| 16-aug-05 |
GOD—OUR
MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION |
Geoffrey
Thomas |
So I
don’t have to try to prove the existence of God to you because
everyone of you is made in the image of God and you all have a sense
of the Lord the mighty Creator. I live in order to know this God better
and to preach him to you as God the Father, God the Son, and God the
Holy Spirit; this one true and living God has made himself known to
us in the Bible. |
|
| 16-aug-05 |
THE
UNIQUENESS OF CHRIST |
Geraint
Fielder |
The
Word not only created humanity but then shared our humanity, ‘The
true light ... was coming into the world... he was in the world...
the world was made through him’ (John 1:9-10). In Jesus, the Lord
of creation becomes the man of Galilee. He steps into our shoes. He
enters space and time that He himself created. He has a personal history—a
birth and death, but more, a resurrection. And why a resurrection?
Because Jesus is not just one other religious leader; He is not just
a child of his age; He is not locked into His day; He did not end
His life in the tomb because He did not begin His life in the womb.
He had power to lay down His life and to take it again in resurrection
because He possessed the power of an endless life, having come from
God the Father who sent Him. |
|
| 16-aug-05 |
A
SPOTLESS BRIDE |
Hywel
R Jones |
But
isn’t there another world, so to speak––a world
of peace, joy, and righteousness? Yes there is, in heaven. And heaven
has a colony––an outpost––here on earth in
the church, the current home of God’s people. Yet to many people
this other world seems nonexistent, partly because the church on earth
resembles “the kingdoms of this world” far more than “the
kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ” (Rev. 12:10). |
|
| 16-aug-05 |
ANYONE
FOR A FIGHT? |
David
Marshall |
And
so “the faith once for all delivered to the saints” must
be understood to encompass both the authority of the Bible and the
person and work of Jesus Christ. These two – the message
of salvation and the means of salvation – constitute the irreducible
heart of the gospel and therefore “the faith” for which
we are to contend. |
|
| 16-aug-05 |
CONTROLLING
THE FUTURE AND THE PAST |
Noel
Weeks |
One
of the more objectionable aspects of the recent election campaign
in Australia, as it is of election campaigns in general, was the claim
of the politicians to the ability to secure security and prosperity
in the future as well as the claim for credit for securing these in
the past. There is very little recognition that factors outside of
our control were far more significant in the past and are likely to
be far more significant in the future. |
|
| 16-aug-05 |
WHERE
HAVE ALL THE PREACHERS GONE? |
Graham
Harrison |
It
may be that what underlies much of this whole situation is an assumption
— I hesitate to call it a conviction — that the days
of preaching as a relevant instrument of evangelism are numbered,
if not over. In its place has come the more casual approach of the
study group (more, or in some cases, less biblical in content).
Its great feature is that people are never to be pressurised. |
|
| 16-aug-05 |
A
SCANDALOUS ATTACK ON THE CROSS |
Martin
Downes |
Chalke considers it a tragedy that Church history has obscured the
centrality of God’s love. He asserts that the Bible ‘never
defines God as anger, power or judgement—in fact it never
defines him as anything other than love’ (p. 63). Moreover,
he argues, to think of God’s attributes without reference
to the primary lens of his love ‘is to risk a terrible misrepresentation
of his character, which in turn leads to a distortion of the gospel’
(p.63).
|
|
| 16-aug-05 |
BOTH
SIDES NOW |
Peter
Barnes |
Any consolations in this life, however, all come asunder when Qoholeth
thinks about death. Death is the ultimate proof of our lack of control
over life: ‘No man has power to retain the spirit, or power
over the day of death’ (8:8). ‘It is the same for all,
since the same event happens to the righteous and the wicked, to
the good and the evil, to the clean and the unclean, to him who
sacrifices and him who does not sacrifice’ (see 9:2-6). Death
is the key to understanding life. |
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