You are Redeemed and You are Secure

New Growth Press have released two more devotional books for women in the Gospel Truth for Women series. I found the initial book, You Are Welcomed, both encouraging and challenging, and gave it as a gift to a few friends. I was keen to turn to these.

You Are Redeemed: Devotions for Living a Whole New Life by Nana Dolce, is a journey through Exodus. Dolce starts with a relatable story, and moves to the details of the Exodus narrative and how God redeemed Israel for himself. She then draws the link to Christ, our ultimate redeemer and encourages personal reflection and response, both from Exodus and the New Testament. Each devotion is two pages with three reflection questions. Each of the eight weeks focuses on a different aspect of our Redeemer God who remembers, redeems, provides, covenants, reveals, judges and restores, prepares, and dwells with his people. It is clear biblical exegesis for part of the bible many might not read on their own, and helps the reader consider the application to their life today through the work of Christ.

You Are Secure: Devotions for When Life is Uncertain, by Aimee Joseph, walks through Colossians in small steps. Similarly to the others, there are two pages of reflection, starting with a story, an analysis of the passage and how you might apply it today. Covering eight weeks (40 readings), there is much to sink your teeth into and ponder. The devotional comments were shorter than the other two books, and I wanted a little more content. 

You are Welcomed may have been more focused on those who are wives and mothers, these two seemed to be more widely applicable for all women.

These books are beautifully presented, with pleasant formatting and graphics. However, they are also large and heavy (1.2kgs/ 2.6lbs each). I received ecopies to review, and was quite surprised when I later bought a hard copy. Up to 20% of pages are images or small amounts of words, adding to the bulk. Worth knowing if considering a hard copy.

I received ecopies of these books in exchange for an honest review. 

CrossTalk

CrossTalk, Michael R. Emlet

I read this book as part of one of my CCEF courses and I am very glad I did. Emlet has brought together in a skilled and nuanced way several key factors in biblical interpretation and application:

1. The ability to read a text in its redemptive-historical framework, understanding it’s literary genre, initial purpose and initial readers.
2. The way to interpret that passage in light of Jesus work of saving grace.
3. How to then apply that passage today in ways that both do justice to the original purpose of the text, and also make it ‘living and active’ for today reader.

Up front he is clear about his purpose:

“Consider this book a hybrid of sorts, a resource to help you understand both people and the bible thoroughly. This book gives attention to interpreting the biblical text and interpreting the person.”

His goal is to deal with what he terms “microethics”: “how we use Scripture to meaningfully intersect with a particular person’s life as we minister to him or her.”

This book is aimed at anyone who wants to make these two aspects work well together. I felt that he summed up my own experience from a strong bible learning tradition in a nutshell: “If you’re like me, you have probably received more instruction on how to study the Bible than you have on how to practically use it in your life and ministry.”

“This book should help you interpret people as well as Scripture and suggest relevant biblical applications that will benefit those around you. This should be true whether you are involved in a formal teaching or discipling ministry, in professional counseling, or in impromptu discussions at the local café.”

The early chapters address how to read the bible and spend the time ensuring that you understand the passage as it was written. What is also crucial is to read it in a historical-salvation framework:

“Knowing how the story ends, we ask, “What difference does the death and resurrection of Jesus make for how I understand this passage?” The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the climax of redemption initiated in the Old Testament and the sure foundation for the life of the newly formed church.”

Later chapters look more at understanding people, for as Emlet says:

“To apply Scripture to our contemporary lives, we also need to understand people.… I want to give some overarching categories for understanding and approaching people.”

Using the ideas of Walsh and Middleton he says there are four basic worldview questions we can ask of people:

1. Where are we?
2. Who are we?
3. What’s wrong? 
4. What’s the remedy?

Another way forward is to approach people as saints, sufferers and sinners. Each person has aspects of all three, and being balanced in our understanding of their faithfulness, struggles and temptations enables us to be more nuanced in our counsel:

“God’s redemptive words confirm our identity as the chosen people of God, console and comfort his afflicted people, and confront the ways we turn away from his character and redemptive work.”

Emlet then turns to combining our understanding of the bible with our understanding of people.

“Reading the Bible without reading the person is a recipe for irrelevance in ministry. Reading the person without reading the Bible is a recipe for ministry lacking the life-changing power of the Spirit working through his Word…Rather, the goal of reading Scripture and reading people together is so that we can help others increasingly reflect the character and kingdom priorities of Jesus Christ.”

He starts with some overarching principles, and then uses extended examples of two different people to assist with his explanations, showing how he would counsel them from a passage in the Old Testament and the New, neither of which would have been passages most people would first turn to.

If you want to get the most of this book, you will have to do some work alongside it. Emlet has put a lot of thought into how to guide the reader along the process of learning, and so the explanations, exercises and questions at the end of every chapter will assist greatly for those that invest the time.

Many people I know already take this approach seriously, that is, reading the bible in the context it is in, the finding the larger context in the frame of biblical history and how it relates to Christ, and then bringing it to appropriate application for today. I am part of a church tradition that highly values this method in preaching, bible study and personal counselling. I do this myself in these areas. But I was reminded and challenged again of how important it is to do this well. By well, I mean accurately: actually getting to the heart of what the bible passage meant for those readers, how it is fulfilled in Christ and what that means now. But, I also mean, how we talk to people about the bible in ways that are natural, encouraging and challenging. How we really bring God’s word to bear appropriately in people’s lives today.

So, this is a very helpful book that takes seriously the claim that the bible contains everything we need for life and salvation. By encouraging the reader to take the bible very seriously and properly use it in a redemptive-historical way, Emlet paves the way for those who minister the word to do so in ways that are accurate, sensitive, and truly founded on Christ and his gospel.

The Bible in Australia

The Bible in Australia, Meredith Lake

This recently awarded 2018 Australian Christian Book of the Year gives all Australians a record of our nation through the lens of the bible and its role in our society.

Substantial research has gone into Meredith Lake’s work, which covers the use of the bible from its arrival in the possession of Captain Cook (1765 King James Version) to present day, and its various translations, uses, forms and interpretations along the way.

At the outset, Lake identifies the bible “has mattered to Australia in three main guises – the globalising Bible, the cultural Bible and the theological Bible”. As such she establishes this is not just an analysis of biblical belief in Australia but the many ways the bible has been used, misused, culturally appropriated and held as a key tenet of faith across two centuries in this country.

In doing so, Lake challenges two often held beliefs: that we are a “doggedly secular society and culture” or that “Australia is (or was, or should be) a straightforwardly Christian nation”. Rather, “the story of the Bible in Australia offers us a fresh perspective (…) The often surprising history of the Bible here disrupts both assumptions. It enables a richer, more interesting and expansive story.”

Broken into four parts, Lake addresses the bible’s role in Australia through a chronological timeline. Starting with colonial foundations, we learn of the bible’s history prior to its arrival in Australia, including the impact of Protestantism and the printing press. Biblical language infused daily life and informed the decisions, thoughts and values of the time, and so it influenced the life of the early colony. Yet, this does not mean that those who knew the Bible’s language necessarily lived out its meaning and there is an honesty reflecting upon settlers’ interactions with Indigenous populations. At the same time, it was really only those who truly believed the scriptures and that all men are created in the image of God who made any effort to treat Aboriginal people with dignity, to learn their languages or to respect their lives and lands.

“For all its considerable shortcomings, Christian humanitarianism was the most radical, most powerful critique of colonialism advanced among whites. It illustrates how the Bible, interpreted in certain ways, could provide a platform for criticising the worst of settler behaviour and nurture a vision for a more human interaction with indigenous Australians.”

Part 2: The Great Age of the Bible covers the mid 1800s and the impact of legislation like the Church Act which provided grants for new churches and clergyman, explaining the prevalence of old church buildings in nearly all Australian towns and cities. This was also the time that many banks, building societies, the press and government education were being established. Many today would be surprised to discover the overtly Christian beliefs of the founders of AMP and Westpac, and the early Sydney Morning Herald contributors, as well as the intention to include Christian teaching in government schooling.

Lake identifies the 1880s as the time when “Australians were engaged with issues of scripture and theology as never before or since”. Christian clergy “were among the best educated people in early European Australia, and played a leading role in colonial science”, for “scientific research was generally seen as a pursuit that led people to the knowledge and contemplation of God.”

Part 3: Bible and Nation leads the reader through the late 19th century to the early 1900s, outlining federation, the formation of political parties and the impact of war on the nation. These were all strongly impacted by biblical language, themes and morality that continue to today. The trade unions arose from distinctly Christian ideals of fair work and fair pay. The Women’s Christian Temperance Union were key in championing the vote for women, realising that women and children
were most affected by excessive alcohol use, and that women should be able to vote for legal change to protect the family way of life. Small versions of scripture provided by the Bible Society were cherished by many on overseas battlefields, and biblical texts adorn memorials to soldiers around the country.

Even “lest we forget” has biblical origins in Deuteronomy 6:12: “then take care lest you forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” As Lake observes, this “illustrates how biblical ideas can move through a culture, becoming less theological and widely influential in the process”. By this time, often we see “the secularisation of the Bible’s presence in culture. It was usually used in public the highlight ideals of human virtue, rather than to provide divine exhortation or instruction.”

Part 4: A Secular Australia? covers the mid twentieth century to current day with the vast changes in culture that have seen decline in church attendance, a more multi-cultural church, and a reduction in faith and belief overall. With various interpretations recasting the bible, varying from feminist and environmental offerings to ocker bibles, as well the exciting release of the Kriol bible and other translation efforts into Aboriginal languages, Lake shows how it retains cultural applications across the country and is still the bedrock of faith for many.

Her conclusion for a way forward is insightful and informed:

“In all this, the Bible has been intricately bound up with the way contemporary Australian society has taken shape. It has had social, cultural and institutional impacts that we continue to live with today. This does not make the Bible, or certain interpretations of it, somehow normative for contemporary Australia. Australia is not, and never has been, a straightforwardly Christian society. But an intelligent pluralism requires good historical memory – a substantial and nuanced understanding of the past as the background to the conversation which present generations are joining and continuing. As such, a degree of biblical literacy – along with critical skill in evaluating how the Bible has been taken up and interpreted in our history – can only help Australians grapple well with the choices that society faces.”

It’s hard to know with a book of this breadth how much had to be kept out. It is not a history of Christianity in Australia. I found myself thinking there wasn’t a lot about mission to the inland, with organisations like Bush Church Aid or the Australian Inland Mission. Linked to this, no reference to the Christian origins of organisations like Qantas and the Australian Flying Doctor Service. But again, perhaps these are not as relevant when the bible is the focus rather than Christian outreach and ministry. (Full disclosure also means I am aware of my own bias towards these organisations with my own family’s Christian history rooted in them). As there was an extensive look at Menzies’ bible based faith, some interactions with more recent Prime Ministers could also have been interesting.

This is an excellent history of Australia through the lens of the bible and its uses. It shows that faith and scripture did play a key role in the settling, expansion, and multicultural changes this nation has faced. It deals openly with Indigenous history. It reads honestly and thoughtfully, willing to critique as necessary where fault should be found, but also willing to challenge some oft held beliefs about our nation’s so-called secularism.

This is worth reading for all Australians, especially those who hold to the bible as key to their faith. It will expand your understanding of our nation, the bible’s role in shaping it and will probably give you a humble pride in the powerful word of God in our country.

The book that changed the world

Last week I had the privilege of attending the opening of a new exhibition in Adelaide. The Book that Changed the World celebrates the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible. Hosted by the Bible Society Australia and currently in the Barr Smith Library at Adelaide University, it is a fantastic exhibition.

It contains some historical bibles of Australia, including Captain John Hunter's Bible which came with him on the First Fleet in 1788, bibles for convicts (early 1800s), a bible to mark federation in 1901 and various bibles for wartime.

For me though, the main attraction of the exhibition are the very old bibles it contains, which show the development in translation and language:

• There are 2 printed Latin Vulgates (the bible first brought to England), from 1495 and 1537
• A 1571 volume of a Saxon bible - showing Saxon printing and writing (the language spoken in England)
  
• A number of illustrated bibles
• 1551 Tyndale Bible - one of the first printed English Scriptures
  
• 1607 Geneva Bible -widely used bible of the English Reformation. The one on display belonged to William the Shakespeare
  
• 1611 First Edition of the King James Bible

Rev Dr John Harris spoke on the night, giving a wonderful history of the King James Bible, especially how it came to be produced, the language of English at the time, and how the King James Bible has impacted the English language for 400 years. Most people of my parents generation or older grew up hearing the King James Bible, and while I did not, it is amazing how familiar the language is. If you have ever:

• escaped by the skin of your teeth (Job 19:20)
• had a fly in the ointment (Ecc 10:1)
  
• noted that your cup runneth over (Ps 23:5)
• walked through the valley of the shadow of death (Psalm 23:4)
• seen the writing on the wall (Daniel 5)

it is thanks to the King James Bible.

Of course the bible is not only a wonderful document of history, but God's living word given for all people at all times. The Bible Society have done an excellent job of creating an exhibition which clearly shows not only the historical significance of these bibles, but the real impact the bible has made in the lives of so many people.

If you are in Adelaide, it's worth making a visit to see this exhibition, it will be here until April 28. Thankfully for others, it is then touring the Eastern states. It will go to Parliament House in Canberra, and then onto other major cities. Tour dates can be seen here.

Burrowing into the Bible

Burrowing into the bible

Over the past few years, I have read the bible through each year. I have followed the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan and I have really enjoyed it. I got an overview of the bible and what the various books are about. I feel more confident in my way around the bible.

But like everything there are pros and cons. The downside for me is that I never read in much depth. It was 4 chapters a day, generally I would read them and my legalistic brain would go ‘tick, done my bible reading’, and that was all I thought about it.

This year I am trying to approach my bible reading a little differently – this is the year of ‘burrowing into the bible’. I am going to read small chunks, with a pen and notebook handy and sometimes a commentary nearby. While I will always tend towards the ‘tick, read it’ mentality – this is helping me to think more as I read. I have started in John’s gospel and already have more questions and thoughts than on any previous reading.

Such as:

• in John 1 where Jesus calls Andrew and then he goes to get his brother Peter, he says “we have found the Messiah” – how does he know Jesus is the Messiah? Has Jesus told him, is it just patently obvious?
• in John 2 (at the wedding in Cana) – why does Jesus say to his mother ‘My time has not yet come’, yet still go on to change the water into wine?

More of these questions keep coming up – and that’s good. We should want to think as we read the bible, even (or especially) about those sections we have read so many times we feel we know it already.

As I go along, I may share some thoughts along the way – we’ll see!

One to one ministry, and ministry apprenticeships

I have just got around to reading The Briefing for this month, amazingly I actually read it in the month it was published!

The focus this month is on 'one-to-one ministry' - meeting with one other person regularly to read the bible and pray.

If you don't normally get the Briefing, this one is worth buying.

Have a think about whether you meet with anyone to read the bible together, and if not, ask yourself "why not?". Surely you and someone else could benefit from it? Why not take that scary step and ask someone to read the bible with you - it could be a friend, an older mentor, a new Christian or a younger mentoree (is that a word?!).

Isobel Lin, in her article "Women, awkwardness and one to one", lists three benefits of reading the bible with someone:

1. Reading the Bible together can protect us from becoming self-absorbed (we don't spend the whole time talking about ourselves)
2. Reading the Bible together can protect us for favouritism (we can meet with people we don't know very well)
3. Reading the Bible together can give us the priceless treasure of a friendship that has been enriched by God's word

And don't think by the title of that article, one to one ministry is only for women, most of the rest of the issue talks about men meeting together.


There is also a very helpful article by Col Marshall for those considering full-time ministry and the importance of doing a ministry apprenticeship before having theological training. Some of his reasons include:

• apprentices learn to integrate Word, life and ministry practice
• apprentices are tested in character
• apprentices are well-prepared for theological study (a point Husband & I would definitely agree with, have not done a apprenticeship and having gone straight to college. The people who had done a MAP/MTS program were more aware of the issues of ministry as they studied and the questions they needed to answer for ministry)
• apprentices learn ministry in the real world
• and a few more...

Worth getting your hands on if you thinking through such things...


I can email a copy of the eBriefing to any one who is interested (which is allowable under the copyright requirements). Leave a comment with your details (I will not publish it!) and I'll send it to you.

Bible for Children

Thanks to all who commented on my previous post about when to start reading a proper bible with children. As a result we did get Mr 5 a NIrV for Christmas and he loves it. He is a keen reader and has reading time on his own every night before bed. More often than not, he is choosing to read his bible. His is a Kids Quest Study Bible. We looked around a bit, choosing one where the illustrations and 'study part' did not distract too much from the text itself.

We have started with Mark and read a short amount each night. It certainly requires us to spend time with him and explain the passages, which is a good discipline for us too. It makes you realise how well (or not) you understand certain passages of the bible yourself. For example, I was reading to him the night we were at Mark 2:21-22, the passage about not putting new wine into old wineskins and patching a garment with old cloth rather than new. When I came to explain it, I realised I did not really know how to, especially in 5-year old language. Husband and I can only benefit from having to explain the bible to him. (I must say, I was happy Husband was on the night they read about John the Baptist's beheading, rather than me!)

So far, so of the benefits we have found in Mr 5 having a full bible are:

• he searches around it himself
• he is learning how to use the index to find the book he wants
• he is looking for the memory verses Colin Buchanan uses in his songs (once he has found them, they do not always match up, as he has a NIrV and Colin uses NIV, so then we can look at Mummy or Daddy's bible to see the words there). So we have been able to explain the idea of different translations a little.
• he is asking questions about what he reads - he came to me the other night asking why Jesus was crucified before he was born. It turns out he had been reading the end of Mark and then turned over to the beginning of Luke. It was a great chance to explain how there are different books talking about different things and there are 4 gospels, etc.
• it makes me trust in God even more than his word is sufficient for all. At the moment, there are probably parts of the bible I would prefer he does not find (some of the incidents in Judges for example). However, I know that while God's word never shies away from the realities of human sin and divine judgment, what it always teaches is the truth. Therefore, I can be confident knowing that God is moulding Mr 5 as he reads His word.

Therefore, if your children are reading and do not yet have their own full bible, I recommend it!