Scripture Engagement

There is a growing trend in the UK church to equate mission with local evangelism. This worries me for several reasons: It seems to me that God's mission is much broader than evangelism, in that it includes liberating the poor i.e. the whole socio-economic side of mission is left out if we reduce it to evangelism. Exodus. On top of that it ignores the environmental side of God's mission - green ethics. Genesis 1-2. It forgets what is probably the main thing - God's mission is to the nations. That was the whole point of Abraham's calling (the beginning of God' redemptive story). Genesis 12. If we reduce mission to local evangelism we are back to the divide that used to exist between spiritual and physical dimensions (materialism), between one nation and another (nationalism), and between us and the rest of God's creation (anthropocentrism).  As Chris Wright has pointed out, it's not that God has a mission for the church in the world, it's tha...

Often we talk about being 'in God's house' on a Sunday morning. What does the Bible mean when it talks about God's house? In the Old Testament it refers to: Bethel, 'the house of God', a place where Jacob met with God in a dream, and God spoke to Jacob and renewed the covenant he had made with Abraham with him Gen 28:10-22. This place is mentioned frequently throughout the rest of the Old Testament The house built in Shiloh to house the ark of the covenant Jdg 18:31. It may just have been a tent, like the tabernacle, we don't really know, but we do know that the ark was kept in the most holy place, where God's presence was powerfully experienced The temple 1Ki 5; 1Ch 6:48 often referred to as 'the house for Yahweh [the LORD]' rather than 'God's house' 1Ki 6:1, and it was filled with a cloud representing Yahweh's presence 1Ki 8:10, though this wasn't actually where Yahweh lived, as the whole of heaven cannot contain h...

Not much has been thought about Scripture Engagement research. There are two types: Research before starting S.E. work Research to find out how well existing published Scriptures (often print New Testaments) are being used I will focus on the former. It's very tempting to dive into making Scripture Engagement products without really thinking through what the needs are, what works and what doesn't, and what people are likely to respond to. Here are some ideas: Find out whether the culture is honour-shame, power-fear, or purity-pollution. This will help you know how to frame the good news in such a way that people will light up in understanding, assuming the Holy Spirit is at work in their lives. To do that one tool is the culture test , though it doesn't cover purity-pollution as a paradigm Read Wayne Dye's article on the Eight Conditions of Scripture Engagement, then fill out a questionnaire based on that article. Give each condition a rating, then work...