Phil also spent some time on Ruth.  What a beautiful story!  A fundamental premise of the book, and a premise that points us forward to NT revelation, is that God loves to welcome foreigners into his family!  Israelites in Jesus’ day mistakenly thought that God only loved Jews and only desired to have covenant with the physical descendants of Abraham.  Ruth’s story proves that that is a fabrication of OT theology.  For, Ruth herself was a Moabite.  And, what’s more, her blood flowed through the veins of the very Son of God.  Ruth teaches us that God has always been about drawing people from every tribe, tongue, and nation to himself.  God is not a nationalist!

But my leading in these ways necessitates following or followers. Pastor Luke and I are no different than the rest of the body in that we are all to be making disciples. This calling is common to all in the church. We are all to make disciples as we all prayerfully speak the word of God to those around us. This is the truest sense of the priesthood of all believers. We have all been set aside to live holy lives and we do this as we all grow in discipleship. I need to feed on the word of God as I study it  and as I hear it taught and preached. As I grow I become a better disciple and I am better equipped to engage those around me by prayerfully speaking the word of God to them.

We are all part of the same mission team, equipping each other in the word of God in order  to better engage each other and the world with the the word of God.

Phil Kruis taught on Joshua on 1/24, and did a great job.  Joshua is an exceedingly difficult book to teach or preach or even discuss in our culture because of the issue of “herem” warfare.  Phil spent significant time dealing with this common “defeater” to the Christian faith.  Please listen if you have not yet.  A point I want to make here is regarding the land inheritances that the tribes of Israel received.  We must remember, as I have said before, that the Old Testament is like a children’ s pop-up story book that intends to teach us about the realities of the Kingdom of God made manifest in the person and work of Jesus Christ.  The land promises of the Old Testament are good examples of this important interpretative principle.  What is the meaning of the land promise for us today?  Well, it certainly does not mean that the church (or the present-day nation of Israel) have any right to possess the acreage of Middle Eastern property that Joshua and the ancient Israelites occupied.  That view stems from a fundamental misreading of the Bible.  The land, rather, points us to our own heavenly city, whose builder and maker is God (Heb. 11:10).  It points us to the idea that all of creation will be our possession in the new heavens and new earth (Rev. 21-22).  It points us to the fact that in Christ all things are summed up and reconciled to God, and through faith in Christ, we are heirs of all things (Col. 1:20)!  So, the promise realized is much bigger than a few thousand square miles of present-day Palestine.  The promise, as C.S. Lewis so wonderfully pictured it for us in The Last Battle, is all of creation.  Further up and further in!!!

The ‘others’ to whom we should prayerfully speak the word of God begin with those we know best, i.e. family members and close friends. Most likely, if we have been believers in Christ for some time then these folks will also be believers. Some may be strong in their faith and others may need encouragement in their faith. Next, we can share with those who have already expressed some interest in spiritual matters or are curious about the faith claims of Christianity. Finally, we can prayerfully speak the word of God to those who are unbelievers.

I recently received a link to a blog that gave some great tips for how to begin to be more evangelistic. Here are the tips and the link. Start soon to put these tips into practice.

A Few Tips from J. D. Greear for Gospel Sharing

* I frequent the same places. People in our society don’t respond well to strangers, so I try to eat, drink coffee, buy gas, get my car worked on, and shop, etc at the same places. Relationship is not essential for evangelism, but it sure helps. At most of those places I mentioned people know me by name. Inevitably a chance comes up to pray for them, ask about their lives, invite them to church, etc. For example, several of the people from my local coffee shop have started to come to our church, and a few have become believers and gotten baptized. My mechanic has recently attended our church.

* Where relevant, I leave BIG tips. Especially if I know someone is having a bad day. I’ll jot a little note and tell them I’m praying for them.

* I ask people, sometimes, how I can pray for them. Most people don’t mind to be prayed for, and if they don’t want to talk, they answer shortly and I let it drop.

* I invite them to church. Over and over.

* When in a conversation, I use an acrostic I learned years ago to help guide the conversation. F- Family; I- interests; R- Religion; E – Evangelism. Yes, that can seem wooden, I know… but it can also help you move a conversation along. Sometimes in talking about religion I’ll say, “Do you feel like you have a relationship with God?” I get the most interesting responses back to that question. And usually, it provides me a chance to tell them my story… how I grew up in church but came to know God personally later. As I talk about how I came to know Christ, I make sure to give the Gospel along the way. People don’t like to be preached to, but they do like to be asked their opinions, and they do like to hear your story.

Here is the link to this blog: http://thecripps.net/a-few-tips-from-j-d-greear-for-gospel-sharing

Follow this link if you are interested:

http://www.olemiss.ruf.org/ruf-fall-2-9-leviticus-gospel-in-shadows

This past Sunday I preached on powerful prayer noting that in the verses above and those that follow in Ephesians 1, the apostle Paul shows that he makes it a point to practice powerful prayer. In verses 15 and 16 he gives ample reason for us to pray powerful prayers. In verse 17 he shows us the right recipient of our powerful prayers (the source of the power). And in verses 17b-21, he discloses the content of powerful prayers.

I recently read this definition of prayer: prayer is calling out to God to pour out the Holy Spirit upon us that his word would be made effective in our hearts. This is from the excellent book on the ministry of the church, The Trellis and the Vine by Colin Marshall and Tony Payne. The power of prayer is found in the one doing the praying when the Holy Spirit is present there. The power of prayer is found in the recipient of the prayers, the triune God. The power of prayer is found in the content of the prayer when they prayer is in line with Scripture (“thy will be done on earth…”).

I look forward to growing in the practice of powerful prayer and I look with great anticipation for the results of praying powerful prayer.

One thing we were not able to cover is God’s revelation of himself to Moses in Exodus 3.  I encourage you to read this fascinating chapter today.  It is the famous story of the burning bush.  Of course, the bush was not an arbitrary symbol; rather, it was used by God a sign (sacrament?) to teach us something about his own character.  So, what do we learn?  Well, God’s revelation of his own name gives us a crucial clue: he says that he is “I AM WHO I AM” (3:14).  The bush that did not burn up is a physical, visceral teaching tool that helps us to know that God is self-sufficient.  Theologians have historically referred to this truth as the aseity of God.  God is “from himself” (Latin “a se“).  He is un-derived.  He is independent of all things; as opposed to creatures, who are always dependent.  This is central to God’s being.  As the great Dutch theologian Herman Bavinck wrote, “All other attributes [of God] were derived from this one.”  So God’s name is a description of his character: he is Yahweh, “I am who I am”, because he necessarily exists.  He cannot not exist.  Is that not amazing?  It is beyond our ability to grasp fully.  Yet, this self-existing, independent God has made himself a man to dwell among us, in the person of Jesus Christ.  This is a God who is truly worthy of worship: one who is eternal, self-sufficient, and “a se”, and also who is immanent and relational.  Praise Him!

Due to severe time limitations, much of the glory of Genesis had to be passed over.  I want to mention just a few things in this post about Joseph, the main character in Gen. 37-50.

Joseph is one of the great characters in the Bible, and his story is so readable and enjoyable.  It is fascinating to consider how Joseph’s story points us forward to the story of Jesus Christ.  If his early life could be characterized by anything, Joseph’s was one of suffering.  He was hated by his brothers, cast into a pit, sold into slavery, falsely accused of sexual harassment, thrown into prison (an Egyptian prison, no less!), and completely abandoned.  Yet he maintained a steadfast and godly character throughout!  As Ben mentioned in the class, his life was characterized by holiness in the midst of suffering.

Jesus’ life was the same way, only on a much greater level. Jesus was hated by his brothers, the people of Israel.  Jesus was sold out by his dear friend Judas.  Jesus was falsely accused of crimes of which he was completely innocent.  Yet the key difference is that Jesus was not rescued from his plight by God the Father!  God allowed, indeed ordained, Jesus to be crucified in the most hideous act of injustice the world has ever known  And yet that unjust act was the act that allowed God to be just and the one who justifies (Rom. 3:26).  God killed his only Begotten Son so that we might live.  That is the ultimate endpoint and message of the story of Joseph, and of the story of the entire Bible!  Praise be to God, who gave his only Son that we might have life.

One fascinating point that Ben made was regarding the Tower of Babel (Gen. 11).  He spoke of how God was actually being gracious to his creation in scattering the people and in confusing their languages.

As I reflected more on this amazing chapter, I am struck by one further thing:

Culture is something that has existed since the creation of the universe (and is something that will always exist, even in heaven!).  Culture is simply taking God-given resources and crafting, expanding, producing, and cultivating them for the good of creation and mankind.  That is what was initially happening at Babel.  After all, there is nothing wrong with building a city.  There is nothing wrong with brick-laying and mortar-making.  Architecture is not inherently evil!  In fact, cities are loved by God.  The place where we will spend all eternity is a great, vast, urbanized, cultured City (see Rev. 22).  What was the problem then?  11:4 says it – “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a  tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves…”

What can we learn?  Culture is good.  Your calling is good.  God has called us to serve our societies and our communities by being wonderful artists, builders, teachers, moms and dads, neighbors, gardeners, engineers, and athletes.  Yet, when this calling becomes a project of self (or an idol!) it actually destroys culture.  So, culture is good when it is put in a God-ward light, when it is given a God-ward slant, when it is fueled by a God-ward passion.  Gen. 11 teaches the importance of building on and improving upon and caring about culture for God’s sake, and not our own.

This is a new blog that will consistently run on the RMPC website throughout this year.  The purpose of the blog is to supplement our Christian Education class, Beginning to End 2010, which is a survey of the whole Bible (hence the catchy name !)

For each class that is taught, I will post a blog that contains some remarks about things that we did not have time to cover in the actual class.  Hopefully, this will benefit you, the reader, as we seek to make our Christian Ed. as helpful as possible for spiritual growth.

More to come soon on Gen. 1 – Origins