Blogs and that

Adoption

As me and Chrissi prepare to adopt kids, we've been reflecting on what a huge theme it is in the Bible as we see how God relates to his people...

1. God adopted Israel in the Old Testament. Romans 9:1-5
'Theirs is the adoption to sonship...' Paul is talking about the Israelites. Since Genesis 12, God had chosen them out of all the nations in the world to be his people - his kids - and to be a blessing to the rest of the world. They were meant to belong to God, to know him, be loved and nurtured by him, love him back and grow to be like him by being in his family.

2. God was adopted so we could be adopted. Galatians 4:4-7
'...that we might receive adoption to sonship.' Jesus was born to an unmarried teenage mum in a barn in the least significant town in Israel and adopted by Joseph so that he could live, die in our place for our sin and rise again to make a way for us to become God's children - forgiven, right with God and becoming like him because his Spirit lives in us and empowering us to live the life we were made for.

3. God chose us to be adopted into his family. Ephesians 1:3-14
'In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship in Jesus...' God has made choices about who will be his people, who will trust and follow Jesus and know him personally and be in his family. Our wills are real and important too but not before or more so than God's. In love he chooses his kids. We don't earn it because it's all about God's grace to us. God gives us dignity, value and worth we didn't have before and could never have without him.

4. God adopts us spiritually when we trust and follow Jesus. Romans 8:14-17
'...the Spirit you received brought about your adoption...' God himself moves into our hearts when we decide to trust and follow Jesus. He awakens love for him inside us and we have the strong assurance that we are part of his family forever. We are loved, safe and protected. We can call God our Dad.

5. God adopts us physically when we get to heaven. Romans 8:22-25'...we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.' One day, the spiritual reality of our belonging in God's family will become a physical reality for us forever. All sin, shame, suffering an struggle will be gone. We will be made whole and be perfectly like our heavenly Father. Family forever with God.

Bring it on!

Romans 1:1-4 - All about Jesus

Even Paul's introduction of himself is itself a challenge to any Christian. He's all about Jesus and his identity, value and purpose is in Jesus. If we're trusting and following Jesus, how do we introduce or identify ourselves? And how do we think about our work? For Paul, it's all for Jesus.

Romans 1:1-4

The way Paul serves Jesus is as an apostle, which means he's someone whose gift is to make disciples and plant churches in places where there are none. Jesus told Paul to do this job and Paul is doing as he's told because he lives to serve Jesus.

Paul then mentions three things about Jesus...

First, he reminds the Christians in Rome that Jesus came to fulfill ancient prophecy. Throughout the Old Testament there are hundreds of prophecies predicting the arrival of the 'messiah' - God's chosen rescuer. Jesus fulfills them all because they were all about him! God knows and plans the future, told the prophets in advance and kept his promises to come and rescue his people!

Second, Paul says that Jesus was a real human man from the family line of David, just as the prophets promised. Jesus was fully human. He cried, got tired, got hungry and thirsty and felt pain like anyone else would. Being genuinely human means that Jesus could live a life like we do but without sin and properly represent human beings when he died in our place for our sin on the cross.

Third, Paul explains that Jesus was not just a man but was the 'God-man'. Jesus wasn't a man who became God but God who became a man. Jesus is 'Immanuel', which means 'God with us.' And Paul is saying that the resurrection of Jesus from the dead proves that this is true. How else would it happen? Unless Jesus was fully God, he would not have lived a sinless life and his death on the cross would not have been anything special, let alone payment for the sin of the whole human race.

Paul starts as he means to go on. He's all about Jesus and he wants to teach us more about this man who is God - Jesus Christ 'our Lord'.

Romans blog

Uncover by UCCF

UCCF have produced a brilliant pocket-sized version of the gospel of Luke for anyone looking into Jesus and there's some excellent accompanying videos online featuring various qualified experts answering some of the big questions people have. Check them out and forward them on!

Uncover - An introduction

1. How do we know Luke's account of the life of Jesus is reliable?

2. Doesn't science rule out miracles?

3. How can an all-powerful and loving God allow people to suffer?

4. Aren't Christians arrogant to believe that Jesus is the only way to God?

5. Doesn't faith contradict reason?

6. Is living a good life enough?

7. Did the resurrection really happen in history?

Responses to the evidence for Jesus

This is a reply too lengthy to include on a Soul Pancake forum so I thought I'd blog it instead and then it might be helpful for others too. It's responding to questions not included here but hopefully it should still make some sense to everyone who might be interested.

Ok, I've done some exploring, had a think and I think this will be a long one but I hope it's ok to make the effort and you've been doing the same so I hope you won't mind reading some more! :)

Thanks for the point about the lack of external links in my blog on the evidence for the reliability of the gospels. I don't want people to take my word for it. I must get around to adding some useful links to decent research that's been done. Thanks!

It's a good point you raise about the truth of the gospels. For this, the first thing I would look at is the intention of the authors. Were they trying to write literal history? As I mention in my blog, Luke is most clear about his intentions to get an accurate account of recent events and he mentions interviewing eye-witnesses too (Luke 1:1-4). The next thing I would consider is the dating of the gospels. All of them were written within living memory of Jesus (Wiki article on this) and so Luke's first readers would have been eye-witness and well-able and well-motivated to disprove what he wrote. The Roman authorities were especially keen to stop Christianity spreading. Christians were killed often. If their writings were clearly false and easy to disprove, they would not have been believed, died for or lasted credibly beyond that culture. These are the some of the things that convince me of the truth of the accounts. More on why I believe in God.

Responses to your questions/comments:

1. External evidence for Jesus
Having started looking into archaeological evidence for Jesus, I found this article. It seems the evidence is not conclusive (I wouldn't expect archaeological evidence alone to prove everything) but it is compelling for the people and events described in the gospels and for the existence of Jesus of Nazareth. I certainly don't think it's true to say there's no archaeological evidence for Jesus. Have a look at the article. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on it. :)

2. Hiding Jesus' body in the dessert
It sounds like a plausible point you make about the possibility of hiding the body in the dessert but there are a number of things that would also need explaining for that to be possible. People saw the 'stolen body' hoax coming a mile off and that's why a guard was posted (Matthew 27:62-66). And there's still hundreds of people who claim they saw him alive after he died. Over 500 at once on one occasion (1 Corinthians 15:3-7). If the accounts are reliable (and I'm convinced they are), this still needs explanation.

3. The far-fetched-ness (definitely should be a word) of the 'seeing things' and 'swoon' theories
These came about presumably because the evidence was hard to deny and people felt the need try and explain it in ways that meant Jesus didn't really rise from the dead. The 'swoon' theory seems to have got started in the 18th century without any actual evidence other than the presupposition that the resurrection was impossible and there must be alternative explanations for all the evidence pointing to it. The Wiki article on this is very useful.

4. People dying for stuff doesn't make it true
Absolutely right but the point I was making in my blog about this was that the first Christians surely wouldn't have died for something they knew to be a lie. I certainly wouldn't. So this isn't proof it's true but it does help rule out the idea that they were part of a deliberate conspiracy. It brought them no advantages whatsoever. So you're right. People do die for untruths but usually because they don't realise.

So I hope that's helpful. I'm aware that a lot of the above is my personal response but I hope it has value to you. And there are some external links to explore too so hopefully that's helpful. It's been a while since I read it but the book 'The Case for Christ' by Lee Strobel was really helpful to me. It's an investigative journalist whose wife became a Christian and he set out to disprove it but ended up becoming a Christian himself and writing a book about all his findings. Have you read it?

Romans blog

Back to Bible book blogs

Romans Blog - GREAT GOOD NEWS!

Having finished the Mark blog today, I'm breathing a big sigh of relief but I want to try and keep reading my Bible and knowing Jesus better so I'm committing myself now to start blogging my way through Romans.

Romans is mega! It's a big book full of big stuff about Jesus and what his death 2000 years ago really means for us today. It's a book that hits on some controversial issues and causes many arguments in and out of the church. I'm really looking forward to getting to grips with it and I hope it will be helpful stuff for anyone else who wants to read it too!

Romans blog