Message from the Pastor

As most of you will know, I am just starting to study a Master of Arts degree in Applied Theology.  This involves studying in detail the content of the Bible, how it fits together and how it stands up to scrutiny and questions regarding its historic and cultural context, literary format and intentions.

I hope I haven’t lost you already, but examining the Bible like this brings up some interesting and profound discoveries.

In the book of Acts the author tells his recipient that this second book of his tells about the disciples of Jesus after He has left the earth.  The beginning of one of the Gospels mentions the same recipient, and is the book we know as the Gospel of Luke.  This same author, Luke, goes on to write about the work of the early Church (ultimately God’s work through it) as a historical account, but then suddenly it gets personal.  In Acts 16:8, when talking about the apostle Paul’s missionary journey, Luke writes: ”So they passed by Mysia and went on to Troas.”(NLT), but then two verses later the text says: “After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.” (Acts 16:10 NLT)

This doesn’t sound like much, but suddenly they became we! It stands to reason that at this point the author Luke joined the party and wrote as a personal eye-witness from then on.  Beforehand he had written about other people’s accounts (Peter, Paul, etc.), but from this point on he was there himself!  The author speaks from personal experience, and sees the workings of God in those momentous times firsthand.  How blessed we are to have these recorded, and how blessed we are to know firsthand and in a personal way the Presence of God as He dwells in us by His Holy Spirit and reveals Himself to us through the wonderfully complex and deep, yet also wonderfully simple message that God’s inspired word, the Bible, gives to us.

  Alan