Like one puzzle piece on its own tells us very little. We can assume what the puzzle picture is.  But until we get a snapshot picture from the puzzle box, we wont see where the small piece fits in, or what part it plays in the bigger picture.

Biblical Theology is the framework for the Big Picture of what the Bibles all about. We can think of the Big picture of the Bible as God’s plan to redeem his people and the world he has made.

Craig Bartholomew has written (2004:12), “The Bible … is a unified and progressively unfolding drama of God’s action in history for the salvation of the whole world”. So at the centre of the plan is the person Jesus Christ.  The Bible is all about Jesus!

Luke 24:27 “ … beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures (i.e. The Old Testament) concerning himself”, and again (Luke 24:44) “Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms (i.e. in the Old Testament).”

We can think of the Old Testament as a big neon sign (Vegas style) pointing back to creation and forward to Jesus. And the New Testament as a big neon sign pointing back to Jesus and forward to the new creation. The Old Testment has a lot of promises. Which then come true ( Are Fulfilled) in the New Testament.

For more on What is Biblical Theology? By Ross Anderson

Bruce Nygaard who works with the Navigators on UCT Campus shared with us for 3 weeks on lifestyle Evangelism. He shared a number of biblical motivations for our enthusiasm and encouragement to continue to plant words of truth in our friends, neighbours and families lives. His focus was to persuade us from scripture to actively see ourselves all as evangelists in the times and places God has put us in. Through the Holy Spirit, he awakened in us a sense of Gods plans and purposes to use us through prayer in our everyday spheres of relationships and influences.

Here are some of the practical tips drawn out from the series.

Evangelism takes different forms.

It is incredibly important to pay attention to the form that is working best in our present day and bearing lasting fruit. Bruce stressed some of the dangers of seeing evangelism as merely an event, and us thinking that suffering disgrace for the gospel is having your Church invitation refused.

Bruce reminded us that the two forms of evangelism are Reaping and Sowing

Reaping is what most of our Churches are good at. Spotting an opportunity to create a gathering where we can bring people to hear the gospel. While Bruce mentioned this as an effective tool for evangelism, he mentioned that it becomes defective if not combined with a radical plan of sowing. Sowing would be all the necessary word ministry in a persons life before the point that reaping (conversion) is able to take place.

It may even be dishonest to expect someone to entrust their entire life to someone they don’t know

 Asking someone to entrust their life to King Jesus more often than not requires patience and persistence. People today are becoming more and more unfamiliar with the God of the Bible.

This is where relational evangelism is so key in the entire process

 Its our responsibility to steward and build relationships in trust and closeness with the people God made and loves. Through the Spirits wisdom and guidance, it reaches the tipping point where we ourselves introduce them to the Jesus of the Bible. Bruce reminded us that in some cases it had been years of reading the Bible with someone before they crossed the line of faith. The ultimate goal of every relationship is to read through a gospel with them and to use the Bible as the tool for creating faith.

Introducing people to Jesus rather than our Church

It is crucially important to keep the priority in the relationship to introducing people to Jesus rather than to our specific Church. Already by making friends with you, they are being introduced to the Church. We are not making converts to our specific Church, but to the body of Christ. Non Christians can sniff motive a mile away and if our objective is to prop up our church attendance, we are on a slippery slope of having zero effectiveness in evangelism.

Don’t pounce on people like a cat

Bruce shared some great stories of how not to do things. I believe we need to understand the psychology of how people work. We don’t like salesman pouncing on us with events and promises. We need to respect people’s space in the sowing process. Bruce suggested that we empathise with peoples difficulties with the claims of Christianity. He encouraged us not to feel the need to answer every question immediately, but to create mystery and suspense with our unbelieving friends. One way of doing this would be to reply to a question by saying: “That’s a good question. We should chat about it again sometime, but I need to be somewhere now. Maybe another time.”

Natural relationship development

Bruce stressed the need to allow natural relationships to shoot, bud and flourish, like every other human relationship. When you go on a date with someone. Your intention is not to propose immediately, but to earn another date. And then to earn a second and a third. We should be seeking to earn the right for people to listen to us and hear our gospel. Because it is the power of God to save all who will believe.

Questions Ever-Ever Land

1. If Jesus is God then how can Jesus be sitting on the right hand side of God? (Danni)
2. At first I thought that Heaven was going to be a huge sky scraper high up in the sky made of gold, copper, silver, ruby, saphyer and diamond, but when I went to the Gods city room, and they told me that heaven was going to be a like cape town but just better. that is not going to have any sin. But I was hoping that it was going to be a huge field with trees, hills streams and grass. So now I’m confused? (Simon)
3. Can fruit heal itself? (Wendy)
4. What if you fall will you laugh or what? (Wendy)
5. Will there be one way Kids in heaven? (Wendy)
6. Who made questions? (wendy)
7. One kid wrote for Gods king what he learnt about heaven is that theres war?? (Dylan B)
8.  Who made God? (Nicole Botha)
9. Can you get married in heaven? (kurt)
10. Is there bicycles in heaven? (kurt)
11. Is there cars in Ever-Ever land? (JP)
12. Will we fly in heaven? (Devon)
13. Can we get pie there? (Liam )
14. What would the world be like if adam and eve never sinned? (Danni)
15. How is God gonna talk to everyone if there are so many people in heaven? (Danni)
16. Do you get old in heaven or do you stay the same age? (Adon)
17. Is there any trick bikes in heaven? (Luke)
18. Do you get old in heaven? (luke)
19. Will there be PsP’s and animals in heaven? (Tristan)
20. Will there be technology in heaven? (Garyn)

We’ll be attempting to answer some of these next week in our Q+A session with the kids.

The author spends a large part of the book analysing why people like Bill Gates, the Beatles, the director of Google, the National Ice Hockey squad etc. ended up where they were.

The author is a brilliant writer and fair in his analysis of the statistics. It left me analysing my own personal history and reverse mapping my life to see where influences and effects changed the path of my future. It is humbling to read this book because we often look at really successful people and wonder what the X Factor was that they had and we didn’t, but this book leads us to believe that theres many more factors at play in success from what month you born in the year, to what decade you were born, to whether your father was a garment maker etc.

While the Author is not a Christian writer, his arguments supports one of my Christian beliefs in the sovereignty of God. God has decided the times and places in which we live and everything in our life can ultimately be traced back to his sovereign “Controlling hand” working behind the scenes of our lives.

Rudi Swart did a great job in preparing our camp material taking us through the Bible Book of Romans showing us what the gospel is. Our aim for this years camp was to share the basics of the gospel in an easy and understandable way for all. So that unbelieving children would put their faith in Christ and so believing children could know they don’t have to ever be ashamed of the gospel.

Gladiators was our theme this year and so it was a laugh to see Grade 5 boys acting like Russell Crowe from the movie Gladiator for most of the weekend. As always the leaders were fantastic in getting involved and really spent time building friendships with the kids in their groups.

Our sessions were really blessed by God as we enjoyed worshipping in song, hearing a testimony, reading God’s Word, an introductory talk and watching the Roman Dungeon, a GWC Studios Production. We had small group discussion times which were a wonderful opportunity for leaders to engage and discuss what the gospel means in everyday life with the kids.

We enjoyed a Gladiator challenge on Saturday where in and amongst other things, the kids got to wack each other with pool noodles and fire tennis balls half way across the field from our very own homemade Roman slingshot.

Keeping with the rhythm of the Cricket World Cup, we had a cricket challenge on the Saturday night where kids got to show us their skills with the bat and ball playing some indoor cricket. The crowd sang songs like Shoshaloza and the National Anthem with pride as they edged their team mates on. There were some umpire (Andre Visagie) decisions that were queried but all ended well.

A highlight this year was making some changes to try to reach children from all our churches. As children’s workers we brainstormed and decided that we would have work books available in Xhosa, Afrikaans and English. Our talks were also translated in sessions from English to Xhosa by Katleho Meslane, which the kids thoroughly appreciated. We were able to provide proper transport for our township and Cape flats churches. We also enjoyed singing songs in different tongues and it was a great reminder to us that the gospel is for all and makes us all one in God.

Many thanks to our director, Andre Visagie, and secretary, Melissa Byne, who made our camp a great success. Overall it was a wonderful time where God was glorified. We pray that many kids came to know Christ and that others were strengthened in their relationship with him.

- Chris Ebden

For instance, I thought CARS 2 did well to expose kids to different parts of the world when I watched it this week. But like a knife can be used for good and bad. TV can be used in a similar way.

I think the problem I’m having with kids watching TV is when it is uncontrolled and unsupervised. Looking around at aftercares and chatting to kids in our community. It sounds as if TV is the default thing to do when people don’t really want to spend time with them. They have been programmed since a young age to sit in front of the TV when they don’t have anything else to do or mom and dad are busy.

These statistics bothered me a little bit from research done.

By the time the average child finishes primary school.

• They will have witnessed 8000 murders on TV.

• They will also have seen and comprehended 200 000 violent acts by age 18.

• As well as have performed thousands of murders on playstation and Xbox themselves.

• On average by age 65 they will have spent 9 years glued to the TV.

Chatting to my wife who is now a teacher and reading some of the research being done seems to be showing that kids don’t learn that much from television because they disengage with the content. With the pace of information flowing out the TV and into their ears, there is no time to think or comprehend new things that they hear or see. I’ve seen an increasing passivity among kids in general because possibly they are not being stimulated in other areas of learning.

Some advice

1. Schedule specific times for kids to watch TV rather than being uncontrolled about it.

2. Keep an eye on the games your kids are playing on Playstation and XBOX. (little white and black signs on the back- parental, explicit violence warnings etc. be careful)

3. Find out what the aftercare is doing with your child.

4. Engage with your child about what they are watching. Talk about a movie after you watch it. What could we learn? What was good? What was bad? What do we as a family that loves Jesus think about it?

The Bible gives a good challenge in all this.

Philippians 4:8 “Finally, brothers (moms and Dads), whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable- if anything is excellent or praiseworthy- think about such things (Or expose your children to such things)

I was challenged recently chatting to Frank Retief about making the most evangelistically of the movies people are watching.

This is one of those movies that has an underlying message behind it. The movie is about a guy called Aaron, an adult man who works and lives a busy individualistic city life. Choosing a work har, play hard lifestyle. On weekends he retreats to the mountains with his mountain bike and backpack to escape on his own.

As his mountain adventure progresses, he slips climbing down a canyon and gets his arm caught between a big boulder and a cliff face. With no one around, he screams for help and then tries to free himself by force, but cannot. He gargles down a quarter of his bottle of water. Little did he know he would be stuck there on his own for the next 127 hours.

He manages to keep calm and collected, but as the reality kicks in of his imminent death, and his water bottle begins to empty, he for the first time begins to reflect on who he is.

He has a number of flashbacks of his life. How he treated his family and isolated himself from them. He begins laughing at stupid things he did. But begins to envision strong regrets like not returning his moms calls, missing his sisters wedding and selfishly allowing his girlfriend to leave him. When it all gets too much, these feelings rush forward to where he is- all alone.

Starring into his video camera, he realises his life has been one where selfishness has reigned supreme. He confesses to have thought of himself as a hero who didn’t need anybodies help.

By the end of the movie, he is forced to cut off his own arm with a cheap pen knife and getting free, he says thank you to an unknown character. That unknown character reminded me of God and the deep seated realisation that our lives must be in his hands.

For the first time in his life as he is descending down the mountain holding his bleeding arm, he shouts help with all his might to a hiking family passing by.

What is interesting about the movie, is that in talking to himself through the 127 hours, he understands that the entire trajectory of his life lead him to this point. He conveys that he is receiving nothing more than what he deserves. He cries out: I chose this! I chose this!

He chose an independent life free from relationships and all alone, he has no one but himself to blame.

This reminded me of our lives. How we choose a life on independence, not just from other people, but from God. We innocently go about our lives, enjoying our stuff and the things of this world. But we do not acknowledge the God who is there. When death finally meets us head on, we begin to realise we are getting what we deserve. As we have chosen a life independent from God.

It was God himself who came to search for us and save us from the place we have got stuck under-our own sin. Jesus himself took the weight of our independence from God and set us free through his death on the cross.

Apart from being a gory movie, this would be a great one to cause people to search their hearts and lives before presenting the good news of Jesus. 

Today is one of those days. Where I woke up excited, but slightly worried about having  to preach at a concert to 400 parents of which I only know a few and of whom I am sure many of them don’t want me to come.

Praying this morning I was reminded of one of the few times a group of people from a ministry team laid hands on me and spoke scripture like a knife into my heart. It came from Isaiah 55.

For as the rain and snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

Isaiah 55:10-11

I was reminded this morning that sometimes when we preach the word, it comes like rain. Its impact is fast and flooding achieving its purpose immediatley. But many times Gods Word is like snow. It lands on the grass and it can take sometime before it melts and achieves its purpose of watering the grass and producing vegetation. For instance many times we preach and it seems as if little or no impact was made. But God promises that his word will achieve the purpose for which it was sent. Sometimes it may be hours or weeks or even years before the sun rises to melt the snow and carry out its purpose. And the Holy Spirit is the sun that melts the word into peoples hearts and lives. He is the after preacher. And so I can preach tonight knowing that even if no immediate results come. The Word that goes out will not return empty by the time the Spirits finished with it.

The second thing that struck me from these verses is Isaiah 55:10 “giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater”. And it made me realise that the preaching of the word, after some time of producing plant, then produces new seed for the sower. So that other people then have seed to go and spread and sow with. And so I was encouraged that the preached Word of God produces words in other peoples lives so they can take it and multiply it.

And so regardless of how I feel whether its anxiety, nerves, excitement. One thing I will rest in today is that the Word is not mine, but on lone to me from Jesus. And he promises it shall not return to him empty.

Just imagine. Where would you be now if Jesus had never died on the cross for our sins?

There would be no common Grace. There would be no kindness. There would be no satisfaction for Gods Wrath. We would be running from an angry omnipotent and omni-present God.  The running would never end and you could never escape such anger and devastation. I wouldn’t have a relationship with God.There would be no such thing  as prayer, no communion, no worship, no joy, no waking up to a warm sun. No idea of what it means to be loved unconditionally. No cross cultural relationships and friendships. There’d be no Word from God without it being a Word of Judgement. There would be an enormous escalation of sin, violence, crime, no repentace for the wicked. No justice without punishment. There’d be no hope of heaven. No life to come. No share in the Glory of Christ. No Holy Spirit. No comfort, No hunger for heaven, but a fearful expectation of hell and the wrath of God.

What a God we have. Who did not consider equality with God something to be grasped. But made himself nothing! Jesus. Thank you for coming. Thank you for suffering a measure that cannot be known. Thank you for going to the cross physically, emotionally and spiritually for me. Open my eyes to the grace you purchased for me.