Saturday, April 25, 2009

excited by bible: updated “training the imagination”

I’m really looking forward to today. It’s Bible day and in few hours, I get to gather with my church community and with other Christians around the Bible. We’re been lead by Paul Trebilco, who is one of New Zealand’s leading Bible scholars and is flying up from Dunedin for the day to be with us. It’s a fantastic opportunity, to sit for 2 hours digging into 1 Peter and what it means for our mission life today, to increase our Bible knowledge and engagement.

Hopefully the technology will work and it will be up as an MP3 down the track as well!

Updated: Bible days are a great thing. Paul Trebilco commented at one point that in 1 Peter, Peter was “training the imagination” so that this new church would live out of the Jesus story.

“Training the imagination.” That’s what we’re trying to do with Bible days. Gathering around Scripture. Taking the original context seriously. Letting Scripture explain Scripture as themes of exile in 1 Peter were traced through the Old Testament. Changing gear to explore wonder what this Bible book might mean for us in Aotearoa in 2009. And from tomorrow, as the lectionary reading takes us into 1 Peter, we have this resource, this richer understanding, which will help us read better.

Over time, Bible day by Bible day, we are building the capacity of the church to engage Scripture and move well between the two horizons of text then and life now. Bring on the next one, 1 Corinthians on Saturday, May 30.

Posted by steve at 02:37 PM

2 Comments

  1. Thanks for Bible days, Steve – adding another great dimension to our life as a congregation! What a privilege to have some of the best Bible teachers in our country brought to our own church to enrich our undestandings of the Word of God. Great to share this with the wider Body of Chrsit in our city too. Really enthusiastic about this venture!

    Comment by Maureen — April 27, 2009 @ 7:32 am

  2. Wasnt’ it great Maureen. And my reading of 1 Peter this week is already so much richer!

    steve

    Comment by steve — April 29, 2009 @ 3:43 pm

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