by Staff | May 15, 2015 | Bible Study, Discipleship, Updates
Our new
FREE eBOOK
Lessons in Christian Living from the Early Church is now available for download.
This book looks at lessons we can learn and apply in our own lives from the history of the early Church as recorded in the Book of Acts. Although not a commentary in the usual sense, The Early Church explains the background to many of the personalities, events, and situations described in Acts, while drawing practical lessons from the story that you can use today.
As with all our eBooks, The Early Church is free and free from advertising or the need to register to download – simply choose the format you would like and start reading!
You can download the book directly here.
by Staff | May 13, 2015 | Updates
It’s almost here! Our new Christian eBook is almost ready for publication and we hope to release it in the next few days. As with all our eBooks, it will be completely free, and you will be able to download it without registration or other complications. What is it about? Check our
Downloads page for a sneak preview!
by R. Herbert | May 10, 2015 | Family, Updates, Women of Strength
A few months ago, the research and polling agency Barna Group published their most important findings from the surveys they conducted in 2014. Those top findings included a fascinating (one among many) survey that looked at the satisfaction and stress levels of mothers – with children still at home – compared to other women.
The image snip below (part of Barna’s graphic summarizing the survey) shows a few of the survey’s findings we felt were particularly interesting. It shows, for example, that while most mothers tend to be a little more dissatisfied with the balance of their work/home life than other women, they are significantly more stressed (80% as opposed to 72% for all women), tired (70% as opposed to 58% for all women), and overcommitted (56% as opposed to 48% for all women).
These statistics are informative and interesting at any time, but they are perhaps especially relevant for us to consider on Mother’s Day. Barna’s research shows clearly and empirically that motherhood does indeed involve sacrifice. The additional stress, tiredness and feeling of over-commitment faced by the majority of mothers is something we need to keep in mind as we celebrate Mother’s Day. All too often the potentially deep appreciation we should all show on Mother’s Day is muted by well-meaning but perhaps inadequate store-bought cards and other forms of ritual acknowledgment.
This is not to say that motherhood does not bring its own rewards. It does, of course, and most mothers are happy to make the sacrifices they do. But when we consider the ongoing and very real nature of the sacrifices made by so many mothers on a day-to-day basis, we should perhaps look at this day a little differently. Barna’s excellent survey reminds us not just to see Mother’s Day as another day on the calendar – like birthdays and anniversaries – to send a card, but to see it the way we should: as a day in which we honor those who so often sacrifice for their families.
You can see the survey and Barna’s other top findings here.
by R. Herbert | May 6, 2015 | Family, Updates
A few months ago we ran an article on “Christian Adoption and Foster Care” which proved very popular and drew a number of positive comments. This month is Foster Care Month in the United States and we decided to bring you a small update in that area.
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, in the United States more than 400,000 children are presently in foster care, and many more children are waiting to be accepted into foster care homes. Some 114,000 children presently in foster care are waiting to be adopted.
If you are interested in fostering a child needing a temporary home (most child welfare agencies cover many of the costs associated with fostering), there is a wealth of information available online regarding Christian fostering. The Christian Alliance for Orphans is only one example, but it is one we feel is particularly helpful with lots of links to further information on fostering as well as adoption. The Alliance unites more than 100 respected Christian organizations and a national network of churches so it can be very helpful in finding contacts in a person’s local area. Another good resource, giving state foster care contacts, is the U.S. government’s National Foster Care Month page.
Also, you may find that there are people in your own church who are already providing foster care or who have adopted or are in the process of doing so. You may find such people invaluable sources of current local information and opportunities.
Even if you are not able to consider fostering or adopting, there are other things you can do to help. We recommend CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) which promotes court-appointed volunteer advocacy to help ensure children in foster care or adoption are safe and properly protected.
If you decide to try foster parenting, or know someone who does, there are many good books available on the subject. One very new book that we have seen and highly recommend is the unique and very helpful What’s a Foster Family? by Anne Garboczi Evans (author) and Helen Cochrane (illustrator), which helps even young children of existing families understand and accept a foster sibling. Published just a couple of months ago, it’s well written and illustrated and perfectly pitched for the children who will be helped by it. In the US It is available here, and those in the UK can find it here.
Finally, if you didn’t already read our full article on “Christian Adoption and Foster Parenting,” and it is of interest, you can read it here.
by R. Herbert | Apr 30, 2015 | Great Commission, Updates
The New Testament Book of Acts contains many fascinating stories of the growth of early Christianity. One of those stories tells of the conversion of an African man from Ethiopia whose coming to belief had great significance for early Christianity – more than we might realize …
“Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Go south to the road – the desert road – that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of the Kandake (which means “queen of the Ethiopians”). This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the Book of Isaiah the prophet. Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. “Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asked. “How can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him …” (Acts 8:26-31).
Reading the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch it is hard for us, as modern readers, to grasp the way in which the story would have been perceived by its original hearers in the early Church.
In the ancient world Ethiopia epitomized the idea of remoteness. The Greek poet Homer spoke of the inhabitants of Ethiopia as the “farthest of men” – the most remote known peoples (Odyssey 1.23), and the term Ethiopia was often used by classical writers to mean all of unknown sub-Saharan Africa – to “the ends of the earth.”
This sense of the exotic and distant land from which the eunuch came was heightened by other details of the story – the fact that the inhabitants of Ethiopia were dark-skinned was exotic in itself. The fact that the man was a eunuch also placed him in a small minority of Jews or Gentile proselytes to the Jewish faith. Even more exceptional was the nature of the eunuch’s position as an important official in a distant land perceived to be “ruled by women” (a number of the Kandake queens ruled Ethiopia during that era). All these factors would have come together in the minds of early Christians to form a very vivid image of a man from the ends of the earth.
We see how these facts would have been perceived when we apply them to the wording of the great commission given by Christ to his disciples before his ascension: “…you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8B). Acts records that commission being fulfilled in Jerusalem (Acts 6:8-8:3), in Judea and Samaria (Acts 8:4-25) and, in the story of the Ethiopian eunuch, to “the ends of the earth” (Acts 8:26-40). That is doubtless why, out of all the thousands of people that were converted at that time (Acts 4:4, etc.), the story of the Ethiopian eunuch was selected to be told in detail. The commission certainly was to take the Gospel to all the Gentile world, not just to Ethiopia, but the early readers of Acts would have immediately recognized in that account how God was working out His purpose and beginning to fulfill His intentions.
There are many exemplary lessons we can see in the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch: the willingness of Philip to follow the Spirit’s prompting to do the work of God, the devotion of the Ethiopian to travel the huge distance to Jerusalem to worship, the humility of the powerful man in the way he asked Philip’s help to understand God’s word, and many more. But a lesson we should not forget is that if we keep in mind the plan and purposes of God, we will see them being fulfilled in and around us if we are observant. If we look for them, we will see the signs of God’s work being done and be strengthened by them, as the word continues to go out to “the ends of the earth.”
by R. Herbert | Apr 19, 2015 | Difficult Scriptures, Service, Updates
“Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ … for each one should carry their own load” (Galatians 6:2-5).On the surface, these two statements of the apostle Paul – only a few words from each other – certainly seem contradictory, but are they?
First, we should recognize that ancient literature often compares and contrasts opposite situations – just as in the biblical proverbs that say “Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you yourself will be just like him” (Proverbs 26:4) and “Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes” (Proverbs 26:5). The two thoughts are complementary, each giving part of the story. Paul frequently uses this same technique of contrasting opposites in his epistles (for example, Philippians 2:12-13, 2 Corinthians 6:8-10, 2 Corinthians 7:10, 2 Corinthians 12:10), and what Paul states in Galatians 6 is complementary in the same way.
When Paul tells us we should carry each other’s burdens then that we must carry our own loads, he uses two slightly different words. The first word, translated “burdens” in verse 2 (Greek baré), always connotes the weight of the burdens and stresses the “burdensome” nature of what is carried. The word translated “load” in verse 5 (phortion) was often applied to the pack carried by a soldier on the march. It can connote something heavy or light, whatever has been assigned to the individual. It is the word Christ used when he said “My yoke is easy, and my load is light” (Matthew 11:30) and when he spoke of the heavy loads the Pharisees placed on their followers (Matthew 23:4).
We see what Paul had in mind regarding the load each one must carry when we look at the immediately preceding verse: “Each one should test their own actions. Then they can take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to someone else” (Galatians 6:4). Paul shows here that rather than comparing ourselves unwisely with others, we should look at our own situations and “test” or check our own standing, because we all stand alone before God in terms of His assessment. Paul is stressing – as he states next – that each person has individual responsibilities that no one else can carry. We must prove own standing before God, as no one can perform our religion or fulfill our beliefs for us. That is the “pack” assigned to us for our march. On the other hand, life has many difficulties and problems that weigh us down, and Paul reminds us that these are burdens we can help each other with.
So, Paul’s meaning is clear. We are all given the responsibilities of our faith to bear in life and these are things we must shoulder and bear willingly as good soldiers on the route march to which we have been called. Yet, if we are walking with God and not entirely by our own strength, as Christ showed, those loads need not be oppressive or heavy. On the other hand, every one of us carries the weight of personal problems and difficulties which are just part of life. We can certainly look to God for extra help in times when those burdens become oppressive – and one of the ways He answers that prayer is through help given us by fellow believers.
We all have a burden we are expected to carry, but the more closely we walk with God the lighter it seems – and the more we are able to help those who need help with their own burdens.
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