Acts 4-6

The journey continues as the apostles speak boldly in the synagogues. They start to heal the sick and more people believed, five thousand was mentioned in chapter four! Rejoice!
Some verses caught my attention like the one that speaks about Peter and John's courage : "When they(the rulers, elders & teachers of the law) saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realised that they had been with Jesus."Acts 4:13 (NKJ)

unschooled yet they spoke with boldness and authority. What about me..educated and trained...?

Right after this it struck me that the people who were trying to put the Apostles behind bars and stop them from speaking the word of God is the very people who called themselves the teachers of the law, elders, rulers, even the high priest that many Jews revered! How hypocritical can these men get! They are going outrightly against God! But they were blinded by sin, darkness has filled their hearts and minds. They were losing their authority, their statues, the Jews' 'worship'...

Still, among all these hypocrites, there was one, a Pharisee named Gamaliel, who stood up and said ".....Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God."Acts 5:38,39(NIV)
Its a comfort to know that it is not mere men fighting but God as well. We have a strong and infallible "kao shan".. if God is for us, who CAN be against us!?

Its wonderful to know that I've a heavenly Father powerful as He is, one whom never fails and continues to love me.

The student study bible has this short write up entitled "the secret to the Early Church". Basically speaking about the power and sustenance of God and his Holy Spirit behind the work in the book of Acts, hence the great revival and miraculous signs and wonders. The write up said, as the church grew, the disciples gradually began to understand what Jesus had meant when he said, "It is not for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you(John16:7). Although Jesus himself departed, God became present in each one of them, making his activity in the world more widespread than ever before. The Spirit personally directed each major advance of the church...As presented in Acts, the Spirit was no vague but a living person who spoke, guided in decisions and fueled the church with the energy of faith.

:)

I have decided to start reading the book of Acts and complete it soon. Since BJ is teaching on parts of Acts, I thought I ought to know more than just the parts she teaches to get a big picture.

Reading Acts, though it was just the first three chapters, is exciting! Seeing how those dramatic events unfold before you (in your mind.. image it!) and how my powerful God is behind all these wonderful miracles and changes, it just stirs my heart to want to live a courageous life for the sake of the Gospel. Pray for me as you read this entry that may God grant me more courage to make my stand in love and truth as I face daily situations. Pray along with me as well for my unsaved parents, extended family members and friends.

Back to reading Acts. It was after Jesus reinstated Peter (asking Peter three times if he had loved Jesus) after his triple denial of Jesus, did Peter spoke bravely to crowds and proclaim the word of God obediently to both Jews and Gentiles. Awesome!

Below is something from the student study bible that I have :

"You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this." Acts 3:15
Seeing a ghost doesnt make a person stronger and more confident. The witness is usually reluctant to talk about the experience. Self-doubt attacks in waves :Was it real? Maybe I was hallucinating.. It was so dark and eerie.
When Jesus showed up after his death, his disciples went through a Did-we-see-a-ghost? phase, complete with terror, disbelief and wild rumours. But it didnt last long. In 40 days, Jesus made enough undeniable appearances to convince each of his disciples-even skeptical Thomas- that he had indeed overthrown death.
As Acts shows, the disciples began acting the opposite of people who think they've seen a ghost. Rather, they acted like people who had just witnessed the most astounding event in all history. They couldnt wait to tell the whole world about it!!

Think about it.. if Jesus died and not resurrected, he was a ghost or some spirit, would his disciples or christians around the world today have done what they did? "Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." John 14:6

Gen 10:1 - 11:9

The account of Shem, Ham and Japheth & the tower of Babel

This part of Genesis tells us how humans are scattered over the earth (which fulfills the command from the Lord, multiply and fill the earth) after the flood. Noah had 3 sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth. His three sons then multiplied (its not cloning k!) and had their own clans. This is how civilisations started. The names of the Noah's grandsons were listed and these form the three basic people groups known as the Israelites. This is followed by the account of how God confused their language and further scattered the people.

==Thoughts .. Understanding==
I do not really understand the reason why the long list of names were recorded in the Bible neither do I understand the significance of the three clans. I guess I would learn more about this when Israel is declared as nation, God's chosen and how each clans are given specific responsibilities.

Moving on to the tower of Babel, I saw the arrogance of humans. How they thought they were great because they can bake bricks and build, they spoke the same language, I suppose there were unity. Yet no matter how great man think they were, God is still sovereign and powerful over all things. His command and plan will still prevail.

The people came together to build a tower with its top in the heavens, thinking they are all that high and mighty, they wanted to make a name for themselves. There's similarities in the world that we live in today, isn't it? Everyone wants to make a name for themselves, because we think we are great, that would most likely be the motivation that drives people to build their 'empire', status, whatever you name it. Well, I do not think that being successful is a sin, in fact, I think it's a blessing that God has generously and graciously given. But when we pursue success for the sake of it, wanting people's recognition or wealth, status, basically not for the glory of God would be wrong. Should God give us good gifts, we should be thankful and put them to good use in order to honour God and witness to others. I'll always remember what I learn from Camp Orion, saying how christians should live their lives, its summarised into 8 simple words :

To know God & to make God known

It was a wonderful account how God did not strike these people dead but confused the one language they were speaking and fulfilled His own plan simultaneously!
This is in my opinion how God would show the future generations that there's an existence of God. People all around the world are so similar, yet different at the same time. Its interesting how all humans have 2 eyes, 2 eyes, 1 nose and 1 mouth. We speak to communicate, show body language, eat to stay alive, self-centered..etc. However, we speak different languages, coming from different cultures and backgrounds...

Why do I say the confusion of our language is a proof to God's existence? I believe if we look at the origin of language, many would have mentioned that all languages have originated from one. If christians, jews and the muslims who have read the Bible, Jewish laws and the Koran respectively and the tribal people who have very slight contacts with the world can agree in one way or another that human language has originated from a source plus give similar account to the tower of Babel, this should tell us something!
God created the world, whether is it the Aucas who stays in the forest of Eucador all their lives or the city dwellers, our ancestors witnessed to this confusion and hence passed down this 'legend'/'myth' about tower of Babel. What's more, evolutionists can never explain the origin of language or the diversity of it! They can argue till the cows come home but they will not derive at a common answer, so who's right.. I wonder. hee That's why the tower of Babel is so amazing..

Some interesting links :
Tower of Babel-->
http://www.christiananswers.net/q-abr/abr-a021.html

Wiki's view on it-->
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Babel

Wiki's view on origin of language-->
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_language

Lingistics 201:The origin of language-->
http://pandora.cii.wwu.edu/vajda/ling201/test1materials/origin_of_language.htm
This website, I thought, no references cited, no sources, but should be quite interesting to read.. :)

Comments on tower of Babel by Dr. Harold L. Willmington-->
http://www.tribulation.com/towerbab.htm
Should be quite reliable, since he cited so many sources.. still read it and be discerning! ( I haven finish reading it.. :P)

Doing a right thing in a wrong way - Sermon today

(2 Samuel 6)(1 Chron 13-16)

The crux of today's sermon was
1. David was mindful of God's presence. He wanted to be near Him. (that's why he wanted to bring the ark of covenant back to the city of David, Jerusalem)
2. David did not obey God's instructions on how to bring the ark back and caused the death of Uzzah.
3. David right the wrong and brought the ark back in a proper manner. (Ark was left in the house of Obededom who was a levite and God blessed the family.later the Levites brought it back.. )
4. God is a holy God. He cannot tolerate anything done in an unbiblical manner. We must be people of the Bible, doing things from a biblical perspective.
5. Make sure the Lord reign in your house. Let Him be honoured in all we do or speak.
"Christ is the head of this house, the unseen guest of every meal, the silent listener to every conversation."
6. People are gifted to serve the Lord.(Rom12:1), many people were involved in bringing the Ark back, each one fulfilling their own God-assigned task rightfully and joyfully.
7. The joy of having God's presence. David's dancing is an expression of joy because God was with him there and then, dancing was also in David's culture back at that time(just like how the Indians and Africans worship God). It is not an act of worship as what the charismatic churches explain it to be. Worship as reverence before the Lord God Almighty, dancing is neither in our culture or an act of worship.
8. Let Christian spouses support their partners in service for the Lord. (Not like how Michal despised David's action)

--Thanksgiving--
Thank God for keeping me attentive throughout sermon today. Knowing the usual Tingyu would doze off or stray away, (well I still do once twice thinking of the lesson and relating it to my life), I actually thought the lesson was very relevant and intriguing.

--My 2 -cents worth--
Quite often I do wrong things at the wrong time, right thing at the wrong time and vice versa, so the topic today caught my attention. At first I thought it was Uzzah who did the right thing at the wrong time but realised he did right thing at the right time what... only to find out later that it was David who did it and caused the death of Uzzah. I still cannot grasp the reason why Uzzah had to done because all he did was simply, to me, a natural human reaction.
The lesson to me was that I ought to be constantly desiring for this powerful God's presence. Not only do I need to know he's there, I need to know how to fear Him! He's this HOLY God that cannot stand anything that's done unbiblical manner, to put it in simple terms, disobedience to God; He can struck anyone dead at anytime. Pastor said "If God has not been gracious, we would all have been struck dead." How true! We are often the antagonists in God's story, testing His patience. At that time I really appreciate what Jesus has done for us, dying on the cross to take God's wrath away from us. I cannot imagine if I were to live in the time of David, I'll probably be dead a hundred times. God is the Lord of Hosts, King of all kings!

As Pastor moved on to the part about how we as people of the Bible ought to do things/see things in a biblical perspective, it reminded me of the conversation between my colleague and boss. Angela reminded me that I ought to have done something about it, which I wonder why I find it hard to. We often felt obligated to speak well in front of our bosses or seniors, not to offend them, in case we get demoted or something. But as people of the Bible, should we continue to live this way as the non believers do or make a strong stand politely to point out the immoral thoughts or acts, even to our bosses. So I'm going to leave them a note on the day I leave the company. Pray that I'll have the wisdom to write politely, humbly and point out what was wrong.

God blessed Obededom when he took care of the Ark. Let my motivation to serve the Lord be not our wish to be blessed physically (wealth, health and the like) but simply because God deserves to be honoured and worshiped. Someone told me before, its not as if God doesnt know the motive deep down in our hearts, we can deceive all the people around us but not this all knowing God who looks at our hearts. I ought to do my little part to serve God and contribute my little to the building of His big Kingdom.. :)

I saw unity of God's people when the Ark was brought back to Jerusalem in the proper way. Did God designed it to be so, so that the people of God can witness to the world as one. I was imagining how each worker did their part happily because they knew deep down they were serving the Almighty. They were gladly involved no matter how small their role was and I guess I ought to adopt the same kind of attitude. Many times I thought its always a better idea to be found serving in church camp or those so-called 'big' ministries, having a 'higher' position in the ministries would then equate to 'serving well'. Not quite here. Its still the heart of service that God looks at, no matter how big or small the job is. Finding joy in the small things that I do, all for God.

Seeing how David dances in front of God is such a wonderful sight because it was an expression of extreme joy. God's presence in the house of David! I need to dispel the old thought of dancing being an act of worship that my friends sometimes tell me. N me too want to dance before the Lord.Dance name : REJOICE!

Gen 2:4 - 4:26

God created man and woman::The Fall::Cain killed Abel

"Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So that man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field." Gen 2:19-20
Can you picture this scene? How privileged was man! God told man that he ought to multiply and fill the land, and have dominion over all living things and now God gave man the honor of naming the creatures that He has thoughtfully created. Its as if how a earthly daddy brings toys/pets to his kids and ask them to name it. It was a time of relational communication, a time that draws this intimate relationship closer. Who can fully understand what went through the hearts and minds of these two parties? What is the extent of warmth and understanding? It must have exceed the limits of the skies and seas...

Beautifully and fearfully created man and woman. Woman was made as a helper suitable for man."This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 'woman' for she was taken out of man." For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. God created marriage.

Sin and it effects penetrate into every parts of our life, so much so to the extent that soon after the fall, in Gen 4, Cain killed his blood-tied younger brother. It was a heart quenching moment. God said to Cain, "Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it." (Gen 4:6-7) I presumed this question was asked because Cain offered some of his fruits from his garden while Abel offered the fats portions(supposedly the best) from the firstborn of his herds. I reckoned Cain wanted to keep the best for himself while Abel has recognised whatever he has is due to the grace of God hence he gave God the best in return, with a heart of worship. It was Sin that Cain thinks he has all the rights to keep the best for himself alone, killed his brother because of jealousy and he did not even try to justify his cause. O dear.. God punished Cain and in a way protect him when God put a mark on Cain to signify this person cannot be killed.
Cain will be hidden from God's presence and he will be a restless wanderer on the earth.. he and his descendants. What kind of life would that be? This person being separated from God, the provider of all things, love, kindness, goodness, joy, patience, peace, gentleness, faithfulness,self-control, wouldn't that be a life of hatred and strife, lost and despair? I'm glad that God has given me the joy of knowing Him and keeping me in His presence. I would not want to live in such a hell-like environment! What has sin done to us? what have we done to ourselves when we choose to bow to sin?

"What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." Rom6:21-23


Dear Father,
thank you for being the loving Father that u've always been. You could have killed Cain immediately, but You spared his life. You could have destroyed Adam and Eve when they made the mistake yet You spared them for the sake of Your glory. You allowed man to continue to seek you and call upon Your name even when we have been banished out of the garden of Eden. We wanted to be gods, not recognising the fact that we are dependent beings and will always be. You punished man, at the same time, You made them animal skins clothing for protection. It was a terrible mistake man had made, but through that Your unconditional love was displayed.Hallelujah!Praise the Lord!
Amen.

Let there be light...and there was light....

I thought this was a very apt picture (from Deviantart.com) to start off my journey through Genesis. May God light up my path as I seek His wisdom in His words. I ought to live in the light, not in darkness. :D

Overview of Genesis

For modern readers Genesis might appear to be a strange book, beginning as it does with God and creation, and ending with Joseph in a coffin in Egypt! But that strangeness is evidence that even though it has integrity as a book in its own right (careful structure and organisation), it is at the same time intended to set the whole biblical story in motion. Indeed, its opening word (Bereshith = "in [the] beginning") both serves as its title and is suggestive as to what the book is about. Thus it tells of the beginning of God's story-- creation, human disobedience, and divine redemption-- while it also begins the Pentateuch, the story of God's choosing and making a covenant iwth a people through whom he would bless all peoples (Gen 12:2-3).

The narrative of Genesis itself comes in two basic parts : a "prehistory", the stories of creation, human origins, the fall of humanity, and the relentless progress of evil -- all against the backdrop og God's enduring patience and love -- the love of the beginning of redemption through Abraham and his seed, with focus on the stories of Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph. these stories are structured in part around a phrase that occurs ten times : "This is the account [genealogy/family history] of", a term which can refer both to "genealogies" proper (as with Shem, Ishmael, and Esau) ant to "family stories". You will see that the major stories of Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph in each case come under the family story of the father (Terah, Issac, and Jacob).

The overall narrative of Genesis thus begins immediately after the prologue(1:1-2:3) with the first human family in the Garden of Eden and works successively from Adamn's family through Noah and Shem to Terah and Abraham and finally through Issac and Jacob(Israel) and thus to Joseph. At the same time, the family lines of the rejected sons(Cain, Ishmael, Esau) are also given so that the "chosen seed" and the "rejected brother" are set off in contrast (the one has a story, the other only a genealogy). Finally, watch for one further framing device that holds the major part of the book together : God's use of Noah to preserve human life during the great deluge and of Joseph to preserve human life during the great drought.

The greatest story - God's story

How to read the Bible Book by Book
Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart
1st Edition, 2002

The overview (P14 -20)

First, let's be clear : The Bible is not merely some divine guidebook, nor is it a mine of propositions to be believed or a long list of commands to be obeyed. True, one does receive plenty of guidance from it, and it does indeed contain plenty of true propositions and divine directives. But the Bible is infinitely more than that.

It is no accident that the Bible comes to us primarily by way of narrative - but not just any narrative. Here we ave the grandest narrative of all -- God's own story. That is, it does not purport to be just one more story of humankind's search for God. No, this is God's story the accound of his search for us(??), a story essentially told in 4 chapters : Creation, Fall, Redemption, Consummation. In this story, God is the divine protagonist, Satan the antagonist, God's people the agonists (although too often also the antagonists), with redemption and reconciliation as the plot resolution.

* CREATION
Since this is God's story, it does not begin, as do all other such stories, with a hidden God, whom people are seeking and whom Jesus ultimately leads them. On the contrary, the biblical narrative begins with God as Creator of all that is. It tells us that "in the beginning God..." : that God is BEFORE all things, that he is the CAUSE OF ALL THINGS, that he is therefore ABOVE ALL things, and he is the GOAL of ALL things. He stands at the ORIGIN of all things as the SOLE CAUSE of the WHOLE universe, in all of its vastness and intricacies. And all creation - all history itself - has the eternal God, through Christ, as its final purpose and consummation.
We are further told that humanity is the crowning glory of the Creator's work - beings made in God's own likeness, with whom he could commune, and in whom he could delight; beings who would know the sheer pleasure of his presence, love and favour. Created in God's image, humankind thus uniquely enjoyed the vision of God and lived in fellowship with God. We were nonetheless created beings and were thus intended to be dependent on the Creator for life and existence in the world.

* FALL

The second chapter in the biblical story is a long and tragic one. It begins in Genesis 3, and the dark thread runs through the whole story almost to the very end (Rev 22:11, 15). This "chapter" tells us that man and woman coveted more godlikeness and that in one awful moment in this history of our planet they chose godlikeness over against mere creatureliness, with its dependent status. They chose independence from the Creator. But we were not intended to live so, and the result was a fall - a colossal and tragic fall. (To be sure, this is not a popular part of the story today, but its rejection is part of the Fall itself and the beginning of all false theologies).
Made to enjoy God and to be dependent on him and to find our meaning ultimately in our very creatureliness, we now came under God's wrath and thus came to experience the terrible consequences of our rebellion. The calamity of our fallenness is threefold :

First, we lost our vision of God with regrd to his nature and character. Guilty and hostile ourselves, we projected that guilt and hostility onto God. God is to blame :"Why have you made me thus?" "Why are you so cruel?" are the plaintive cries that run throughout history of our race. We thus became idolaters, now creating gods in our own image; every grotesque expression of our fallenness was reconstructed into a god. Paul puts it this way: "Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal human beings and birds and animals and reptiles... The exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator - who is forever praised." (Rom 1:22, 24-25).

In exchanging the truth about God for a lie, we saw God as full of caprice, contradictions, hostility, lust and retribution (all projections of our fallen selves). But God is not like our grotesque idolaters. Indeed, if he is hidden, Paul says, it is because we had become slaves to the god of this world, who has blinded our minds, so that we are ever seeking but never able to find him(2 Cor 4:4).

Second, the Fall also caused us to distort - and blur - the divine image in ourselves, rolling it in the dust, as it were. Instead of being loving, generous, self-giving, thoughtful, merciful - as God is - we became miserly, selfish, unloving, unforgiving, spiteful. Created to image, and thus to represent, God in all that we are and do, we learned rather the bear the image of the Evil One, God's implacable enemy(hmm?)

The third consequence of the Fall was our loss of the divine presence and with that our relationship - fellowship - with God. In place of communion with the Creator, having purpose in his creation, we became rebels, lost and cast adrift, creatures who broke God's laws, abused his creation, and suffered the awful consequences of fallenness in our brokenness, alienation, loneliness, and pain.

Under the tyranny of our sin - indeed, we are enslaved to it, Paul says, and guilty - we found ourselves unwilling and unable to come to the living God for life and restoration. And in turn we passed on our brokenness in the form of every kind of broken relationship with one another.

The Bible tells us that we are fallen, that there is an awful distance between ourselves and God, and that we are like sheep going astray (Isa 52:6; 1 Pet 2:25) or like a rebellious, know0it0all son, living in a far country among the hogs, wanting to eat their food(Like 15:11-32). In our better moments, we also know that this is the truth not only about the murderer or rapist or child abuser, but also about ourselves - the selfish, the greedy, the proud. It is no wonder people think God is hostile to us; in our better moments we know we deserve his wrath for the kind of endless stinkers we really are.

* REDEMPTION

The Bible also tells us that the holy and just God, whose moral perfections burn against sin and creaturely rebellion, is in fact also a God full of mercy and love - and faithfulness. The reality is that God pitied - and loved - these creatures of his, whose rebellion and rejection of their dependent status had caused them to fall so low and thus to experience the pain, guilt and alienation of their sinfulness.

But how to get through to us, to rescue us from ourselves with all of our wrong views about God and the despair of our tragic fallenness; how to get us to see that God is for us, not against us (Rom 8:31); how to et the rebel not just to run up a white flag of surrender but willingly to change sides and thereby once again to discover joy and meaningfulness - that's what chapter 3 of the story is all about.

And its the longest chapter, a chapter that tells how God set about redeeming and restoring these fallen creatures of his so that he might restore to use the lost vision of God, renew in us the divine image, and reestablish our relationship with him. But also woven throughout this chapter is that other threat - the one of our continuing resistance.

Thus we are told that God came to a man, Abraham, and made a covenant with him - to bless him and, through him, the nations (Gen 12-50) - and with his offspring, Israel, who had become a slave people (Exodus). Through the first of his prophets, Moses, God(now know by his name Yahweh) freed them from their slavery and made a covenant with them at Mount Sinai - that he who had rescued them would be their Savior and Protector forever, that he would be uniquely present with them among all the peoples of the world. But they would also have to keep covenant with him, by letting themselves be reshaped into his likeness. Thus he gave them the Law as his GIFT to them, both to reveal what he is like and to protect them from one another while they were being reshaped(Lev - Deu).

But the story tells us they rebelled over and over again and looked on his gift of law as a form of taking away their freedom (isnt that most of us think even in today's context? especially the youths..?). As shepherds who were being brought into an agricultural land( Joshua), they were not sure their God - a God of shepherds, as they supposed - would also help the crops to grow, so they turned to the agricultural fertility gods(Baal and Ashtoreth) of the peoples who surrounded them.

So they experienced several rounds of oppression and rescue(Judges) even while some of them were truly taking on God's character (Ruth). Finally, God sent them another great prophet (Samuel), who anointed for them their ideal king (David), with whom God made another covenant specifying that one of his offspring would rule over his people forever(1-2 Samuel). But alas, it goes bad again(1-2Kings; 1-2 Chronicles) and God in love sends them prophets(Isaiah - Malachi), singers(Psalms) and sages (Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes). In the end their constant unfaithfulness is too much, so God at least judges his people with the curses promised in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28. Yet even here there is promise for the future in which there would be a new "son of David" and an outpouring of God's spirit into people's hearts so that they would come to life and be transformed into God's likeness. This final blessing would also include people from all the nations("the Gentiles").

Finally, just before the last scene, with its final curtain and epilogue, we are told of the greatest event of all - the great, final "son of David" is none other than god himself, the Creator of all the cosmic greatness and grandeur, come to be present on the human scene in our own likeness. Born as the child of a peasant girl(note that girl was a VIRGIN!), within the fold of an oppressed people, Jesus the Son of God lived and taught among them. And finally with a horrible death, followed by a death-defeating resurrection, he grappled with and defeated the 'gods' - all the powers that have stood against us - and himself bore the full weight of the guilt and punishment of the creatures' rebellion.

Here is the heart of the story : A loving, redeeming God in his incarnation restored our lost vision of God (took off the wraps, as it were, so that we could plainly see what God is truly like), by his crucifixion and resurrection made possible our being restored to the image of God, and through the gift of the Spirit became present with us in constant fellowship. Marvelous - well nigh incredible - that revelation, that redemption.

The genius of the biblical story is what it tells us about God himself : a God who scrifices himself in death out of love for his enemies; a God who would rather experience the death we deserved than to be apart from the people he created for his pleasure; a God who himself bore our likeness, experienced our creatureliness, and carried our sins so that he might provide pardon and reconciliation; a God who would not let us go, but who would pursue us - all of us, even the worst of us - so that he might restore us into joyful fellowship with himself; a God who in Christ Jesus has so forever identified with his beloved creatures that he came to be known and praised as "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ"(1 pet 1:3)

This is God's story, the story of his unfathomable love and grace, mercy and forgiveness - and that is how it also becomes our story. The story tells us that we deserve nothing but get everything; that we deserve hell but get heaven; that we deserve to be wiped out, obliterated, but we get his tender embrace; that we deserve rejection and judgment but get to become his children, to bear his likeness, to call him Father. This is the story of the Bible, God's story, which at the same time is also our own. Indeed, he even let his human creatures have a part in writing it!

* CONSUMMATION

Because the story has not yet ended, the final chapter is still being written - even though we know from what has been written how the final chapter turns out. What God has already set in motion, we are told, through the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the gift of Holy Spirit is finally going to be fully realised.

Thus the one thing that makes this story so different from all other such stories is that ours is filled with hope. There is an End - a glorious conclusion to the present story. It is Jesus, standing at the tomb of his friend, Lazarus, telling Lazarus's sister Martha that Jesus himself was her hope for life now and for the life to come: "I am the resurrection and the life," he told her, "anyone who believes in me will live, even though they die" - because Jesus is the resurrection. And because he is also the life, he went on : "whoever lives and believes in me will never die"(John 11:25-26). And then he proceeded to validate what he had said by raising Lazarus from the grave.

Jesus himself became the final verification of those words by his own resurrection from the dead. The wicked and the religious killed him. They could not tolerate his presence among them, because he stood in utter contradiction to all their petty forms of religion and authority, based on their own fallenness - and he then had the hall to tell them that he was the only way to the Father(John 14:6). So they killed him. But since he himself was Life - and the author of life for all others - the grave couldnt hold him. And his resurrection not only validated is own claims and vindicated his own life on our planet, it also spelled the beginning of the end for death itself and became the guarantee of those who are his - both now and forever.

This is what the final episode (Revelation) is all about - God's final wrap-up of the story, when his justice brings an end to the great Antagonist(Satan) and all who continue to bear his image(Rev 20) and when God in love restores the creation (Eden) as a new heaven and a new earth(Rev 21-22).