Tag: Janie B. Cheaney

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Bible Challenge Week 49: The Church – On to Glory!

At the end of the book of Acts, Luke leaves his narrative hanging with Paul in Rome, under house arrest and preaching the word to everyone who walked through his door.  That’s a strange ending, until we realize it’s not really an ending at all.  The story goes on, and we’re in it.  But with Revelation, a notoriously frustrating book for many readers, we get a divine view of the heavens and the earth that God created in Genesis 1:1.  Terrible, glorious, frightening, and encouraging events unfold as the curtain rings down on this present age.

As several commentators have noted, the gist of the story is “God wins.”  And how!  To Christians who have suffered through the ages, to persecuted believers in Nigeria and North Korea and Iran and elsewhere, to those of us who survey the moral destruction of our country and wonder where it will all end, the apostle John addresses this vision.  This is where it ends: God wins, and “the dwelling place of God is with man.”

For a printable download of this week’s final challenge, with Scripture references, thought questions, and family activities, click here:

Bible Reading Challenge Week 49: The Church – On to Glory!

(This is a continuation of a series of posts about the “whole story” of the Bible.  I plan to run one every week, on Tuesdays, with a printable PDF.  The printable includes a brief 2-3 paragraph introduction, Bible passages to read, a key verse, 5-7 thought/discussion questions, and 2-3 activities for the kids.  Here’s the Overview of the entire Bible series.)

Previous: BRC Week 48: The Church – God’s Family

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Bible Challenge Week 48: The Church – God’s Family

“I’m so glad to be a part of the family of God.”  That was a popular chorus thirty years ago when our kids were growing up and we were trying to decide on a church to attend.  The notion of church as family is preached from many pulpits, but how many listeners (or preachers) actually believe it?  Church attendance drops every year, “organized religion” takes more hits than ducks in an arcade.  Even professing Christians ditch the family terminology as soon as something they don’t like happens in the church they’re currently attending.  As for “membership”–what’s that?  Many churches don’t even have membership status.

But church as family is one of the plainest principles taught in the Bible.  It’s not just a metaphor–it’s a fact.  Jesus even said that there’s no marriage in heaven, and presumably no parent-child relationships.  Christ will be our husband, and God (the Father) our Father.  We don’t know exactly what this will look like, but we can be sure that the only family that will last into eternity is the church.  Maybe we should start taking it more seriously.

For a dowloadable .pdf of this week’s Bible challenge, including scripture references, thought questions, and family activities, click below:

Bible Reading Challenge Week 48: The Church – God’s Family

(This is a continuation of a series of posts about the “whole story” of the Bible.  I plan to run one every week, on Tuesdays, with a printable PDF.  The printable includes a brief 2-3 paragraph introduction, Bible passages to read, a key verse, 5-7 thought/discussion questions, and 2-3 activities for the kids.  Here’s the Overview of the entire Bible series.)

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Next: Week 49: The Church – On to Glory!

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Recovering a Heritage of Hymns, Part Two

Why Let It All Go?

One great advantage of classic hymns and gospel songs is that they allow our brothers and sisters of the past to encourage us.  Though they are dead, yet they speak (see Hebrews 11:4).  We can’t hear George Whitefield or Charles Spurgeon or Jonathan Edwards preach, but we can hear Charles Wesley, John Newton, and Martin Luther through the songs they wrote.  Singing connects us to the flow of church history and the work of the Holy Spirit in every age.  We don’t just hear about that history—we hear it, in the songs we sing.

The contemporary church, by and large, seem to be letting go of that heritage.  Many young people now leading worship services grew up with the contemporary style, and to them the old songs may seem hopelessly archaic, with its thee’s and thou’s, e’en’s and –eth’s.   Who talks that way anymore?  And really, is it such a tragedy if the old songs are left behind?  Doesn’t every age produce bucketloads of songs that only last a generation or two?

They’ve lasted because they still speak
Fanny Crosby – “To God Be the Glory”

Indeed they do—and that’s all the more reason to pay attention to the ones that have lasted.  In any traditional hymnbook you will find words dating from 1500 years B.C. (the Psalms) to the early days of the church, through the early and late monastic periods, all the way through the Reformation and revivals of the 16-19th centuries.  They’ve lasted because they still speak.

Brothers and sisters, let’s not sell ourselves short—or our children.  It’s true that some of the lyrics of a song written in 1750 may not be instantly comprehendable, but they’re not obscure either.  If you can understand the Bible you can understand Isaac Watts.  Fanny J. Crosby is not beyond the comprehension of a five-year-old.  You will find, as you teach them to your children, that many of these songs have enormous staying power and will keep speaking long after most of this generation’s set of praise choruses have been forgotten.

Let us also allow our past to speak, as we locate ourselves in the mighty current of the Holy Spirit’s work from the beginning.

This is not to disallow praise choruses or new songs—let’s sing them loud and joyfully.  But let us also allow our past to speak, as we locate ourselves in the mighty current of the Holy Spirit’s work from the beginning until now.  Let’s include those voices as well as our own, and equip our children to write their songs, too, so the heritage will go on.  Hymnody (to use a classic churchy word) is not a wheel to be reinvented, but a wagon to keep rolling.  Or—to change the metaphor—a storehouse from which the householder takes treasures old and new (Mt. 13:52).

Recovering a Heritage of Hymns, Part One

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Bible Challenge Week 47: The Church – By Faith Alone

“The plain things are the main things” in the Bible, but the plainest things present the church’s greatest challenges.  Last week, we looked at “Christ as the Center,” which is the theme of the entire scripture.  So why is it so hard to keep him there?  Mainly because we keep putting ourselves at the center.  The question of faith versus works, which has vexed the church from the beginning (we’ll be looking at Acts 15), is still an issue today.  What does “justification by faith” mean?  Why do Christians keep slipping off on one side of the other, toward legalism (attempting to earn heaven by good works) or antinomianism (living as we please while claiming to believe in Jesus)?

It would take more than one Bible lesson to do justice to that subject, but this week we’ll at least look at the root of the problem and the primary scriptural support.

For a download of this week’s challenge, with scripture references, key verse, discussion questions, and activities, click below:

Bible Reading Challenge Week 47: The Church – By Faith Alone

(This is a continuation of a series of posts about the “whole story” of the Bible.  I plan to run one every week, on Tuesdays, with a printable PDF.  The printable includes a brief 2-3 paragraph introduction, Bible passages to read, a key verse, 5-7 thought/discussion questions, and 2-3 activities for the kids.  Here’s the Overview of the entire Bible series.)

Previous: BRC Week 46: The Church – Christ the Center

Next: BRC Week 48: The Church – God’s Family

 

 

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Bible Challenge Week 46: The Church – Christ the Center

We have one more month of this series to go!  This week, we move out of the historical record (Matthew – Acts) and into the part of the Bible known as “Epistles,” or letters to the very first churches established in Asia and Europe.  I find it interesting, and significant, that the historical record does not come to a strong, ringing conclusion.  The book of Acts ends with Paul in Rome under house arrest, arguing the claims of Christ with anyone who came to visit   That’s not the conclusion we’re looking for–what happened to Paul, and Peter, and the other apostles?  Where’s the big victory at the end, the soul-stirring, confetti-flinging, music-swelling ending?

What we need to remember is that the story does not end with Acts 28:31,  The story is ongoing.  We are the story now.  The Bible does come to a ringing conclusion in Revelation, which we’ll get to, but that ending is not yet.  We are living in the in-between time, where God’s story is still being written in our hearts and lives.  From that perspective, Romans – Jude are like author notes for the major themes of the story.  What are those themes?  The greatest comes first, and we’ll look at that one this week.

For a printable download of this week’s reading challenge, including scripture references, discussion questions, and family activities, click here:

Bible Reading Challenge Week 46: The Church – Christ the Center

(This is a continuation of a series of posts about the “whole story” of the Bible.  I plan to run one every week, on Tuesdays, with a printable PDF.  The printable includes a brief 2-3 paragraph introduction, Bible passages to read, a key verse, 5-7 thought/discussion questions, and 2-3 activities for the kids.  Here’s the Overview of the entire Bible series.)

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Bible Challenge Week 45: The Church – To the Uttermost Parts of the Earth

It was to Peter that Jesus gave “the keys to the Kingdom,” to unlock doors previously closed.  The door was the good news of the gospel, first open to the Jews, and then to the Gentiles.  Peter opened both doors.  But the one who stormed through the second one was the young man called Saul, later an old man known to us as “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ.”  In a total of four journeys, he would carry the gospel of Christ all the way to the capital of the Empire, and maybe even beyond.

It’s an exciting story we unfortunately don’t have the time to tell in one session.  But for a printable one-page download of this week’s challenge, with scripture passages to read, questions to discuss, and family activities, click here:

Bible Reading Challenge Week 45: The Church – to the Uttermost Parts of the Earth

(This is a continuation of a series of posts about the “whole story” of the Bible.  I plan to run one every week, on Tuesdays, with a printable PDF.  The printable includes a brief 2-3 paragraph introduction, Bible passages to read, a key verse, 5-7 thought/discussion questions, and 2-3 activities for the kids.  Here’s the Overview of the entire Bible series.)

Previous: Week 44: The Church – To the Gentiles

Next: Week 46: The Church – Christ the Center

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Why Time?

The whole creation project hangs on it.  For anything to be created, there has to be the possibility of it not being created.  Anything that “comes to be” must come to be in time.  God is not an exception because he is automatically excluded; he doesn’t “come” to be; he just is.  Even describing him as eternal, as the classic confessions do, is inadequate.  Eternity has direction; it always goes forward (for everything except God), and going forward requires a sense of time.  Before creation, no time, though our minds are not able to grasp it.  We can’t even speak theoretically of it, without words like before, when, pre-, post-, or during barging into the conversation—try it.  We have to take God’s timelessness on faith because there’s no other way to take it, and yet no other assumption is possible.  His first creation was time.  Then imperishable spirits, then perishable matter.

He could have stopped with angels, with countless multitudes spun from his glory, giving back his praises, alive in endless bliss.

So why didn’t he?  Why does his Spirit hover at this turning called “the beginning,” brooding over darkness?  Why does the word come: “Let there be light”?  (Especially from one who already is light?)

How about this: He wants to tell a story.

To time he adds space: three actual dimensions to hold actual objects.  The first objects are foundational: earth and sky.  From there he builds up to relational and consequences and progress—things stir, grow, feed, reproduce—die? (Maybe not yet.)  A fabric of cause-and-effect covers the earth like a mat.  Sun meets bud—more flowers. Root meets earth—more grass.  Bull meets heifer—you get the idea.  What’s needed now is a willful being who will make real choices with real consequences, who will act and be acted upon, whose actions will form a coherent narrative with a beginning, a middle, and an end.

We call that a story.

Someone told me once, God loves a good story.  Don’t we all?

Some theologians speculate that Satan did not fall until after the creation of humans.  He rebelled not because of a desire to usurp the throne, but because of revulsion at being expected to serve these puny beings.  Humans were the prime cause of his defection, not the Almighty.  I don’t know if that’s true–Isaiah 14:12 suggests there’s more to it.  But it’s an interesting thought: what if Satan didn’t become part of the story until there was a story?  Then he assumed an antagonist role, infiltrated earth, told the biggest whopper of all time and bound himself to the consequences.  What if?

One common complaint about God—if he’s just up there somewhere, entertaining himself with our misfortunes like some Game of Thrones fan, then I want nothing to do with him.  But to say he loves a good story doesn’t mean we are a mere diversion.  It means that Story itself is far more significant than we ever thought, a grand sweeping narrative that is as much for us as it is for him.  It shapes us, makes us, and in the next life it will amaze us forever.

And it all began with Let there be . . .  Which may be another way of saying, Once upon a time . . .

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You’ve Got a Lot of Nerve

Arise, O Lord, in your anger;

Lift yourself up against the fury of my enemies

Awake for me; you have appointed a judgment . . .  (Psalm 7:6, “of David”)

Who does this “of David” character think he is?  He seems to believe that the Creator and Master of the universe, of the sky with its stars and the sea with its endless waves, is at his beck and call.  He has no qualms about marching up to heaven’s gate and yanking on the bell pull, yelling, “Wake up!”  Then he lays out a case, such as it is:  “I’m the righteous one; they’re the bad guys.  Whose side are You on?”

What nerve!

David was a pretty nervy guy, and it didn’t always put him on the side of the angels.  But this Psalm and many others demonstrate where his boldness came from.  First, confidence (whoever calls on the Lord must believe he exists), then acknowledgment (God is a righteous judge), dependence (Save and Deliver me!) and vulnerability (Judge me according to my righteousness).  If he seems cocky, he knows where Square One is.  If he seems full of himself . . . it’s not really himself he’s full of.  What makes David a man after God’s own heart, rather than just a blowhard, opportunist, or bully, is that he’s after God’s own heart.

No one is more real to him.  If the Lord demands nothing greater than faith from David, then David delivers.  By faith he demands great things from God, like the terrified disciples crying out, “Master, wake up!  Don’t you care if we all drown?”  Or the widow who makes a pest of herself, knocking and insisting and demanding until the judge finally gives in.

They’ve got a lot of nerve, and so do we, if we’d only recognize and make use of it.

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Bible Challenge Week 44: The Church – to the Gentiles

The shocking death of Stephen acted like a catapult, flinging Christians out from Jerusalem in all directions.  That was God’s purpose, to carry out the next stage of his plan.  That next stage shouldn’t have been a surprise–the LORD had been hinting about it at least as far back as Abraham: “In you all nations shall be blessed.”  Prophets from Jonah to Isaiah had prophesied about God’s mercy extending beyond the Jews, out to “the nations.”  But as usual, the disciples were slow to catch on, including Peter.

What God is about to do will cause anger, confusion and bewilderment . . and finally acceptance.  In the 2000 years since, all nations have indeed been blessed.

To find out more, click below for the printable .pdf, with scripture references, discussion questions, and activities:

Bible Reading Challenge Week 44: The Church – To the Gentiles

(This is a continuation of a series of posts about the “whole story” of the Bible.  I plan to run one every week, on Tuesdays, with a printable PDF.  The printable includes a brief 2-3 paragraph introduction, Bible passages to read, a key verse, 5-7 thought/discussion questions, and 2-3 activities for the kids.  Here’s the Overview of the entire Bible series.)

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Bible Challenge Week 43: The Church – From Jerusalem to Samaria

The church is growing because the gospel is spreading.  But just what is “the gospel”?  There’s a lot of confusion about that today, just as there was in the first century.  And just as there is in today’s church, the first-century church faced its problems.  Some of them were unique to those early days, but other problems are still with us: hypocrisy, glory-seeking, false teaching, and sudden, wrenching losses.  You would think that twelve divinely-appointed and sanctified apostles, who had spent the last three years with Jesus himself, would be able to run things perfectly.  In some ways it’s a reassurance to know that even the best, most saintly saints can’t do everything right.

It’s reassuring because the growth of the church didn’t depend on them.  Who was really in charge?

Click below for a printable download with scripture passages, thought questions, and family activities:

Bible Reading Challenge Week 43: The Church – From Jerusalem to Samaria

(This is a continuation of a series of posts about the “whole story” of the Bible.  I plan to run one every week, on Tuesdays, with a printable PDF.  The printable includes a brief 2-3 paragraph introduction, Bible passages to read, a key verse, 5-7 thought/discussion questions, and 2-3 activities for the kids.  Here’s the Overview of the entire Bible series.)

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Next: Week 44: The Church – To the Gentiles