio from New Life Radio HERE. These audio recordings are in MP3 format. They’re a simplified version of the sixteen PDF pamphlets available on our home page. There are thirty talks, each between 15-20 minutes long. So by listening to just one short talk each day, you could take a journey through the whole Bible in just one month.

July 5, 2014July 11, 2014

‘A Meal with Jesus’ by Tim Chester

A Meal with Jesus: Discovering Grace, Community, and Mission around the Table by Tim Chester. Published in October 2011 by Inter-Varsity Press, Nottingham, UK. ISBN 9781844745555 (paperback); 160 pages. Also published in April 2011 by Crossway Wheaton, IL, USA. ISBN: 978-1-4335-2136-2 (paperback); 144 pages. Electronic versions also available from both publishers.

The publishers’ descriptions are online HERE and HERE.

In the world of the Bible, sharing a meal is far more than filling stomachs to stay alive. It’s a time of fellowship. Scott Bartchy writes: “It would be difficult to overestimate the importance of table fellowship for the cultures of the Mediterranean basin in the first century of our era. Mealtimes were far more than occasions for individuals to consume nourishment. Being welcomed at a table for the purpose of eating food with another person had become a ceremony richly symbolic of friendship, intimacy and unity. Thus betrayal or unfaithfulness toward anyone with whom one had shared the table was viewed as particularly reprehensible. On the other hand, when persons were estranged, a meal invitation opened the way to reconciliation.”

That’s why the Jewish religious leaders were so angry with Jesus for eating with “sinners” (Matthew 9.11, Luke 15.2). By eating with them, He was receiving them as His friends and companions. In fact, the very word ‘companion’ is derived from the Latin cum (meaning ‘with’) and panis (meaning ‘bread’) – i.e. someone you ate bread with.

Even in Western society today, sharing a meal together still has significance beyond the physical act. Alexander Shmemann comments: “Centuries of secularism have failed to transform eating into something strictly utilitarian. Food is still treated with reverence. A meal is still a rite – the last ‘natural sacrament’ of family and friendship, . . . .”

Right through the Bible we find God Himself inviting people to feast at His table. He invites them to enjoy fellowship with Him, to enter His ‘family circle’.

It’s no coincidence that there’s a meal at the very beginning and the very end of the Bible. God offered Adam and Eve the fruit of the Tree of Life (Genesis 2.9,16-17). But they ate from another tree; they refused fellowship with God. From that moment, God wanted to bring mankind back to His table – back into fellowship with Him.

So we find God inviting people to His table. In the Old Testament, there’s the annual Passover meal. When God made a covenant with Israel through Moses, chosen representatives of Israel banqueted with God on Mount Sinai (Exodus 24.9-11). And among the various sacrifices there was the fellowship offering – the sacrifice that the offerer and his companions ate together in God’s presence.

Before His crucifixion, Jesus shared a meal with His disciples – the Last Supper. We celebrate the Lord’s Supper with our brothers and sisters at the central act of our life together as God’s people.

And when God’s Kingdom arrives in its final glory, God’s people will enjoy “the marriage supper of the Lamb” (Revelation 19.9). They will feast with Jesus for eternity – they’ll enjoy eternal fellowship with Him in the new heaven and Earth.

Tim Chester picks up this theme of the meal and takes us through Luke’s Gospel. He opens up the meaning of the meal for Jesus and for us, and places this theme in the context of the whole Bible story. And, as one reviewer on Amazon.com, Arthur Sido, comments: “Tim is calling the church back to a place where deliberate, intentional sharing of our food, our home and our time takes priority in the life of the church”.

Crossway, the US publisher, summarises: “The meals of Jesus represent something bigger. They represent a new world, a new kingdom, a new outlook. Tim Chester brings to light God’s purposes in the seemingly ordinary act of sharing a meal—how this everyday experience is really an opportunity for grace, community, and mission. Chester challenges contemporary understandings of hospitality as he urges us to evaluate why and who we invite to our table. Learn how you can foster grace and bless others through the rich fare being served in A Meal with Jesus.”

In his introduction, Tim writes, “If I pull down books on mission and church planting from my shelves, I can read about contextualization, evangelism matrices, postmodern apologetics, and cultural hermeneutics. I can look at diagrams that tell me how people can be converted or discover the steps required to plant a church. It all sounds impressive, cutting edge, and sophisticated. But this is how Luke describes Jesus’s mission strategy: “The Son of Man came eating and drinking.” We can make community and mission sound like specialized activities that belong to experts. Some people have a vested interest in doing this, because it makes them feel “extraordinary.” Or we focus on dynamic personalities who can hold an audience and lead a movement. Some push mission beyond the scope of “ordinary” Christians. But the Son of Man came eating and drinking. It’s not complicated. True, it’s not always easy—it involves people invading your space or going to places where you don’t feel comfortable. But it’s not complicated. If you share a meal three or four times a week and you have a passion for Jesus, then you will be building up the Christian community and reaching out in mission.”

The chapter headings are:

Introduction: The Son of Man Came Eating and Drinking
Meals as Enacted Grace: Luke 5
Meals as Enacted Community: Luke 7
Meals as Enacted Hope: Luke 9
Meals as Enacted Mission: Luke 14
Meals as Enacted Salvation: Luke 22
Meals as Enacted Promise: Luke 24

Read the introduction HERE.

Tim Chester introduces the book in a brief video HERE.

Tim Challies reviews it HERE.

Tim Chester is involved in The Crowded House, a church-planting initiative in Sheffield. He was previously Research and Policy Director for Tearfund UK. He has spoken at Word Alive, Keswick, and on Christian training courses. Tim’s books include The Message of Prayer“, Good News to the Poor, The Busy Christian’s Guide to Busyness, Total Church and The Ascension: Humanity in the Presence of God. He is married with two daughters.

June 24, 2014July 11, 2014

The Kingdom of God – a briefing

Image © Joda – Fotolia.com

Sunlight scatters the shadows on a woodland trail. One day, God’s Kingdom will arrive in its full and final perfection. Heaven will invade Earth; Heaven and Earth will be blended in a way we cannot now imagine. God’s presence will fill our Earth.

Briefings
Over the coming months, I’ll be uploading short articles on a range of topics. These ‘Briefings’ are planned to include the Kingdom of God, the Messiah, the Jewish feasts, the unique character of each of the four Gospels, Daniel 9, etc. Browse the Briefings menu tab to locate these. The first is a brief overview of the Kingdom of God, and it’s reproduced here.

The theme of the Kingdom of God underpins the whole of the Bible story. Here’s an outline of how this theme unfolds through the Bible. In fact, this is really a summary of the whole Bible story. (The eight headings are borrowed from Vaughan Roberts’ excellent little book God’s Big Picture.)

The pattern of the Kingdom

God, the Creator and King of the Universe, lives in harmony with his people in His paradise, the Garden of Eden. God gives Adam and Eve dominion over everything on Earth (Genesis 1.26,28); they themselves are to be under His authority. As they trust Him and remain obedient to Him, they’ll experience unimaginable blessing. They’ll enjoy a wonderfully abundant and rewarding life – a life under their Creator’s richest blessing, truly the best that life could ever be. This is, in Bible language, is ‘the kingdom of God’. In Vaughan Robert’s words, “In the Garden of Eden we see the world as God designed it to be”.

The perished Kingdom

Adam and Eve reject God’s authority and decide for themselves how to live their lives. God has to banish them from His paradise and His immediate presence. They live frustrated and troubled lives outside God’s paradise.

The Kingdom restored
In His love and mercy, God acts to bring humanity back under His authority and all the blessings that brings. In other words, God restores His Kingdom. The rest of the Bible tells how He does this.

The promised Kingdom

God calls Abraham and promises him a land. Deuteronomy 8.7 9 describes it as a bountiful paradise. God tells Abraham that he’ll become a great nation, and that his offspring will possess this land. That nation is Israel; the land is Canaan. Here, God’s people will live in His presence in His paradise.

But God goes further. He promises Abraham that he’ll father a multitude of nations. Through this man all the families of the Earth would find blessing – blessing that can only be found in God’s presence (see Psalm 16.11 and compare Revelation 7.15-17). God is looking forward to the time when His ransomed people would be drawn “from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Revelation 5.9, and see Revelation 7.9) across the globe, to a time when God will live within them by His Spirit (see Galatians 3.14).

The partial kingdom

God rescues His people from Egypt and gives them His law to teach them how to live. He settles them in His promised land. And He lives among them in His sanctuary – initially the Tabernacle, but finally Solomon’s grand Temple.

God’s people are living in God’s paradise in the presence of their King and under His rule and blessing. The Kingdom of God has come – but only partially. Sin and all its consequences still blight creation. Even God’s own chosen people prove inveterate rebels. The kingdom of Israel falls apart and ends in conquest and exile. Only a remnant return to rebuild a ruined land.

The prophesied Kingdom

But during this period of Israel’s decay and downfall, God astonishes His people – and us – with breathtaking visions of glory. Woven through rebuke and warning, God pledges to redeem His people. He promises that they will live in God’s paradise. A King will govern them – and that King is God Himself! God is going to establish His Kingdom.

The present Kingdom

Then the King Himself comes to Earth! Jesus, Son of God, opens His ministry with these words: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand” (Mark 1.15). In Vaughan Roberts’ words, “God’s king had come to establish God’s Kingdom”. He teaches about God’s Kingdom and demonstrates God’s sovereign power through His miracles. His death and resurrection strikes the decisive blow against Satan and deals fully with sin and all its fallout. His victory paves the way for God’s Kingdom to come in power.

The proclaimed kingdom

On the Day of Pentecost, God begins to fill people with His Spirit. God Himself comes to live inside those who repent and believe His gospel. They’re citizens of God’s Kingdom – they live in His presence and under the blessing of His rule. God’s Kingdom has come in a revolutionary new way!

The perfected Kingdom

Jesus the King returns to Earth. All God’s enemies are banished; sin is eradicated and all its consequences dealt with finally and fully. God renews Heaven and Earth. God’s people live in His presence and under the blessings of His rule in His perfect paradise (Revelation 21.1-4, 22.1-5). God’s Kingdom has come in all its glory!

November 29, 2013November 29, 2013

‘Early Church Catechesis and New Christians’ Classes in Contemporary Evangelicalism’ by Clinton Arnold

In this seminal and fascinating article, Clinton Arnold looks at how the early church trained new believers – and then poses some searching questions about how our present-day evangelical church approaches this task.

He writes: “For twelve years my wife and I were deeply involved in a ministry to new believers at our local church. When we began developing this ‘assimilation’ ministry, we started with an eight-week course that covered many of the basics of the Christian life. . . . . The initial idea was for new believers to take the eight-week course as a primer in some of the basics of Christian doctrine and practice and then help them blend into the regular age-graded Sunday School program of the church.” A number of constraints prevented this from working well. One of these was the fact that “these new believers strongly felt the need for more of the same kind of teaching and discussions centered on the basics that they had just experienced.”

Dr. Arnold had also been doing some reading in the Church fathers about how new Christians were trained in the early church – training that often lasted for three years. He came away “deeply convicted about the superficiality of what we were doing. There was such a rigorous plan and commitment by church leaders in the first four centuries to ground new believers in their Christian lives. The impact of this reading on my thinking led to some significant changes in our new Christians’ ministry, especially the development of a ministry plan and curriculum that would keep them for two to three years.”

He continues “I have . . . continued to reflect critically on what we did in light of Scripture and early church practice. It has become increasingly clear to me that the evangelical church as a whole could benefit from re-examining the testimony of the Church fathers and gleaning insights from how they ministered to new believers. It may challenge many churches to consider implementing some modifications in philosophy and structure of ministry as they entertain questions such as: • Is a four-week (six-week, or eight-week) new Christians’ class really enough? • Are we getting new believers adequately immersed into the Scripture? • Have we downplayed the importance of creed? • Are we helping new believers repent completely of sinful life-styles and practices? • Are we taking the spiritual warfare dynamic seriously enough in helping new believers grow?”

In this paper, Dr. Arnold gathers some insights from the ‘Apostolic Tradition’, the earliest source providing us with detailed information about how the church trained new believers, together with some other ancient sources that speak about this practice. He offers some thoughts on how the present-day church can learn from their forbears in the early church.

Dr. Arnold describes four key features of new believer training in the early Church: (1) immersion in the Word of God – which included teaching them the overall sweep of God’s plan of redemption; (2) teaching them the central doctrines of Christianity; (3) spiritual and moral formation; (4) deliverance from Satanic influences, received through their old lives of paganism and magical practices. He writes: “Part of the motivation and concern for a lengthy process was rooted in a desire to foster solid spiritual formation and to protect these new believers against sin, heresy, and apostasy. . . . . Cyril of Jerusalem reflects on the vital importance of this process of growth for the health and stability of these new believers: ‘Let me compare the catechizing to a building. Unless we methodically bind and joint the whole structure together, we shall have leaks and dry rot, and all our previous exertions will be wasted’ ”. He comments: “By contrast, many evangelical churches today place a minimal emphasis on the training of new believers . . . .”

Key comments that Dr Clinton makes on each of these four points are:

(1) “As we consider our contemporary evangelical churches, we need to ask ourselves how well we are doing in immersing new converts in the Word of God. Are they ‘hearing’ or reading through the bulk of the Scripture within the first three years of their walk with the Lord? Are they acquiring a grasp of the overall sweep of salvation history? Perhaps one of the greatest dangers we face is the assumption that this will somehow automatically happen once they are saved and part of the church. The lesson from the ancient church is that there was an intentional plan to facilitate this.”

(2) “Most evangelical churches today put little emphasis on providing training for new believers in the central doctrines. Some new believers’ classes cover a few of the cardinal doctrines, but a systematic training in the principal doctrines of historic orthodoxy are missing in the curricula for new believers.”

(3) “A hard question that we need to ask of ourselves is whether there is an intentional and structured part of the curriculum for ministering to new believers in our churches that addresses issues of life-style and Christian behavior in a direct way. Is there a process that helps new believers confront and deal with such sin issues as sexual impurity, bitterness, rebellion, greed, and unforgiveness as well as cultic involvements and adherence to false religious beliefs?”

(4) “Perhaps more thought, study, and effort need to be given to the task of identifying how to integrate an appropriate form of this [deliverance] ministry into contemporary church practice, especially given that it was a universal feature of the ministry to new believers in the early church.”

Read the full article HERE. This article originally appeared in ‘Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society’ volume 47, number 1, for March 2004. Clinton E. Arnold is a New Testament scholar and dean at Biola University’s Talbot School of Theology. He was the 2011 president of the Evangelical Theological Society. He has served as general editor of the Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary, and general editor of the Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, for which he wrote the volume on Ephesians. He has also authored a number of books, such as ‘Power and Magic: The Concept of Power in Ephesians’, and ‘Powers of Darkness: Principalities and Powers in Paul’s Letters’.

November 25, 2013November 25, 2013

‘The Eternal Weight of Glory’ by Harry Blamires

This little article about heaven is a sheer delight, a concentration of distilled wisdom seasoned with imagination.

Blamires corrects the prevailing view of heaven as an ethereal insubstantial abode: “Our education is such that many people tend to picture the afterlife as something less solid, less substantial than our earthly life, an existence in some ethereal and virtually disembodied state. In this respect, much current thinking is topsy-turvy. The one thing we can with certainty say about life in heaven is that it is more real than life on Earth.”

He concludes: “Whatever form your most moving earthly experiences of beauty have taken, they were foretastes of heaven. Wherever you have found lovingkindness in human hands and human eyes and human words, you were confronting Christ’s personality operative in God’s creatures. Since the source of all that beauty and all that tenderness is God, the full opening up of his presence before his creatures can be nothing less than the aggregation and concentration and intensification of every loveliness and every goodness we have ever tasted, or even dreamed of. All the love we have ever known in our relationships with others—all that collected and distilled into the personal warmth of him from whom it all derived, and he standing before us: that is the kind of picture that the Christian imagination reaches towards when there is talk of the ultimate reward of the redeemed. It is small wonder that mind and pen falter under the weight of glory brought to mind.”

Read the full article HERE; if you want a version you don’t have to page through, click HERE.

This article originally appeared in ‘Christianity Today’ for May 22, 1991. Harry Blamires (born 1916) is an Anglican theologian, literary critic, and novelist, now retired. His friend, C. S. Lewis, was his tutor at Oxford University. He has written a number of books, including ‘Knowing the Truth About Heaven and Hell’.

November 22, 2013

‘God’s Big Picture’ by Vaughan Roberts

‘God’s Big Picture: Tracing the Story-Line of the Bible’, by Vaughan Roberts. Published by Inter-Varsity Press, Leicester, UK. New edition. First published in 2009. ISBN 9781844743704 (paperback); 9781844747153 (Kindle version). 176 pages.

If I had to recommend just one brief overview of the Bible, this would be it. In this book, Vaughan Roberts paints the big picture of the Bible, and he does so clearly and simply. He takes us through the Bible using the theme of the Kingdom of God – defined as ‘God’s people in God’s place under God’s rule and blessing’.

Using this theme, Vaughan provides a simple and memorable framework for the Bible story:

(1) The pattern of the kingdom (Creation and the Garden of Eden)

(2) The perished kingdom (the fall)

(3) The promised kingdom (God’s covenant with Abraham)

(4) The partial kingdom (the period of the patriarchs to the Exile)

(5) The prophesied kingdom (the Old Testament prophets and the return from Exile)

(6) The present kingdom (Jesus life, death, resurrection and ascension)

(7) The proclaimed kingdom (the Acts of the Apostles through the whole Church age)

(8) The perfected kingdom (the Book of Revelation and the new heaven and earth).

‘God’s Big Picture’ is very suitable for newer believers and also young people. But more seasoned believers will doubtless find Vaughan’s deft and simple handling of the Bible story helpful, too.

Bible passages for reading and questions for discussion accompany each of the eight chapters. This makes ‘God’s Big Picture’ ideal for small group discussion. And the fact that it covers the entire Bible in just eight lessons makes it tailor-made for new believers’ discipleship groups. It would be ideal as a follow-up to an Alpha Course or a Christianity Explored course.

View the publisher’s description page HERE.

Vaughan Roberts is Rector of St Ebb’s Church, Oxford, England. He is also a founder member of 9:38, which encourages Christians to consider full-time gospel ministry, and is on the leadership team of The Proclamation Trust.

November 12, 2013

‘The Ascension: Humanity in the Presence of God’, by Tim Chester and Jonny Woodrow

‘The Ascension: Humanity in the Presence of God’, by Tim Chester and Jonny Woodrow. Published by Christian Focus, Fearn, Ross-shire, UK, and WEST Porterbrook, Sheffield, UK. First published in 2013. ISBNs 978-1-78191-144-0 (paperback); 978-1-78191-210-2 (ePub); 978-1-78191-212-6 (Mobi). 94 pages.

View the publisher’s description page HERE.

There are few books that specifically focus on Jesus’s ascension. And, in fact, His ascension is something about which we may give little thought; it may simply seem like a postscript to His life here on Earth. But it’s a vital, ongoing part of His saving work for us. As the authors point out, “Atonement was not complete until Jesus stood before God on our behalf.” Jesus is our ascended Priest and King, our ‘Man in Heaven’ at our Father’s right hand. A Member of our human race with a glorified physical human body is now in God’s presence, enthroned in absolute authority over Heaven and Earth! And we, God’s people, are seated with Him there in heavenly places. We share His rule over Heaven and Earth.

This remarkable little book will likely transform the way you think of Jesus’s ascension. It’s packed with insights drawn from across the whole Bible, communicated clearly and compellingly. Newer believers through to seasoned Bible scholars will find profit here. The reader will come away with a richer understanding of Jesus’ life and ministry on Earth and now in Heaven. And they’ll see more clearly the momentous significance Jesus’s ascension has for their Christian life here and now – and for their destiny in the world to come.

Perhaps the authors’ greatest achievement is to set the Ascension squarely into its context in the whole of God’s redemptive plan from creation to the new creation. For example, they link Jesus’s ascension to Moses’ ascension of Mount Sinai and the sacrifices in the Tabernacle; to Daniel’s vision of the four beasts and the coming of the Son of Man and the Kingdom of God; to Jesus’s life as recorded by Luke; to the local church’s congregational worship; and to the Church’s global mission.

And the Ascension inevitably raises questions. Where exactly is Jesus now? Jesus is in heaven, yet He’s present with His people. We live here on Earth, yet we’re seated with Him in the heavenly realms. How does this all work in our universe of space and time? Where exactly is heaven and how does it relate to our own world? And what happens when Jesus returns to Earth at the end of the age? The authors guide us through this mysterious terrain. They comment, “Even on the final day, when Jesus does come to earth, He does not leave heaven behind. . . . . Instead, He brings heaven with Him to create a new heaven and a new earth. He does not leave heaven to collect us and take us back to heaven. He brings heaven to earth.”

And what has Jesus’s ascension done for us? Our calling and destiny is to be God’s royal family, made in His image to rule over His creation. The authors explain that the ascended Jesus has realised this destiny: “The ascension of Jesus is the foretaste of the ascension of a new humanity to our royal status.” And through His ascension, He has secured that destiny for every one of God’s people: “Those in Christ will . . . be what we were meant to be and what we were born to be.”

Jonny Woodrow is the Associate Director of Porterbrook Seminary and part of the leadership team of The Crowded House church planting network. Tim Chester is an author, pastor of The Crowded House, Sheffield and a leader of The Crowded House church planting network.