Skip to main content

Day 3: Now we're talking!


What is 1 Samuel 17 really all about?
Is it about having faith like David?
Am I David?

Day 3 of the Utumishi wa Neno intensive at St James' Buruburu and we were getting into some really serious debates: Is the Bible really all about Jesus? Do we really need to preach the gospel of Christ crucified from every passage? What do twenty-first century Kenyan listeners, particularly those surrounded by many daily troubles and struggles, really need to hear? What do the youth, drawn as they are by the sexual immorality all around them, really need to keep them from sin?

Other interesting discussions of the day: What exactly is the difference (if any) between logos and rhema? Is it helpful to separate the youth off entirely into separate services and activities? What is our core task as pastors and preachers? What is our motivation in preaching? Do we cry enough!?

Highlights:
  • “Father, may these spoken words be faithful to the written word and lead us to the living Word, Jesus Christ our Lord” (prayer of John Pritchard)
  • The key mark of a spiritual man is receiving the deep things of the gospel - i.e. having your eyes opened to the fact that you are wretched sinner desperately in need of Jesus (Fidel from 1 Cor. 2:12-15).
  • The problem with moralising is that you end up with morals without Jesus (James on applying OT narrative).

Please pray for our last day tomorrow:
  • For Sammy as he preaches from 1 Cor. 3.
  • For Harrison as he leads us in a closing session dealing with lingering doubts about the validity or possibility of consistent faithful Bible preaching and encouraging us to keep going and growing in these things.
  • For good relationships between us all.
  • That we would get good feedback on the course and all of go away having grown in some way.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Everlasting gobstopper theology

The idea here is that there are layers to Christ's fullness and when the biblical authors present Christ to us they might only explicitly refer to one layer but as they do that the underlying layers are also implied. Or to put it another way, the glory of the underlying layers shines through the layer that is presented to us. That might sound strange, abstract and not particularly helpful but let me try to explain.  The incarnation implies the pre-existent Word When John identifies "Jesus Christ has come in the flesh" as the key test of orthodoxy, Augustine asks (Homily 6 on 1 John) how can this be when so many heretics happily affirm the humanity of Jesus but deny his deity? Augustine then asks us to dig a bit deeper and consider: From whence did he come? "Was he not God?" Simon Gathercole demonstrated (in his 2006 book, The Pre-existent Son ) that Jesus' phrase in the synoptic gospels, "I have come", implies divine pre-existence.  So whenever we ...

Building a RAFT: transitioning well

From the archives - originally written 8 years ago in the midst of international family transition… When Duncan Olumbe led an excellent session for the iServe Africa ministry training course on transition , there was one thing that he mentioned but didn’t have time to go into detail on: building a RAFT. The idea of building a RAFT comes from Pollock & Van Reken's  Third Culture Kids: Growing Up Among Worlds but it’s applicable to anyone moving on, whether adults or children, expats or citizens. The basic plan is Reconciliation-Affirmation-Farewells-ThinkDestination. It’s not only practical and proven but it also fits well with the pattern and teaching of the apostle Paul, someone who certainly knew what it was to go through a lot of transitions. Reconciliation Deal with conflict before you leave. Forgive and ask for forgiveness. We can easily sweep conflict under the carpet. Particularly when we are leaving it’s very tempting not to bother dealing with unresolved issues. But...

10 things servant leadership is

Having cleared away 10 things servant leadership is not , here are 10 that it is. [Credit to Harrison Mungai for his help in observing many of these features and helping us to think through this really important area.] I used to think that all that was necessary in gospel ministry was faithful Bible handling. Preach the Word carefully and surely everything else should follow? But I was wrong. Sadly it is possible to have high quality expository preaching and ungodly leadership. It shouldn’t be possible but it is. And it’s a very ugly thing. Peter Mead has written  on the danger that can be done to a church or ministry when appointment of leaders values ability over character. So here are ten aspects of biblical servant leadership, specifically in relation to gospel ministry leadership, from 1 Thessalonians, especially chapters 2 and 3: Servant leadership is, wherever possible, Plural . A lot of articles and books on leadership assume that it is a personal project. Search G...