A well-known book is called Your God is Too Small; it is a timely title. We are poles apart from our evangelical forefathers at this point, even when we confess our faith in their words. When you start reading Luther, or Edwards, or Whitefield, though your doctrine may be theirs, you soon find yourself wondering whether you have any acquaintance at all the mighty God whom they knew so intimately.

I worry that we too easily complain when others aren’t friendly toward us. We wish there were deeper relationships at church. We long for a sense of … well,  community. I worry that community as a concept/idea is too insular and self focussed. I worry that I, and maybe you also, expect others to meet our needs, to suit our personalities, to be friends for us.

I’m not sure that the Bible uses terms that mean community. Instead, it speaks of church as a body, or as a family. What’s the difference?

Church as a body has a head, Jesus Christ (Eph 5:35; Col 1:18).
Church as a family has a father, our heavenly Father (by virtue of being children of God – 1 John 3; co-heirs with Christ Rom 8:17).

The biggest difference is that the images of a body or a family, more explicitly suggest the authority of the godhead.

Community can be really useful term to describe  the network and the nature of relationships  that exist in church. I hope and pray that any and every church continues to be a place  of great relationships, of good friendships for each and every one of us.

Yet, for the church to be a light in this dark world, we need to be different. And what will  mark us out as different is relationships under the headship of Jesus Christ.

The occasion of sermon is the wind, fire and tongues given by the Holy Spirit; the preacher is Peter on behalf of the twelve apostles; the audience is the crowd; the content is the interpretation of Old Testament Scripture and the story of Jesus; the application is ‘Repent, and be baptized’; the sermon ends with exhortation, warning and pleading’ and its result is that about 3,000 welcomed Peter’s message and were baptized and added to the number of disciples. (Adam, Speaking God’s words, 49)

The priority is the ministry of the Word. The content is explaining how the Old Testament points to Jesus. Yet it doesn’t stop there. Peter’s sermon isn’t just conveying information about the Old Testament, but calling his hearers to respond-to repent and be baptized.

So many random and generally inconsequential questions arose.

• Where did all this gold come from if Aaron had already asked for gold to make the golden calf (Ex 32)? Did people withhold gold from Aaron? Given the conversions, they offered 994kg of gold!
• Where did all the acacia wood come from? I’m guessing it wasn’t as much of a desert as it is today. But still, each frame of the tabernacle required two vertical bars 4.5m long and three horizontal bars 67.5cms long. With  52 frames, that’s 269m worth of acacia poles. This just for the frames, not the table, the altar or the ark of the covenant.
• Did the people lug around trees as they left Egypt?
• Compared to our tent, erecting this tabernacle would have been a massive job.

However, that’s not the point of these chapters. Two things  struck me  as I read it.

1. It can seem a bit boring to read, since it is so repetitive with many identical details to Ex 25-28. Yet this repetition highlights that what God commanded Moses on the mountain is exactly what the people do. They are obedient to the Lord’s word and his designs. This is explicitly made clear in the description of the priestly garments (Ex 39). There is a description of what is made and the repeated refrain ‘as the Lord had commanded Moses’ (v1, 5, 7, 21, 26, 29, 31). The summary of the construction starts in v32 ‘Thus all the work of the tabernacle of the tent of meeting was finished, and the people of Israel did according to all that the Lord had commanded Moses; so they did.’ The conclusion of the summary, the end of the chapter is, ‘According to all that the Lord had commanded Moses, so the people of Israel had done all the work. And Moses saw all the work, and behold, they had done it; as the Lord had commanded, so had they done it.’ The people thoroughly obey God in making a tabernacle just the way God wanted it.
2. The second thing is the holiness of God. What an intricate building they establish for him, let alone the regulations on how to use it. We might think it’s a little over the top, but it should serve as a reminder to us that God is holy. He is so totally different to us. We can so easily domesticate God in our minds, because of the truth that Jesus has opened the way into the most holy place (Heb 10:19). Yet this truth should make us marvel at the grace of God, who allows us to approach him. We must remember the privilege it is to be made holy, suitable and appropriate to be in God’s presence. Not that Jesus’ incarnation, his total humanity, means God can now be considered a big brother. A father, yes, but our heavenly Father.

Have a read, let the details wash over you and let me know what you think.

I’m in the process of reading through the Bible in one year. In some ways it’d be nice to get a summary. However, at the same time it’s important to refresh ourselves on the details that give colour and vibrancy to the whole.

So, how about you answer the question, then check out what 26 theologians and writers said when Dane Ortlund, an editor from Crossways Books asked them?

What would I say?

The Bible is the story of God’s love for, and plan to save, the creation he made.

Try and read through to the end as the seven tips are worth remembering as we go on this journey together. Most memorable is the first one:

If at all possible, read through the Bible using this plan together with other people. The fruit of reading through the Bible together as a church over the last couple years has been immense.

Though the passage is primarily about the shepherd, the sheep aren’t totally passive. Sheep don’t follow thieves or robbers. Sheep follow their shepherd. And sheep know and hear the shepherd’s voice.

So, I mentioned that as sheep, the best way to hear our shepherd’s voice is to read his word. I publicly shared my new year’s resolution to read through the Bible in one year, and asked if others are keen to join me. (It’s only the 3rd, you can catch up!)

A few people have mentioned reading through the Bible in chronological order. I’m going to use the Blue Letter Bible reading plan that takes us through the Bible in the order the events historically took place ‘according to recent historical research’. I’ve also been pointed to this progress chart, which I’ll keep in my Bible to ‘check off’ chapters as they are read.

I also said in my sermon that I’m not likely to be a systematic few chapters every day kind of person. I expect I’ll do this in fits and starts. It’ll be fun and exciting to begin with. It’ll be a challenge at times. It’ll be easy to let it slide. However, I hope that this will be something I share with you about here, and maybe even you will come on this journey with me. Please let me know if you do, not so that I can check up on you, but that we may encourage each other to keep hearing the shepherd’s voice, in order to better follow this good shepherd.

I’m loving my HTC Desire more and more. The last app I want to mention is X3Watch.

It wasn’t long before I realised that my smartphone could do stacks more than be a phone. One of the applications I’ve got running on my laptop and desktop is Covenant Eyes, an accountability program for internet usage. That’s a polite way of saying, having a mate watching over your should so you don’t look at porn. It tracks what sites I go to and every fortnight sends a report to a mate and, if necessary, flags potentially inappropriate content. This is a fantastic tool because there is something about human accountability that sometimes is more motivating that knowing God is watching. More than that, it isn’t a filter and doesn’t just give present a big warning sign on the computer. Rather, it encourages conversation with a real person, which is a much better way to confess and deal with sin as it arises.

Since installing Covenant Eyes I have only had problems when downloading Ubuntu (a Linux platform) which was easy to explain. More encouraging though was that the process works, my mate called and asked me what it was.

Covenant Eyes isn’t available for Android, only iPhones. X3Watch does. In fact, it has a free version for PC, Mac and iPhone. I had to pay for the Android version. However, I consider this a small price to pay for accountability it brings me. In the notification bar at the top of the screen is ‘X3′, a continual reminder of it’s presence on my phone.

It’s deliberately hard to uninstall and bypass, though if you were determined enough to, I’m sure it’s possible. It reflects the depravity of our hearts. I want to encourage you as strongly as I can, to deliberately choose to get something like this, to help reduce the temptation of pornography.

Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. (James 4:7)

Unlike the iPhone, there isn’t an ESV app, which is a shame, since that’s the translation we use at Evening Church. There is an app called ‘YouVersion’ which came with an ESV. Olive Tree reader is a common app supporting multiple platforms.

However, in the end I went with CadreBible which is an Android specific Bible. Why? Cost, and I didn’t just want an ESV. I was hoping to get a Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament also. YouVersion didn’t have it. Olive Tree would charge me $17 for ESV, $46 for BHS (Hebrew) and $36 for NA27 (Greek). ie $99 all up. CadreBible has the ESV for $10 and a public domain version of Hebrew and Greek, which it offers for free.

So, was it worth it? Of course. The physical ESV I carry around cost me $10, so it’s not unreasonable to pay the same for an electronic copy. Plus, I also have access to Greek and Hebrew, if really necessary, whenever I have my phone with  me.

One last thing, I’ll still carry around a physical Bible for a couple of reasons.

1. I still feel a little uncomfortable pulling out my phone during a sermon, even if I know I’m doing the right thing. I can’t turn the pages in a real book and get distracted by some app or email or …
2. I want to encourage others to have a physical Bible on them at all times, so I’ve got to set the example. What if I’m meeting someone who doesn’t have a Bible app of some description? We can both look at a book together, but both staring at a phone seems a little odd to me.
3. The most important reason is that I want to have  a Bible ready to give away whenever the opportunity arises. The reason I bought lots of the same $10 Bibles is that they are easily replaceable. If I give one away, I can get another off the shelf at home. Since it’s the same version, I can find particular passages or verses easily, especially since sometimes my memory is, it’s on the left or right hand side of the page.

God has made himself known to us. We don’t need to strive to find or understand him. God’s word can be near us, even on our phones. (Another reason, by the way, to be thankful for the Reformation. That the Bible is in everyday language we can understand is a privilege others died for, that I too often take for granted.)

[11] “For this commandment that I command you today is not too hard for you, neither is it far off. [12] It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ [13] Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ [14] But the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it. (Deuteronomy 30:11-14 ESV)

After trying a number of different apps to manage tasks, to do lists etc, I’ve settled on three. ‘Three?’ I hear you ask. Why?

My goal was to find one for ministry that would basically be something that managed a nested list. I’ve gone with ColorNote, which can categorise notes by colour. I don’t use the text notes, only the checklist. Using the touchpad is easy to shuffle the order of items on a checklist and then tapping each will marked them done. I’ve got yellow for administration and staff meeting items, blue for longer term strategy, another colour for people to contact etc etc.

Since I’m keen to be able to ‘switch off’ when it’s my day off or on holidays, I figure that seeing my todo list wouldn’t help. The simplest way was to use a different app for home related stuff. And, there are better apps suited to that. I found To Do List, which has five built in categories – my tasks, @ work, I want it!, grocery and jotter. I’m only going to use ‘my tasks’ for jobs to do around the house and ‘grocery’ for a shopping list. A task is stored as a name, note and priority. A grocery item is stored as a name, price, quantity and priority. It can also simply add basic/regular grocery items.

Lastly, and this is the most exciting of my finds is EveryDay ToDo, which is more geared to regular reminders. I’m using this as my prayer diary. I can add items that occur daily, weekly or on a particular day a month. So, every day it will remind me to pray for Jo and the kids. Mondays is Bible study leaders from Evening Church, Tuesdays – Matthias staff and families, Wednesday – three mates from college, Thursday – particular CMS friends, Fridays – my extended family, Saturdays – Jo’s extended family. Then, I can also put in particular people that I want to pray for once a month.

I start the app on any given day and I’m reminded what to pray for based on the day of the week and the date in the month.