Last Saturday, Keiyeng and I headed down to the Brisbane Chinese Alliance Church at Rochedale to lead a few BC3 training sessions on ‘how to give a kids talk’ and ‘daily time with God’. Some 5:17ers were there, which was great.

In the session I lead, included were some helpful steps to go through when doing your personal Bible reading. They’re taken from the Ministry Papers, written by Steve Cree:

Step 1: Relax. Sit down and focus on what you’re doing.

Step 2: Pray. Ask God to help you to understand His Word and ask the Spirit to help you to respond in obedience and faith to what you learn.

Step 3: Read the Bible passage.

Step 4: Re-read it – make sure you don’t read too much at a time.

Step 5: Think about what it means: what’s the flow of thought? What’s the main idea, encouragement, challenge etc? What does it tell you about Jesus and living with Him as Lord?

Step 6: (if you are so inclined) Record. Write notes about what you learned and how it applies to you.

Step 7: Take one thought, verse or idea from the passage – and think about it for the rest of the day (or until the next Bible reading session occurs). Try to live out the implications of that thought / verse.

Step 8: Praise and prayer. Give thanks to God for what you learnt, confess your struggle in the issue learnt (if you struggle in this issue), and ask for help to trust in Jesus and follow Him as Lord in this area.

The above steps aren’t to put a straight-jacket on your Bible reading. They shouldn’t be seen as laws – because God hasn’t told us exactly how much we should read each day, when we should read it or rules for how one must do their daily time with God. But the above steps are there to help us get the most out of our reading.

(for why we read the Bible, click on our resources page, and read the top two articles.)

Happy reading!

This Sunday (July 17) we’ll be beginning our sermon series on the Book of Revelation. We’ll be calling it “The Glorious Unveiling” – because Revelation means to reveal, and what we’ll see in the Book of Revelation will be majestic and glorious.

Here is the info on the series:

Jul 17  The Glorious Unveiling (Rev 1:1-20)

Jul 24  What Jesus thinks of His Church (Rev 2:1-3:22)

Jul 31  Enter the Throne Room (Rev 4:1-5:14)

Aug 7  Groundhog Day (Rev 6:1-11:19)

Aug 14  A Glorious Gathering (Rev 7:1-17)

Aug 21  Beware of Imitations (Rev 12:1-13:18)

Aug 28  Total justice (Rev 14:1-16:21)

Sept 4  The city of man is gone! (Rev 17:1-19:10)

Sept 11 The city of God is here! (Rev 19:11-21:8)

Sept 18  Glory! (Rev 21:9-22:21)

The Introduction to Revelation which we are passing around in hard copy can be found at the bottom of our Resources page here. It was written by a good friend of Keiyeng and mine. Please have a read of the paper, but more than that, please read the Book of Revelation – it’ll greatly help your understanding of the sermons and Bible Studies.

I’ve been reading through Proverbs 10:11-21 in preparation for this Sunday’s sermon. It’s an amazing passage – so relevant to our lives today, but so tough to live out. You see, it’s all about the power of the spoken word – for good or for harm. Two things that really strike me are: what we say matters to the person who is listening; but equally importantly, how we speak also matters. Here’s the passage. Notice the positive and negative effects of our speech:

Proverbs 10:11 The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life, but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence.

12Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses.

13On the lips of him who has understanding, wisdom is found, but a rod is for the back of him who lacks sense.

14The wise lay up knowledge, but the mouth of a fool brings ruin near.

17Whoever heeds instruction is on the path to life, but he who rejects reproof leads others astray.

18The one who conceals hatred has lying lips, and whoever utters slander is a fool.

19 When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but whoever restrains his lips is prudent.

20The tongue of the righteous is choice silver; the heart of the wicked is of little worth.

21The lips of the righteous feed many, but fools die for lack of sense.

Here are a few thoughts the passage has brought to my mind:

• What sorts of things do I speak about – at church, work, home, with friends?
• Am I conscious of the power of my words – either for people’s good or harm?
• Do I have adequate self-control in the way I use words? For illustration: in a golf car, there’s what’s called a ‘governor’ – a little device that stops the car from going past (say) 30km/hr. It physically prevents the car from going too fast and thus getting in danger. Do I have an internal ‘governor’ that stops me from saying harmful things in harmful ways? How do I get this? (more on this this Sunday)
• Am I conscious, not just of what I say, but how I say things? Are my words nullified by immature or unloving actions?
• What sort of listener am I? Do I listen to and take on correction and guidance, or do I ignore it and keep going in my folly? A few months ago, a friend subtly rebuked me for what was obviously a poor attitude of mine. I heard what he said, and thought he was talking about someone else. Later, Keiyeng said that my friend was obviously talking about me, and that I wasn’t listening properly. SNAP! It took Keiyeng to re-emphasise by poor attitude, but it finally got through my thick skull. And hearing and heeding the (much needed) correction has helped my attitude enormously. If only I am quicker to hear what people are saying to me!

Proverbs is a great book – and as all Scripture does, it leads us to Jesus (Luke 24:27) – who spoke the truth perfectly, and backed it up with His consistently right actions. He took all our sins (word, thought and deed) and nailed them to the cross (Colossians 2:13-14). He gave His people the Holy Spirit, who is making us like Jesus, in our words and deeds (Galatians 5:22-25). As we look at Proverbs, and as we seek to grow in wisdom, we are to be reminded that Jesus is the one who gives us wisdom and righteousness (1 Cor 1:30).

And through the Holy Spirit who inspired the Word of God (the Bible), we are taught to be like Jesus, in “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15). To be Christians means to be loving in the way we speak. Speaking the truth (God’s Word) as well as avoiding gossip, lies and rumours etc, in love, is a powerful tool in the hands of God’s children. As Christians, we’re to be people who know God’s truth, who speak God’s truth, who say it in love, and get in on God’s work of transforming the lives of people around us.

So come to 5:17 church on Sunday, as we seek to know these truths more, and grow in our words and actions, to the glory of King Jesus.

This is a thought that came into my head a couple of Sundays ago just as Steve started preaching, and I prayed that God’s word would nourish and grow His people. It occurred to me that just like physical food, God’s word nourishes us incrementally.

What I mean by this is that just like our 3 meals a day, it’s barely possible to tell what good they’re doing for us. After all, skip one and most of us can survive pretty well. But of course skip many, and our bodies will certainly begin to suffer. We’ll start losing weight, getting sick, and eventually, dying of malnutrition (as sadly, so many people in the world do…).

Similarly, you may not be able to tell in yourself what effect one Sunday sermon has on your ‘spiritual growth’. You might walk out of church not thinking (or recognising) you’ve learned anything useful or been grown by what you’ve heard. Indeed, miss one sermon and in God’s providence you probably won’t fall away. But stop ‘eating’ God’s word altogether, and you’ll lose ‘spiritual’ weight, get ‘spiritually’ sick, and eventually ‘die spiritually’ of malnutrition.

The point is, just as physical food nourishes and grows us incrementally (I often can’t tell whether Jakey’s had enough milk in one sitting, but the fact is, day by day he’s growing chubbier and longer so it becomes obvious in hindsight that he is getting enough!), so does spiritual food. On both fronts you have to trust this is the case and keep eating, not skipping meals.

Just like a mum can’t see the growth of her kids like great-aunt Mavis clearly can on her half-yearly visit, so you can’t necessarily see your own growth day to day and week to week. But keep eating from God’s word, because His word says that by it you are growing, and He is doing His work of maturing and completing you (and me!) till the day of Christ Jesus. yum.

Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”  Matthew 4:4

“…being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”  Philippians 1:6

Here are the slides from Sunday night’s 8-minute overview of the Old Testament (OT) as we begin looking at the book of Jeremiah. Hope they help(ed) you to better understand how the OT fits together, and thus how to read any of its 39 books!

This last slide acts as a summary of the whole OT based on the framework introduced above. (click on it to see a bigger version of it)

If you’d like to read more about Goldsworthy’s Framework, look for The Goldsworthy Trilogy (Gospel and Kingdom, Gospel and Wisdom, The Gospel in Revelation) or According to Plan.

Please comment with your findings, questions etc!

2 Sundays ago, Steve preached on Paul’s letter to Philemon and called his sermon ‘How to change the world’. The idea behind such a big call of a title is that when God’s people consistently act with His amazing grace within our relationships, this impacts the world. It sure had the potential to impact Onesimus.

Steve finished the sermon with a list of definitions helping us understand what forgiveness is and isn’t. We thought it would be useful to reproduce it here (see next post) but I also wanted to add a couple of extra thoughts from our personal experience…

We had to carefully think through forgiveness about a year ago when we were in danger of practising the opposite – unforgiveness. I believe God gave me a breakthrough of understanding one night just before bed as I was mulling over the issues. By His Spirit He worked in my thoughts to help me understand that forgiveness is ‘giving up my right to hold this against you’ (whoever the ‘you’ may be).

Because the truth is, the need to forgive only arises if someone has sinned against you. It’s therefore ok and appropriate to feel exactly that – sinned against – to feel hurt, grieved, perhaps betrayed. But the thing about forgiveness is that it doesn’t end there. Because God has shown us incredible forgiveness in Christ – exchanging Jesus’ righteousness for our sin if we trust in him – He commands us to show this kind of forgiveness to others. He effectively says – because I’ve given up my right to hold your sin against you, you must do this for others.

Now simply because He’s done it for us and He commands it – we should. But in God’s condescending grace He illuminated for me a further principle. We can forgive others not only because of what He’s done for us in the past, but also because of what He’ll do in the future.

As Steve pointed out, our forgiving others doesn’t necessarily mean reconciliation of relationship will occur. This is hard. It’s terribly tough forgiving someone who doesn’t care about how they’ve hurt you – but we are called to do our part, and the reason we can go ahead and do this is because God will also do His part.

In Romans 12:19, Paul says: Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. (Read verses 17-21 too – it’s all amazing stuff)

God is a just God, and He promises throughout His word that He will bring justice to and for His people on a great and dreadful day (when Jesus returns). He will make all people pay for their wrongs – either by themselves, or Jesus will declare that he’s already done it on their behalf. Justice will certainly be done – and it’s on the basis of this future hope that we can also freely forgive others now - even when they don’t ‘deserve’ it. Instead of being vengeful and bitter and unforgiving, we are to trust God to bring about justice in His timing and His way, and in the meantime we are to return good for evil, to overcome evil with good.

Extraordinary isn’t it?! It’s extraordinary what standard God calls us to, but also extraordinary that He makes it possible by giving us His Spirit. But can you also see what extraordinary things are possible if we only obey? If we take this call seriously? Slaves can be restored to the masters they’ve wronged. Evil itself can be overcome. The world can be changed. We can be called sons of God. And Jesus will be made to look like the awesome Saviour and Lord that he is.

You’ve probably never heard a Christmas message from the Bible book of Revelation – let alone Revelation chapter 12 verses 1-12.

What does Christmas have to do with a woman, a dragon, and a baby?!

You’re invited to 5:17 church’s Christmas Eve service, to find out what this cosmic intertwining means – for Christmas and for you.

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I am sitting in our study with our guinea pig Munchee on my lap, with her little hind legs stuck out in her ‘this is the life’ position. I’ve just finished reading Isaiah 45 – a majestic portrayal of God’s absolute sovereignty over Israel and both her friends and her enemies. As a proclamation it could sound arrogant if it weren’t true, and justly so. And what a great finish -

They will say of me, ‘In the LORD alone are righteousness and strength.’ All who have raged against him will come to him and be put to shame. But in the LORD all the descendants of Israel will be found righteous and will exult.

You don’t need 3 guesses to work out which side you’d want to be on!

But actually I was going to ask what you’re reading, and say that if you ever want or need a recommendation, Steve and I love both reading and recommending books (including books of the Bible) to people. We’ve been so influenced and grown through reading over our journeys as Christians that we can’t help spreading the love. Plus we have several hundred books in our library available for borrowing, so let us know if you’d like a summer reading list. We’d be glad to get you started!