By Sandy Grant

The National Director of the Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students (AFES), Richard Chin, has begun preaching through 2 Timothy at our church. When he covered chapter 2, we received a couple of questions. I ended up answering them as the pastor here.

Question: 2 Timothy 2:13-14 says, “if we are faithless, he [Christ] remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself”. Can you explain to whom is God faithful?

Sometimes people have taken verse 13 as saying that even when we sin and let God down (which we all do), God will stick with us. He won't ever let us down. Instead, they suggest that (as verse 13 says) he will remain faithful to us. We might be unreliable, but God won't give up on us.

These thoughts can be comforting, and you can probably find other passages of the Bible to underwrite them (e.g. Rom 5:8-10; 1 John 1:9). Yes, even when we fail again and again, God is willing to forgive us if we repent!

However, I am certain that this is not what 2 Timothy 2:13 is talking about!

Rather than offering assurance despite our continuing struggle with sin, this verse is offering a solemn warning about the dangers of apostasy. (The Macquarie Dictionary defines apostasy as “a total desertion of, or departure from, one's religion, principles, party, cause”.) I'll see if I can explain. It becomes more obvious when you print the verse in its context (using the NIV):

2:11	Here is a trustworthy saying:
	If we died with him,
	we will also live with him;
2:12	if we endure,
	we will also reign with him.
	If we disown him,
	he will also disown us;
2:13	if we are faithless,
	he will remain faithful,
	for he cannot disown himself.

You'll notice from the layout that this section of Paul's letter to Timothy seems to be quoting a common Christian saying, or perhaps an early Christian hymn. You can tell this by the indented layout in the English translations. But you can also tell it has a poetic style by noticing the so-called parallelism.

In English, basic poetry most often uses rhyme. But poetry from biblical times often uses parallelism. The most basic form of parallelism is where the same thing is said in two slightly different ways. The ideas run in parallel! That's exactly what's going on in verses 11-13.

Let's see if we can outline the pattern.

v. 11B	If we died with him (i.e. Christ)	something good by us, then
v. 11C	we will also live with him	something good for us from Christ
v. 12A	If we endure	something good by us, then
v. 12B	we will also reign with him	something good for us from Christ
v. 12C	If we disown him	something bad by us, then
v. 12D	he will also disown us	something bad for us from Christ
v. 13A	If we are faithless,	something bad by us, then
v. 13B	he will remain faithful ...

The pattern should be pretty clear. There are two positive actions by Christians followed by two positive outcomes for us. Then there are two negative actions by us. The pattern suggests that if the first of these is followed by a bad outcome for us, then the second should also be followed by a bad outcome for us.

By the parallel between verse 12D and verse 13B, we ought to understand “he [i.e. Christ] will remain faithful” as meaning something bad for us—that is, Jesus disowning us. Verse 13C confirms this when it gives the reason for the prior statement: Christ cannot disown himself.

That is, the answer to the original question is that Christ will be faithful to himself—to his own character and promises, rather than to those who are faithless.

In this context, by the parallel, we can now also see that us being faithless (v. 13A) means disowning Christ (v. 12C). In other words, it's talking about the very particular sin of apostasy—the public and settled denial of Christ—rather than the general fact that Christians continue to struggle with sin and failure this side of heaven.

This fits the context of the letter where Paul is urging Timothy to “not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me [Paul] his prisoner”, even if it means suffering for the gospel (2 Tim 1:8). In contrast, we discover that “all who are in Asia turned away from [Paul], among whom are Phygelus and Hermogenes” (1:15; see also 4:10, 4:16). Denying the gospel of Jesus and betraying those who preach him is the big temptation.

This also matches up with the sobering warning of the Lord Jesus himself in Mark 8:38: “For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”.

(By the way, I discovered my understanding of this verse was confirmed by an excellent book on how to understand the Bible: Dig Deeper: Tools for Understanding God's Word by Nigel Benyon and Andrew Sach. You can read the particular reference, courtesy of the publisher, Crossway. You can also browse information about the book and all 16 of its tools for good Bible reading here. I recommend it highly.)

By Claire Smith

According to TS Eliot, you know you're old when you wear the bottoms of your trousers rolled.¹ But in Christian circles, it seems, you know you're old when you start thinking older people haven't passed their use-by date. It would appear that I'm old, and perhaps that's why I'm noticing just how much ageism has snuck into our ministry mindset and fellowships.

Just recently, I've been hearing about women's conferences that will have no-one older than 45 on the platform. I've been hearing about a website that was dismissed because “no-one wants to listen to two old blokes talking”. I've been hearing about conference organisers being disappointed at the number of grey-haired delegates, and seen women's Bible study groups that are more interested in recruiting young mums than older saints. And I have been guilty of similar thinking.

Now, there is some wisdom in the homogeneous unit principle, which targets specific subcultures with culturally specific ministry (cf. 1 Cor 9:19-23). But while that makes good ministry sense when it comes to ethnic or interest-based subcultures (and, arguably, this should be a mission-strategy, rather than a fellowship-shaping ideology), we are robbing ourselves of something rich and vital if it is allowed to marginalize or segregate different age groups in our churches.

Despite modern attempts of medical intervention, age (like gender) is one of those unchangeable aspects of personhood. (Well, our age changes, but we can't resist the change!) Age is a God-given part of human identity, and it brings a richness to our Christian fellowship that is also God-given.

Although the gradual creep of death is a consequence of the curse, long life is still a blessing from God (Prov 3:16, 10:27; Isa 65:20)—and long life spent knowing Jesus is valuable time spent serving him (Phil 1:21-24). While youth does not disqualify people from ministry (Job 32:1-9; 1 Tim 4:12; Titus 2:1-2), teaching eldership is usually for those who are ‘elder’ (1 Tim 3:2-6; Titus 1:6; 1 Pet 5:1-5)! Moreover, we are explicitly told that older women are to teach and model what is good to younger women (Titus 2:3-5), and there is nothing to suggest that older men are not to do the same for younger men (cf. 1 Pet 5:3b). Indeed, only the fool despises the wisdom of age (Prov 4:1-4, 23:22).

But we lose something even richer if we are ministry-minded ageists: we lose the blessing of knowing, learning from and being loved by our new grandmothers and grandfathers, mothers and fathers, and brothers and sisters in the Lord who became our closest kin when we followed Jesus (Mark 10:29-30). And if it is a disgrace for us to deny our blood relatives (Mark 7:11-12; 1 Tim 5:8), how much more serious an offence would it be for us to despise the contribution of those for whom Christ died—those whom he has given us as a gift for growth of his church!

¹ ‘The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock’.

By Jean Williams

All our temptations are garden temptations.

I don't usually talk much about gardening when I lead Bible studies, but recently during our study on Genesis 3, I asked, “What does the Garden of Eden show us about God?”

The answer? God is abundantly generous. He didn't give Adam and Eve a dry loaf and a cup of water; he gave them a beautiful garden brimming with varied, wonderful fruitful plants to eat and enjoy (Gen 2:9).

And what was God's word to the people he'd made? “Eat! Eat freely from every tree in the garden!”¹ There was only one tree they weren't to eat from, and that was “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Gen 2:16-17). In other words, the only thing they weren't to do was to rip God's authority away from him, and decide good and evil for themselves.

But that's not the way Eve saw it.

“Did God really say ...?”, said the serpent. You can hear the unstated question: “What was God thinking?! Why is he withholding this good thing from you?” (Gen 3:1).

What's Eve's answer? “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die’” (Gen 3:2-3²). She changes God's generous “We are free to eat fruit from any tree”, to the grudging “We may eat fruit from the trees”. She changes God's protective command—“You must not eat”—to the restrictive: “You must not touch”. And as for “you will die”, “No you won't”, whispers the serpent's lie (Gen 3:4-5).

God gives us good things, but we want the one thing he hasn't given us. God gives us guidelines, but we fence them around with legalistic restrictions. God warns us, but we repress his warnings. God is lavishly generous, but we see him as grudging.

Driving home from the Bible study, it occurred to me that I imitate my mother Eve every time I sin. God gives me so many good things. But I can't see his generosity. All I can see is the thing he hasn't given me.

He gives me the precious ministry of teaching and training our children; I want the glory of a more public, recognized ministry! He gives me food and possessions; I want more than is good for me—more than we can afford! He gives me a secure home and a loving family; I want a husband who treats me like that woman's husband, children who act more like that woman's children and a beautiful house like that woman's house!

In the back of my mind, God is a grudging tyrant who is trying to keep good things from me. The result is foolish idolatry, unwise decisions and grumpy service. The result is discontent, envy, despondency, anger, anxiety and fear. The result is broken relationships and shame.

God is no grudging tyrant; God is abundantly generous. God isn't trying to keep good things from me. In all that happens, God wants only my good (Rom 8:28-30). God isn't trying to restrict my happiness; God's ways are good ways.

Next time I'm tempted, Lord, help me to see things the way they really are!

¹ The NIV says “freely”; the ESV says “surely”. In the original, it's the emphatically generous “eating you do eat”.

² Gordon Wenham observes that Eve changes God's words—“You may freely eat of every garden tree”—to the less generous “We may eat of the fruit ...” (Word Biblical Commentary, Vol. 1: Genesis 1-15, Thomas Nelson, Nashville, 1987, p. 73).

By Lionel Windsor

In this fifth and final instalment of his five-part series, Lionel Windsor reveals what the solution to Psalm 8 has done about the problem of death. (Read parts 1, 2, 3 and 4.)

We've been looking at Psalm 8 and Hebrews 2, and have discovered that Jesus provides the solution to the puzzle of Psalm 8.

Where do we see Jesus? We see him in the Gospels, those records and witnesses to Jesus' life, death on the cross and resurrection from the dead. The Gospels form the first four books of our New Testaments. And as we look at this man Jesus Christ in those Gospels, we see something very significant: we actually see (if we look at this testimony closely) that God himself became human: Jesus, the Son of God.

This is the reason that we are important to God. It's because God actually became one of us. God, the creator and designer—the one who is far above and beyond even the 70 sextillion stars—the one whose hands hold the universe—the one for whom and by whom this same universe exists—became human. He became one of us—one of the specks of dust—one of the small, pitiful creatures. He became a baby and grew. And he did it “because of the suffering of death” (Heb 2:9b).

Just as our very existence and value in this universe is a real problem, so too is the fact that suffering and death is also a problem. The Bible doesn't give us final and neat reasons for suffering and death—especially when it comes to individual cases. But it does tell us that suffering and death are all finally bound up with our rejection of God himself. The fact that we have abandoned our responsibility and ceased to live as God desires means that we are subject to death.

Death is not the way the world should be. It's wrong. You will know this if you have ever experienced the death of a loved one, relative or friend, as well as thought about your own impending death. But the Bible says that death is all bound up with this terrible reality—the reality that we, as individuals and as a race, have taken our importance for granted and have used it to pretend that we are God, choosing to define our own lives. Death is, in the end, God's judgement against our rejection of him—our abandonment of who we are, our ignoring of him and our playing God ourselves. Death now; death forever.

But what has Jesus done about death? Again, take a look at the same verse: “so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone” (Heb 2:9c). God's Son became one of us because of God's grace—his lavish, undeserved love for us. The reason you matter to the God who made the countless stars and supernovas is not because you're big or good or important to the running of the universe; it's simply because he decided to love you. And he showed his love in an incredible way: Jesus, in becoming one of us, tasted death for us. Although he was God himself, the perfect human being, he also suffered. He died. He died, in fact, an agonizing death on a Roman cross. And he did it for us, in our place.

What does that mean for us? “For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering” (Heb 2:10). Jesus died to bring us back to God. Because Jesus has suffered the consequences of God's judgement, we don't need to face God's final judgement against us. Because Jesus died, he has made us ‘sons’, which means heirs—children of God. Those who trust Jesus—those who belong to Jesus—will have ‘salvation’, which means escape from God's judgement—escape, in the end, from death itself.

Jesus died to bring us to glory—to finally ‘crown us with glory and honour’, as the song goes (Ps 8:5). This means everlasting life in a new creation that God will make—a place where there is no suffering or death, where there is no judgement from him, where we live rightly as God's children and where we will know him finally and perfectly.

Jesus, who has suffered and been made perfect, has risen from the dead and is now alive. He himself is crowned with glory and honour. One day those who trust in him and know him will see him as he is.

What is your response to this? Do you know Jesus? Do you trust Jesus? Do you believe that the riddle of our existence is actually found, not in yourself, but in him?

If you've just joined us, in these Saturday posts we've been looking at classics from The Briefing archive on the Holy Spirit. First we learned about the signs and wonders ministry of John Wimber. Last week, we looked at the issue of Christian experience and what the Holy Spirit has to do with it. This week, John Woodhouse lays the foundations for how we should think about Christian experience:

In the first of these articles, we looked at the current confusion surrounding the topic of Christian experience. We noted that there is confusion about what counts as Christian experience; about what authority experience should possess; and about the place of the Holy Spirit in Christian experience (and vice versa). We concluded that there is even confusion about how the very subject of theology and experience should relate. So if you finished the first of these articles feeling somewhat confused, then I can only claim to have been successful thus far.

In this article, I will attempt to get beyond the confusion to some clarity. But where to begin?

The wrong starting point

As I’ve already suggested, much of the muddle regarding Christian experience begins at the starting point—the wrong starting point, that is. Much of what we hear and read about this subject starts with, and is preoccupied by, the reported experiences of Christians. If we want to understand the nature of Christian experience, it is argued, then let us begin by analyzing what Christians have actually experienced.

This approach has its highbrow exponents in theologians such as Schleiermacher, who began his inquiry by studying Christian piety. Indeed, the substance of his theological work was to describe and explain the nature of Christian piety, even though this eventually led him to a theology that was basically pantheistic.

At a more popular level, this is also the problem with much of John White’s recent writing and teaching. He has become fascinated with the phenomenon of revival, and has used his skills as a clinical psychiatrist to analyze the experiences of Christians in the great revivals. He has tried to determine whether the experiences of various contemporary Christian movements qualify them to be seen as revivals. Notice that he focuses on the experiences of the Christians concerned, and argues out from there. At various points (such as in his book, When the Spirit Comes with Power), he argues that certain experiences are simply inexplicable in psychological or other terms, and therefore must be attributed to the work of the Holy Spirit. John White acknowledges that this approach is liable to lead to a Holy-Spirit-of-the-gaps problem, but this doesn’t seem to stop him from falling into precisely this error.

Ultimately, nothing is to be gained by this sort of analysis (cf. 2 Cor 12:1). It fails because you cannot deduce the cause of an effect by looking only at the effect. You cannot understand a relationship by looking only at one side of it. Introspection (looking inwardly at our own experience) is therefore not an adequate or reliable means of understanding Christian experience.

There are numerous examples of this tendency in Christian circles today—most notably people’s penchant for labelling activities as ‘in the Spirit’. We have laughing in the Spirit, the silence of the Spirit, the weeping of the Spirit, slaying in the Spirit—perhaps speculating in the Spirit might be added to the list. The experience has been interpreted by looking primarily at the experience and not to the supposed author of the experience. I suggest that this will not lead to any useful or reliable conclusion.

Read the rest of the article online (3,703 words).

By Lionel Windsor

In the fourth instalment of a five-part series, Lionel Windsor uncovers the answer to the riddle. (Read parts 1, 2 and 3.)

We've been looking at Psalm 8, and we've seen the puzzle it presents us with. On the one hand, we are nothing compared to the majestic God who created the universe. On the other hand, God tells us that we are important—that we are created for a purpose in this world.

You know that you and your actions matter, don't you? You know that what you do or say, how you treat the world and how you treat other people actually matters, don't you? You know that some things are right and that some things are wrong, don't you? You know that you will face death one day, like everyone else, and that there's something scary and horrible about that. What are you going to do about it?

One possibility is that you could just ignore the whole issue. You could just decide that it's enough to eat, drink and enjoy life as much as you can, minimizing pain as much as possible and maybe along the way, doing great things, loving, laughing and crying, and then dying. You could buy, read and act on Dave Freeman's book 100 Things to Do Before You Die—carve out your own meaning, define your existence.

But is that really enough? History is littered with the corpses of individuals who have died and suffered under dictators who decided they wanted to define the meaning of their own existence. Maybe you will never be an evil dictator—maybe you will never try to live in a way that hurt anyone. And yet, if you're honest—if I'm honest, I know I have hurt people. Deeply. Despite the fact that I want to pretend that I can run my life the way I want without any consequences, I also know the guilt of my failures, the pain I've cause by my selfish actions and the evil in my heart. And I know that my existence, no matter how full of food and drink and life and love, is not, in the end, going to matter when I die and dissolve into the dust from which I came. I also know that this matters too, somehow.

Back to the song and the riddle of the song. God is great. His creation is enormous. In all of this, what is man? Who am I? Who are you? Why am I so important?

Fast forward hundreds of years.

The claim of the Bible is that this riddle—this puzzle—does have an answer—a profound and great answer. It's there in the words of the New Testament—where a Christian (that is, someone who knows Jesus Christ) can read the words of the song that we ourselves have just read and not only sees the problem, but also the answer:

It has been testified somewhere,

“What is man, that you are mindful of him,
    or the son of man, that you care for him?
You made him for a little while lower than the angels;
    you have crowned him with glory and honor,
    putting everything in subjection under his feet.”

(Heb 2:6-8a)

Here's that song—that problem—that age-old issue of our importance: “What is man?” And then, just to make sure we're all on the same page, our Christian author highlights the particular problem he sees: “Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him” (Heb 2:8b)

We might believe that we have a God-given purpose and responsibility to our lives in this world. But we don't actually see it. When we look up, we still see those majestic and distant heavens. The original Hebrew song speaks of the greatness of stars—the heavenly lights. Here in this letter to the Hebrews, it's expressed in terms of angels, heavenly superpowers. But in either case, the point is the same: God is above it all, and we don't and can't see with our eyes why and how God should care for us.

And then, when we look around, we don't see human beings living responsibly, caring for God's world or for each other, or acting rightly as agents of God's loving rule, do we. We just see ourselves, trying to define our own existence, hurting and being hurt, loving and hating and dying.

But there is something else—somebody else—who we do see, in verse 9: “But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor” (Heb 2:9a). Whom do we actually see? What is the piece of evidence that should make us turn around and take notice? We see Jesus. This is the Bible's claim; this is the difference and the answer.

To be continued …

We at Matthias Media have recently made available a free and downloadable discussion guide for Col Marshall and Tony Payne's The Trellis and the Vine. Download it from our Australian or North American store.

Released in only December last year, The Trellis and the Vine is currently undergoing its fourth printing, which will bring the total number of copies printed to over 55,000. This makes it the most successful book we've published in our 22-year history.

But it's not just the quantity of sales that's exciting; what really excites us is what people are saying to us about the content. The Trellis and the Vine calls for a radical re-think of the priorities of church ministry. So far, most of those buying the book are pastors, and the reaction has been extremely good. They see the biblical truth of what's being said, and they are being challenged to rethink what they're doing. In particular, Col Marshall and Tony Payne call upon them to focus on people more than on programs and structures. Providing that kind of help and challenge to so many people—well, that's why we do what we do here at Matthias Media.

We hope that the release of this discussion guide will facilitate church members talking together about the issues the book raises and the changes they might need to make in their fellowship and in their own lives.

By Lionel Windsor

In the third instalment of a five-part series, Lionel Windsor discovers we humans are significant in the universe after all. (Read parts 1 and 2.)

We've been looking at Psalm 8 and have discovered that stargazing should make us wonder why God the creator should have anything to do with us.

At this point, if you were sceptical about the existence of the creator himself, I could point you to proofs of a designer in the universe. For example, I could use the ‘fine-tuning’ argument for the existence of God—the fact that there are over 20 fundamental physical constants in the universe that all work together to make the universe work as it does, and that can't be explained as a coincidence—at least, not yet. If any one of these constants had been a tiny bit different, life couldn't appear. For example, if the force of gravity was even slightly different by a colossally tiny factor (1 part in 10⁴⁰), no life-supporting stars could exist. Or I could talk about the statistical improbability of life itself emerging—the fact that even a small protein has 10⁹⁵ possible folding combinations, and the chances of a protein folding by accident into a functional life-conducive shape during the lifetime of the universe is something like 1 in 10⁶⁵.

But then you might come back with an answer—the multiverse. Do you know about the multiverse? The multiverse is a philosophical theory, born out of reflection on cosmology and quantum theory. It's the idea that we are just one out of a gigantic number of different possible universes. The multiverse is a way to solve the problem of the fine-tuning of the universe. Since there's such a huge or infinite number of possible universes, it's no problem that our universe just happens to exist by chance—a universe with impossibly fine-tuned life-supporting physical constants, where proteins folded in just the right way. The multiverse is an act of faith; it's not a scientific hypothesis in the strict sense. There is no scientific evidence for the multiverse; in fact, there's no experimental test that anyone has conceived that could possibly prove it or disprove it. It's a philosophy that tries to solve the apparent design of the universe without resorting to a designer. The multiverse theory is complex, physically and philosophically, and it seems to me to be the last resort of the desperate. But if you're philosophically committed to atheism, that's what you've got at your disposal at the moment.

But actually there's a bigger problem with my proofs for a designer. You see, even if my arguments for the existence of a cosmic designer were true and irrefutable, and even if you believed them, what does that actually prove? That there is a great designer—a purpose—to the universe doesn't say anything about you and me.

Let's assume for the sake of argument that there is a great grand design to the existence of the 70 sextillion-plus stars out there. Say there is some grand 13-billion-year-old design to it all, and that God the creator is behind it all. So what? What on earth would that have to do with you, your life, your relationships, your joys, your sorrows, your acts of kindness, your feelings of guilt at those evil things you've said and thought and done, your goals, your children, your ethics, your conviction that it's wrong to hurt and right to love, and your death as you dissolve back into the dust you came from? What is that to God? Why does that matter at all in this gigantic universe?

Yet this is the question of our poet, as the song continues:

Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
    and crowned him with glory and honor.
You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;
    you have put all things under his feet,
all sheep and oxen,
    and also the beasts of the field,
the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea,
    whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

(Ps 8:5-8)

This is actually a real puzzle—a problem—the crisis of the song—that this God, the one who made the heavens for some reason, deliberately and personally sees you and me as important. You and I are a key part of his creation. We (as the song says) are “crowned … with glory and honor”. We are rulers. We have dominion.

These words ‘rule’ and ‘dominion’ recall the words of Genesis 1-2. They are used to describe the reality that humans are put on the earth by God himself to care for it, not to exploit it for our own ends. It's a statement of our glory and our responsibility, not a statement of our God-given right to use the world any way we want. Our poet in this biblical song recalls these words to express wonder at the fact that we specks of dust are somehow glorious in God's eyes. The evidence of the stars suggests that we are nothing, but God himself, the creator of the stars, says we are something. We have been made by God for a purpose in this world: we have responsibility. We have responsibility to God to do what is right—to rule the works of God's hands. And, as the rest of the Bible points out, we have a responsibility to live rightly in our relationships with each other—to honour God, to care for his world, to care for each other, to live under his loving rule.

But that's the problem. That's the puzzle. How is it that such a great creator—such a great and super-powerful supreme being—has given us specks of dust this responsibility?

Verse 9 gives us no answer:

O Lord, our Lord,
    how majestic is your name in all the earth!

The song ends where it began. It hasn't solved the puzzle; it has just expressed it. God is great in the earth, and somehow, for some reason, we are important to him.

To be continued …

By Jean Williams

I teach Sunday School for children regularly, but I don't always have the time and energy to write my own lessons. So last year I found myself in the market for Sunday School material.

Thanks to a friend trawling through the shelves at a Christian bookshop, what I discovered was kids@church, put out by Youthworks in conjunction with CEP. (In Britain, it's published as Click by The Good Book Company). I suspect that lots of churches in Sydney are familiar with this material, but many other churches aren't.

kids@church is a complete nine-year Sunday School syllabus for preschool and primary school children. It consists of Serious Play (which is for children aged 3 to 5), Adventure (which is for children aged 5 to 7) and Over the Top (which is for for children aged 8 to 11. This is the one I tested). For each age group, there's 12 sets of 10 lessons—one set for each school term—which cover the big story of Scripture in three years. Each term's lessons can be purchased separately, with no pesky subscriptions. In a single term, you'll need one reasonably priced teacher's manual (which includes 10 lesson plans, visual aids and a child's component) and enough child's components (take-home booklets) for your group.

During term 4 last year, I taught Ephesians and Revelation to our Sunday School using Preparing for Jesus' Coming, an Over the Top booklet for children aged 8 to 11. Here's what I liked about kids@church:

• It's thoroughly biblical. The exegesis is excellent. (There was only one lesson out of 10 that I had quibbles with.) It's been written and edited by a panel that includes respected names like Kirsten Birkett.
• It teaches the Bible in a clear and interesting way. I occasionally added to a Bible teaching time that I thought could be a little more interesting (for example, I ‘drew’ the story of Saul on the road to Damascus), but mostly this was unnecessary.
• It covers the full story of the Bible. If you were to run this material from year to year, the children would get a good overview of the Bible story and how it all hangs together, and then you would review this as they moved from age group to age group.
• It deals with parts of the Bible that Sunday School material often avoids. I chose the lessons on Ephesians and Revelation for this very reason! Most Sunday School material focuses on Bible narrative, but avoids the theologically dense parts of Scripture. I want to teach children how to handle all of the Bible. I want to teach them sound doctrine, not just Bible stories.
• It tackles challenging theological issues, while staying sensitive to children's level of understanding. For example, the lesson on Ephesians 1:3-14 talks clearly about what it means to be ‘chosen’ (predestined) by God to be part of his family.
• It teaches memory verses well. I was very impressed with the variety of methods used to teach memory verses, and I'll be using these methods in future!
• It's engaging. Games, treasure hunts, posters, dramas, crafts, murals, maps—I was very impressed by the range of activities at the start of each lesson, which are designed to grab the children's attention and introduce the lessons' themes. It was good to have several activities to choose from. In each lesson, there's also an excellent list of suggested songs from well-known kids' CDs related to the lesson's theme.
• It's age-appropriate. I found the material for eight to 11-year-olds to be well pitched to this age group. This is typical; I'm currently using some other CEP material for a range of ages (Kids Plus) and it's carefully and cleverly adapted to different stages of understanding.
• It's well-organized and easy to use. It took me a week or so to get used to the layout (as with all new material!), but I soon found it clear, easy to follow, and suitable for teaching from and referring to during the class. The list of ‘gear’ to take each week was helpful, and the ‘photocopiables’ were well-designed and easy to reproduce.

There wasn't much about kids@church that I didn't like. But here are a few small complaints:

• The visual aids (mainly posters) are small and not particularly impressive. (I found the picture of the risen Christ off-putting!) We often chose to create our own posters together instead.
• The take-home booklets: the children found these small black and white booklets a little boring. However, it was good to have something for them to work on at the end of each lesson that they could take home at the end of term.
• A lack of craft ideas: only one lesson included traditional Sunday School crafts. Even if we didn't use them each week, it would have been good to have some more ideas for crafts at the end of each lesson.
• The Bible translation used is the CEV (Contemporary English Version). While this is a matter of preference, I find the International Children's Bible/New Century Version to be more reliable, if a little less readable.

I'll be using kids@church again! While I wouldn't want to use one Sunday School syllabus all the time (I think the children and teachers would get a little bored!), kids@church would be at the top of my list if I was looking for a single syllabus. With it, I'd be confident that our children were learning the complete story of the Bible in a doctrinally sound and interesting way. Because each set of 10 lessons stands on its own, you can also teach kids@church for a single term, as I did.

If you're looking for Sunday School material that is biblical, theologically sound, clear, usable, engaging and fun for kids, kids@church is well worth a look!

I mentioned in my last Saturday post that for the next little while, we would be looking at articles from The Briefing archive on the Holy Spirit as a precursor to our April issue on the topic.

Today we delve into the area of experience and the Holy Spirit. John Woodhouse in Briefing #85 attempts to cut through the confusion:

There is something of a crisis among many Christians today over the question of ‘experience’. If not a crisis, there is at least much confusion and uncertainty—a fascination and a longing—perhaps even a vacuum. This goes back some time.

Do you remember the remarkable welcome afforded to JI Packer's Knowing God back in the 70s? It seemed to have an impact quite unlike any other recent Christian book. And I am sure that this is partly because of its experiential emphasis. The title of the book is not God, but refers to an experience: Knowing God.

This article will be what theologians call a ‘prolegomena’ and what ordinary people call an ‘introduction’. I want to make sure that you are itching in the places that I plan to scratch in the second article (appearing in the next Briefing issue). In this article, I first plan to map some of the confused territory we face today—not at this stage offering a path through the bewildering jungles, but first pointing out where they lie, what shape they take and some of the wildlife that inhabit them. I will also discuss why ‘experience’ matters for Christianity and why it is important to chart a path through the confusion.

1. Mapping the confusion

What is an ‘experience of God’?

The confusion starts with the very word ‘experience’. What are the characteristics of a Christian ‘experience’? What is an ‘experience’ of God?

Some people use the word very narrowly and specifically. A Christian friend said to me recently, “I have never had a spiritual experience in my life”. This person was being very honest, but since I know him well, I know that he was using the word ‘experience’ in a very restricted sense. In much the same sense, some Christians accuse other Christians these days of being ‘against experience’ or ‘anti-experiential’.

Others of us, however, find this rather confusing. How can you be ‘anti-experience’? It's like being accused of being ‘anti-existence’. The problem is that ‘experience’ is such a general word—such a broad category. It can include virtually all events of human consciousness. We could dispel some of the confusion if we could be more specific, and I will attempt to do so in due course. For now, let us simply note that there is confusion about the extent or nature of the whole subject of ‘experience’.

Christianity in an experiential age

Even if there is confusion about the meaning of ‘experience’, there is undoubtedly much emphasis and interest in ‘experience’ in contemporary Christianity. Some plausibly relate this to cultural factors:

In comparison with recent centuries, the latter half of the twentieth century has emphasised the desire and right of man to experience for himself, that is to receive knowledge through direct sensory perception, through feeling … It is on this basis, rather than on the basis of received traditions and wisdom, or reason or of objective facts, that perceptions are formed and interpretations of life are founded. ‘I know’ or ‘I think’ has been replaced by ‘I feel’. The objective has had to make way for the subjective and man has become preoccupied with the inward quest for self-fulfilment. (Derek Tidball in Christian Experience in Theology and Life, Rutherford House, p. 1.)

In light of this, it is not surprising to find Christians themselves reflecting on their Christian experience. Christian dialogue with non-Christians frequently focuses on Christian experience, because the non-Christian is interested in experience. The non-Christian may want to know, for example, why the Christian thinks that his experience is superior or more authentic. If the appeal of the New Age Movement is largely experiential—if our age craves authentic ‘experiences’—then there is certainly strong motivation to express the gospel in experiential terms. Most of us would say that the gospel can speak to a guilt-ridden age, or to an age seeking the meaning of life. But what has the gospel to say to an age that craves experience?

Read the rest of the article online (3,653 words).