Tried With Fire

The Biggest Story: How the Snake Crusher Brings Us Back to the Garden by Kevin DeYoung, illustrated by Don Clark, Crossway, 2015, 129 pages, ages 5-11. As a kid, I learned about the Old Testament as a collection of moral fables on how to be good. But the OT as a whole didn't make sense. There was no unifying thread that tied it all together let alone with the rest of the Bible. So as an adult, learning the Bible's storyline was eye-opening, specifically God's promise of the One who would crush the head of the serpent and restore all that had been lost. (Gen. 3:15) Well, you don't have to wait to be an adult to learn Biblical theology. Kevin DeYoung has written a book on the Bible's big story for children, The Biggest Story: How the Snake Crusher brings Us Back to the Garden . This overview covers Genesis to Revelation. This is quite a tall order, so many details are omitted given the intended audience. However, the main theme of God's promise of the Snake ...

Let it be admitted on all sides that God, by His right of creation, is the supreme Lord of all things. Then their very existence consists in dependence upon Him, and they conform to that nature which He has implanted in each one of them. All creatures, by the fact that they are created, each with its due proportion of capacity and talent, are equipped to worship their Creator and to serve him. "All Thy works shall praise Thee" (Psalm 145:10). For this reason, we see the psalmist frequently urging all of creation to praise God. The eternal and unchanging method of divine worship is preached and practiced by all of the Church, be it militant upon earth or crowned in heaven; that is, "Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power, for Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasures they are and were created" (Rev. 4:11). with which sings in concert the entire throng of creatures, "and every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, an...

For much of my Christian life, I had the bad habit of inserting myself in the leading role of a Bible story. After all, the Word of God was supposed to apply to my life, right? So during a severe trial, I identified with Hezekiah in Isaiah 36. My antagonists were Rabshakeh and Sennacherib, and my situation was a metaphorical siege. Another time, I put myself in Elizabeth's place and believed that my daughter had been regenerated in the womb like John the Baptist. But what right did I have to step into Hezekiah's or Elizabeth's sandals and think that what God did for them applied exactly to me? Here is what Graeme Goldsworthy has to say: Is it in fact true that if God took care of baby Moses, God will take care of me? Such application simply assumes that what applied to the unique figure of Moses in a unique situation applies to all of us and, presumably all of time. But why should our children be privileged to identify with Moses rather with the other Hebrew children at...

God kept His promise from Genesis 3:15: "The New Testament witnesses to the fact that Jesus of Nazareth is the One in whom and through whom all the promises of God find their fulfillment. These promises are only to be understood from the Old Testament; the fulfillment of the promises can be understood only in the context of the promises themselves. The New Testament presupposes a knowledge of the Old Testament. Everything that is a concern to the New Testament writers is part of one redemptive history to which the Old Testament witnesses. The New Testament writers cannot separate the person and work of Christ, nor the life of the Christian community, from this sacred history which has its beginnings in the Old Testament." The Goldsworthy Trilogy: Gospel and Kingdom by Graeme Goldsworthy, 2011, Paternoster Press, pp. 18-19.

I'm posting at Out of the Ordinary today: "I can't imagine what went through Adam and Eve's minds after they ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They had lived in perfect communion with God, each other, and creation. But now, by their act of disobedience, sin ruined this harmony forever. Adam and Eve hid from their Creator. They were blame-shifting and about to be expelled from paradise. If I summed up all my moments of regret and multiplied them thousands of times over, perhaps it might come close to what they were feeling. But I also wonder if these words gave them hope even in the midst of the fall. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.  Gen. 3:15" Read the rest of the post here . 

66 Books One Story: A Family Guide to Every Book of the Bible  by Paul Reynolds, Christian Focus, 2013, Our adult Sunday school class is tackling an overview of the Old Testament. It's been a great series so far. We've learned the main theme(s) of each book and its role in redemptive history. We've also found foreshadowings of Christ and the gospel. I was wondering, "Wouldn't it be great if there was a book for kids that would give an overview of the Bible this way? Is there a resource where they could learn the big picture rather than view the Bible as just a collection of good stories?" Thanks to Carl Trueman's review , I think I've found it. 66 Books One Story gives a three-page synopsis of all the books of the Bible. (Exceptions: Genesis is divided into two sections. Two psalms are highlighted rather than the entire book, and John 2 & 3 are combined.) First, the book is summarized in a single phrase. (Wouldn't that be good for us ad...

It's my day to post at Out of the Ordinary: When I first read through the Bible, I didn't begin too badly. Genesis was exciting because I remembered my Sunday School stories. But I began to get bogged down once the Israelites entered the wilderness. All those intricate details about the tabernacle, sacrifices, and laws were difficult to understand and seemed repetitious. When I managed to get out of the wilderness and into the promised land, I encountered long lists of names I couldn't pronounce and stories of one bad person after another. I didn't fare too well with the prophets as I was never quite sure who they were speaking to and what they were trying to say. It was a relief to reach the familiar territory of the New Testament, but it seemed like a separate book and disconnected from all that had gone before. Read more here ...