One of our team members, Chalo, lives in the city of Puebla, the fourth largest city in Mexico. He owns two antique cars, one of which is a 1922 Model T Ford.
Chalo and his wife Beth are church planters. So Chalo not only has a Model T, he has a tract to go along with it. The tract tells people about the car, about Henry Ford, and invites them to give Chalo a call so that he can give them a free ride. Oh, and he can also tell them how God has made a difference in his life. The tract also includes a simple explanation of the Gospel.
As the car cruises down the street (and it can actually go pretty fast – about 72km or 45mi per hour), peoples’ faces light up. People point, and conversations start.
As we drove behind Chalo the other day, he started talking to someone in the car next to him at a stop light. The person was interested in his car – and so, of course, they got a free pamphlet!
Once a week Chalo goes down to the main square of Puebla, parks his Model T, and hangs out. Conversations start. And in the end – many, many, many people have come to know the Lord.
What do you like to do? What are your interests? God is everywhere – He might even be sitting next to you in an antique car!
You may be wondering – what on earth is a MEGA CULTO?! Some evil villain that fights Spiderman?
No, actually. It’s kinda like a SUPER Sunday Service. With a whole bunch of churches together.
And why do I mention a mega culto? Because tomorrow we’re going to be having one – a whole bunch of churches from the Mexico City area will be getting together for worship and fellowship at a campground out near our favourite volcanoes.
This is not a normal thing – quite unusual, in fact. Have we done it in the last decade?
Anyway, these are small churches that can feel pretty alone in an area like this where there simply aren’t many churches at all.
So do pray that this will be a time of great encouragement and unity for these churches. It’s a wonderful thing to be together in the unity of the Spirit, to work together, to worship together.
We’ll be having a service, a communion service, and special classes for all age groups afterwards. Then some food, some games – it will be an all day affair.
So – sometime next week I’ll try to fill you in on how it went! For now, I’d better make sure I’m ready.
Preaching this morning: “And He was numbered with the transgressors. God’s Word has its fulfillment…” Thanks for your prayers! (9 November 2014)
The pride of your heart has deceived you, you who … say in your heart,”Who will bring me down to the ground?” Obadiah 3 (10 November 2014)
I’m printing a newsletter for you. And just dabbing the ceiling with a tissue to make sure it doesn’t leak on the pages too much. #iloverain (11 November 2014)
It’s that time of year! Leave a tip for your mail carrier in the envelope. Ours is named “Alma” (and she’s awesome). ow.ly/i/7ydCh (12 November 2014)
Don’t miss this story from the Kidders in Africa (another reminder of why we need to pray for missionaries!) ow.ly/E2vGA (13 November 2014)
If you’re trying to memorize Philippians by the end of the year with me, you should ideally be around Philippians 3:6 or Philippians 3:7. I’m “finished” Philippians 3:4, so just slightly behind.
One thing I have noticed about this whole memorization scheme is that it is very hard to catch up, because it’s all based on repetition. You could, I suppose, do a verse in the morning and a verse at night, but it really is ideal to just do a verse a day — which means if you fall behind, it’s hard to catch up.
Of course I’ve built in a little leeway, so I’m mostly still just doing a verse a day.
Anyway, back to the passage itself. A lot about unselfishness, sacrifice, and persecution. We have the wonderful passage in the first part of chapter 2 about Jesus’ self-sacrifice on the cross (Philippians 2:5-11).
All of this is an illustration of how we should look to the interests of others. And Timothy and Epaphroditus are examples of this. Timothy, who faithfully served with Paul for the sake of the Gospel, even when others were more concerned with their own affairs (Philippians 2:19-22). And Epaphroditus, who risked his life for the Gospel, and is obviously concerned about others (Philippians 2:25-30).
Now Paul is launching into a wonderful passage, where he will show how Christ is of more value than anything else.
So if you’re still memorizing, even if you’re well behind, keep going! I know there are a few of you who started out with me – feel free to leave a comment and let us know how it’s going.
Earlier this year as I was preparing to do the Where did the Bible Come From? seminar for the first time in English (I’ve done it more than once in Spanish), I decided to do a little reading to update/improve my knowledge on the topic. I thought some of you might be interested in a few of the books I read.
The first is The Heresy of Orthodoxy. This was without doubt my favourite. The author is Michael J. Kruger, and in the book he discusses the theory that Christianity slowly emerged from a jumbled stew of ideas in the first and second century.
You’ve heard this one before – “Jesus didn’t found Christianity. It was created by political forces long after he died.” Or, “There was no one Christianity during the first hundred years of the church – there was diversity!”
This is an absolutely fascinating book, because not only does it explore the origins of Christianity, it also provides a mirror to see what our culture looks like and how it thinks. I would highly recommend this book to anyone. I can almost guarantee that it will change the way you think about the early days of the New Testament.
Well, that’s the question. Was the story of Jesus really based on Greco-Roman gods and goddesses? Isn’t the story of the cross and resurrection just one among many stories of gods dying and rising?
I have to admit, the answer this book gives surprised me a little. Oh, of course I didn’t think that the Jesus story was invented out of mythical stories of the ancient world. But – wouldn’t you think that the ancient prophecies of the coming Messiah would be copied into pagan religions over the centuries? In fact, the story of the Messiah is much more different from the stories of the religions around it than I imagined.
This is not a long book, but it’s very academic – lots of “this scholar says this” and “that scholar says that” (you’ve been warned). But if this is a topic you really want to delve into, it’s a great place to start. Ronald Nash has done his homework.
I don’t always buy the author’s approach. But for a believer, the book does shed some interesting light on the evidence that we have for the New Testament. It also helps us to think through what kind of “evidence” we should expect if the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection is true.
You might be surprised to hear about some of the evidence we have for the New Testament books in those (for most of us) murky, unknown days after the apostles died.
Here’s another one to check out. It’s not one of the new ones I read, but one that I read when I first put together the seminar. Although I don’t always agree with the author, it is a very short, easy-to-read overview of the topic. It’s How We Got the Bible by Neil R. Lightfoot.
There you go, I’ve given away a few of my sources. But of course you’ll learn a lot more about the origins of the Old and New Testaments if you take the seminar yourself someday! 😉
Recently I re-read the epistle of Clement to the Corinthians. The letter was probably written shortly after Revelation was written, and the author had likely been an associate of the Apostle Paul. (Although the book is anonymous, the evidence points to Clement, a leader of the Church in Rome and likely the fellow mentioned in Philippians 4:3.)
What I didn’t know about the epistle specifically is that Clement apparently includes over 800 allusions and quotes from the Bible. In fact, about 3/4 of those are from the New Testament.
Now that’s pretty amazing, because the New Testament has just been written. Clement obviously was immersed in both the OT and NT, in order to use all these quotes. Not only that, he expected his readers to catch the quotes (even though he didn’t always mention where they were from)!
I caught a lot of them – probably not all – did the average church member in Corinth know the whole Bible better than me? It makes one think.
This is also another bit of evidence that the majority of the Bible was well known, copied and distributed all over place, read and considered authoritative very early on.
But in the meantime, how about a quote from the epistle itself?
Finally may the all-seeing God and Master of spirits and Lord of all flesh, who chose the Lord Jesus Christ, and us through Him for a peculiar people, grant unto every soul that is called after His excellent and holy Name faith, fear, peace, patience, long-suffering, temperance, chastity and soberness, that they may be well pleasing to His Name through our High priest and Guardian Jesus Christ, through whom to Him be glory and majesty, might and honour, both now and forever and ever. Amen.
. This was without doubt my favourite. The author is Michael J. Kruger, and in the book he discusses the theory that Christianity slowly emerged from a jumbled stew of ideas in the first and second century.
. The author, J. Warner Wallace, was a cold case detective and former atheist. He brings his knowledge of evidence and investigation to the New Testament.
by Neil R. Lightfoot.
)!
, but most of all another by the author of the first book I mentioned, 
. Maybe those two would be useful to you too (although I haven’t read them myself yet).