The one thing I ask of the Lord—
the thing I seek most—
is to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,
delighting in the Lord’s perfections
and meditating in his Temple. Psalm 27:4 NLT
Teaching
Discipleship
27 After this he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth. And he said to him, “Follow me.” 28 And leaving everything, he rose and followed him. Luke 5:27 – 28 esv
The Process
The process of life is a continuous cycle of dying and rising again. We are constantly brought to the place of letting go of one thing in order to embrace the next. It is exactly the same with our spiritual life. Let’s look at some characters in God’s Book and see this process as it plays out in their lives.
Established in the Story
From the earliest days of the Church, theology (the study of God) has been a really big deal. And so it should be! As followers of Jesus we need to know what we believe and why we believe it. Therefore, men of every age have tried to articulate the fundamentals of the Christian faith in the language of their day.
This has led to a few different types of theology. The most popular is probably systematic theology. Systematic theology seeks to lay out in orderly fashion the principle teachings of the Christian faith, using passages from all over the Bible. Another type of theology is biblical theology. This form of theology examines the various books of the sacred text to discover what they teach on various topics. Both systematic and biblical theology have their place and can make for a very interesting study.
Another form of theology that has gotten a lot of air time lately is known as narrative theology. Narrative theology looks at the grand scope of the biblical story in order to gain an understanding of God and His work in Christ. I believe this particular form of theology has some solid biblical backing. I hope you will read on and allow me to explain why.
In Favor of the Christian Calendar
Currently, the church where I serve as Pastor is on a journey toward incorporating the Christian Calendar (also known as the Liturgical Calendar) into our worship. In a day when everything fundamental to us as God’s people is being challenged, I believe this pathway of worship to be a great tool to help us stay focused on the main tenants of our faith. Read on and I will explain why.
Christ part 2
In my last post in this series, I discussed how everything God said and did pointed toward the coming of Jesus Christ. He was the Offspring of Abraham in whom all the nations of the earth would be blessed. He was the Son of David who would forever reign. In Christ, the history of Israel, in particular, and of the human race in general comes to a climax. With the coming of Jesus Christ, God was now ready to perform the ultimate act of putting things right.
Christ
Although God’s creation was terribly ruined by sin, God began the process of reclaiming His creation by calling a man named Abraham. God intended to use this man’s family to bring a blessing that would reverse the curse mankind labored under because of their sin. This man’s family grew into a nation (Israel) through which God intended to show the nations of the world what life looked like under His government. Unfortunately, the nation of Israel failed miserably, resulting in God’s judgment. In the midst of His anger, however, God spoke of a day when He would initiate a new relationship with His people, and would, Himself, become their King. In this post we want to see how God began to bring this about.
