The Purpose of the Book of Acts - Reece's Peace's

               The Book of Acts is unique in the New Testament. It is not like the gospels because it does not cover the life and ministry of Jesus. It is unlike the Letter of the Apostles because it is a historical account, not simply a theological letter. This begs the question: what is the purpose of the Book of Acts?

               Before we can answer this question, we have to know why the Book of Acts was written. The Book of Acts was not written to be read as we read it today. It was made to be read directly following the Gospel of Luke. Luke and Acts were written as two sections of one combined work: Luke-Acts. The first line of the Book of Acts makes this clear when the writer states, “In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day He was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles He had chosen.”

               Reading the Books of Acts before the Gospel of Luke makes about as much sense as reading The Two Towers before The Fellowship of the Ring. You cannot understand the purpose of the second book without reading the first. Unfortunately, our modern Bibles created this problem. The Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts are separated by the Gospel of John. This artificial division makes it seem as if they were written as two separate works.

               However, if you do read the two books together you can see the purpose of the Book of Acts. The Gospel of Luke ends with Christ's ascension and the Apostles leaving to go pray in the temple. Unlike the other Gospels, it does not have any conclusion or summary sentences. John has the clearest example of this in the final sentences, “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.” The Gospel of John makes it clear with this statement that this is the end of His story. John has told all that he wishes to tell. Luke doesn’t have a statement like this because while Jesus’s life story might have been finished, for Luke His ministry wasn’t.

That is the purpose of the Book of Acts, to show how Jesus’s ministry lived on in the work of the Apostles. By connecting the books, you see this clear relationship. Jesus’s life is finished, so the Apostles continue with His mission. The Book of Acts shows us that even though Christ is no longer with us physically His spirit still is and we are to carry on with His mission.

Why does Easter Fall on a Different Day Each Year? - Reece's Peaces

Easter is unlike other holidays. Independence Day is always on July 4th, Christmas is always December 25th, but Easter’s date changes.

Easter is always celebrated on a Sunday between March 22nd and April 25th, but the exact date moves. The reason for this is quite simple.

The date changes on our modern Gregorian calendar, but not on the Jewish calendar. Easter is always celebrated on the Sunday during the Jewish holiday of Passover. Passover always begins on the 15th day of the month of Nisan. The Jewish calendar, unlike our modern Gregorian calendar, uses the rotation of the moon instead of the Sun to divide the year into months.

According to the Jewish calendar Easter does have a fixed date. It is always celebrated on the first Sunday immediately following the 15th of Nisan or, more specifically, the first Sunday after the Paschal Full Moon. While it may seem to us that Easter’s date changes year to year, it was not so for early Christians.

However, that's not the only unique aspect in dating the celebration of Easter because not all Christians celebrate Easter on the same Sunday. This year the Eastern Orthodox Church will celebrate Easter on April 24th, while Western churches will celebrate it on April 17th. This difference has nothing to do with the moon.

Instead, the answer comes down to our calendars. Western Christians use the Gregorian calendar which has leap days while Eastern Christians use the Julian calendar which does not. Over many years the two calendars have become a bit out of sync. This means that the Orthodox Church can date their Easter on one date while the Western churches use a different date.

In general, the reason why Easter’s date changes each year is due to the original Jewish calendar. We celebrate Easter following the cycle of the Moon instead of the cycle of the Sun. It is only due to our modern calendar that Easter has become a moving holiday.

Shine - Reece's Peaces

“This Little Light of Mine” is a song that we all know. Almost every Christian child is taught it as they grow up. I remember singing it as a child with the children’s chorus at my home church the Sunday before Easter. The song is simple to learn and the message is even simpler to understand. We have a little light of the Lord in us and we need to let it shine.

During the month of February, we're going to discuss the little light that we are given, a light inside of us that Luke describes as, “a light of revelation to the gentiles and for glory to your people Israel” (Luke 2:32). It is that light of revelation which each of us holds in our heart. It shines in us like a candle in a dark room, illuminating our space and allowing us to move freely without the worry of stumbling. The light of the Lord shines for all to see.

This month’s sermon series is “Shine.” We will examine the light of the Lord inside of us, investigating what the Bible says about the call to light up the world and seeing how we are all called to hold our candle to illuminate the way for others. We will also discuss how the light inside us shines brightness into the emptiness, allowing God to fill our very souls with God’s grace. We will further examine how love shines through that light into our lives and into the lives of others.

Finally, our sermon series will end on Transfiguration Sunday, a day that we celebrate the moment in which Jesus was revealed to his disciples as the Son of God. Transfiguration Sunday is not nearly as well-known as many other important days in the church calendar, but it is a significant day. This day celebrates the moment in which Jesus was transfigured from his humanly form into a new form of radiant shining glory appearing on a mountaintop alongside Moses and Elijah to speak to his apostles Peter, James, and John.

He was then called the Son of God by a voice in the clouds. Reminiscent of the same voice calling out at his baptism. In that moment he became the light of God for all to see shine!

Transfiguration Sunday will be the capstone in our call to shine, to live out that line of a song that we learned so long ago: “This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine!”.

Peace,

Ben

Five Years from Now

As we kick off the new year we're also kicking off a new period for our church, a period of revisioning.

Starting in January our sermon series in which we will intentionally ask big questions about how you see the church and where we see it going. We together will find the answer to what we want the church to look like in five years and how we will get it there.

We will answer questions like:

What does the church look like in five years?

How do you want the church to grow?

What programs would you like the church to have?

How will the church address needs in our community?

What are our church's faith pillars?

What are some things our church is currently doing that need to be reworked?

All of these questions need to be answered to become the church we want to be.  As we work through this January sermon series we will send out an intentional survey. Asking you questions about your thoughts on the future of Hurstbourne Christian Church. Please take the time to fill them out and give us as much detail as possible.

At the end of the series, we will create a vision team. That will go through those surveys and formulate a vision and mission statement that sums up what we want Hurstbourne Christian Church to become.

I would like to thank you all for your participation and enthusiasm as we create a new vision of the church together.

Hopeful Expectation

Like many, my family gets together on Christmas Eve. Each year we gather and have a meal. After the meal is over, we open presents.

When I was a child, waiting to open the presents until after I ate the meal was hard. It was difficult to look at all of the brightly color boxes wrapped with bows and ribbons. I would scarf down whatever was on my plate. I wanted to finish quickly so I could get to opening presents sooner.

Visions danced in my head of toys and candies, just waiting to be opened. It was hard to focus on anything else.

I doubt that I'm the only child that had those expectations and for whom waiting for Christmas was hard. I was ready to rush through the traditions and get straight to the main event.

However, the traditions necessitated that I wait.

I had to wait before I opened my gifts. I had to wait until Christmas came.

Many of our Christmas traditions place an emphasis on waiting with hopeful expectations.

That is largely what our Advent season is. It is a season of hopeful expectations. We wait and build up anticipation for the coming birth of a Messiah. We sit at the edge of our seats, waiting for that final moment when Christ comes forth.

This year, as we start our Advent season once again, it is no different. We are waiting, hopeful for what is to come.

We don't just sit idly bye. We live into those expectations. We make the world into the world we hope for. We share our love with those people around us and we brighten their hearts, their minds, and their spirits. The hope that we look forward to is not a hope of the presents we will receive, but the hope of the gifts that we can give.

Those gifts are hope, peace, joy, and love.

This Advent, I invite you to come with us in hopeful expectation of what the coming Messiah will bring, not only in your life but in the lives of all of God's children.

Growing the Church - Reece's Peace's

Last month I was scheduled to speak at our prayer breakfast. Unfortunately, do the rising COVID cases, the breakfast was postponed until November.

However, I still want to give a little information about the breakfast topic to prepare you for the November breakfast.

Here are four basic questions about church growth:

Why should the church grow?

-        For the benefit of people not attending. Our church has something special and we need to invite people so they too can experience our church.

Who do we want to join?

-        The basic answer is anyone, but we are focusing on certain groups. The three groups that we're focused on growing are empty nesters or almost empty nesters, couples without children or with very young children, and retirees. We have the most ability to provide programming for these people and therefore can probably provide them the most benefit. However, they are by no means the only people we want to join.

How do we get new people to come?

-        It is a church-wide effort. It can't be something done by just staff or a select few members. It's something that we all need to come together to do. There are four main ways people can come to know our church. By a personal invitation, social media post, online search or research into our church, or by driving by. These four are in order from the most likely to succeed to the least likely to succeed. When personally invited, people are very likely to attend our church. Meanwhile, people who drive by often just drive by. However, they are also in order from most difficult to least difficult. It takes lots of effort to personally invite someone to come to our church while it takes no effort on our part for someone to drive by. The harder you work the greater the reward.

What do we do after they come?

-        It is important to not overwhelm visitors, but we also need to make them feel wanted. Be friendly but not overbearing. Most visitors arrive before church starts and leave immediately after, if not before it ends. When you see them it's important to ask them a few questions. Why are they here? Are they looking for a new church or are they just visiting the city? Invite them to fill out one of the visitor contact inserts and make sure you invite them to a fellowship event happening at the church later on.

Two Balloons - Reece's Peaces

Two people were given balloons. They were filled with air but not helium. They were given simple instructions: don't let it touch the floor and you can't hold it with one hand for longer than a second. 

The first person began focusing their attention on the balloon, tapping it to keep it up. Tap, tap, tap, with vigilant effort they kept the balloon bouncing up and down. 

The other volunteer began to tap it, but they weren't just tapping it to keep it up. They tapped it over in the direction of a door in another room. They walked while they tapped and moved it over to another room. 

When they returned their balloon was floating high, filled with helium. 

The first person said, “That's not fair!” 

The second replied, “The instructions were only to keep the balloon in the air and only touch it with one hand for no longer than a second. I was able to follow both of those rules as I filled it up with helium.” 

At first glance, the first person’s attempt of tapping away at it can seem nobler. Yet the second person’s strategy would last far longer with less effort and would undoubtedly win the day. You can only tap for so long. 

In our lives, we try to do things the hard way, often because we think it's the only way. However, when we re-evaluate and take a step back, we can see that there are sometimes much easier and better ways to approach a problem.  

Before Christ, there were many commandments and rules that faithful people needed to follow. With Christ we now have the great commandment: love the Lord with all your heart and all your mind and all your soul, and love your neighbor as yourself. 

Epistle to the Ephesians - Reece's Peace's

Epistle to the Ephesians

               We are midway through our sermon series on the Epistle to the Ephesians. We have discussed many of the theological points of the letter in our topics during the previous weeks. We covered family and foreigners, and we will discuss how we are bound together, our peace, and being filled. However, during this break, I wanted to take a moment and discuss some of the overall background of the letter.

The Epistle to the Ephesians is a letter that Paul uses to lay out his basic outline for salvation and the theology of Christ. The first thing of note is how early this letter was written. Like all of Paul's letters, Ephesians was written before any of the gospels. The early Christians who formed the churches like the one in Ephesus could not read about Jesus’s life in the gospel narratives. The only way they had to learn about God was through traveling apostles telling stories and letters that were sent to them like the one Paul wrote to the Ephesians.

               As you read through the letters from Paul, you will find that they are not nearly as easy to understand as the gospels. They were not written in a narrative format. There is no story. While the gospels follow a natural progression, from Jesus’ birth or the start of his ministry to the cross and resurrection, the letters do not. They may start with a theological statement based on the resurrection then move on to a statement about Christ’s place in heaven before Adam and Eve’s creation. They have no problem jumping through time to make their theological point. The reason for this is that the letters are not designed to inform the reader about Jesus’s life, like the gospels, but instead to inform the reader about correct theology. They are not about what Christ did, but instead, they care about what Christ's actions mean.

               The letter to the Ephesians does just that. It makes claims of what Christ means in our lives. It spends a particularly long time talking about the connections we have as a community in light of Christ's sacrifice and resurrection. It explains how in Jesus we can come together as one in a way that we couldn’t without him, and how we can accept one another as Christ accepted us. It is a deep letter with many different turns.

The depth of this letter is why it takes us five weeks to cover the topic “No Longer Strangers.”

               At the end of this month, we will begin another series. The next series will discuss the Epistle of James. The letter from James is a fitting follow up to the Epistle to the Ephesians because of how different it is.  Often James’ theology has been seen as a counter to the theology present in Paul’s letters. Scholars have discussed in detail the differences that these two early Christians may have had. Yet, in all the ways they might seem different they both deal with the same God and the same salvation. Listen to all of our current sermon series and our following sermon series online to learn more about these two letters.

Who wrote the Bible? -Reece's Peace's

Recently I had a friend ask me, “Who wrote the Bible? Jesus made it appear or something, right?”

He didn't have much of a religious background and was having a debate with one of his co-workers. Both of these men were confused because no author was listed on the title page.

I'm sure he thought the answer would be short and succinct, but the answer I gave was not. There is no “author” of the Bible because the Bible is not really one book.

The word “Bible” comes from the Greek word “ta biblia” which means “the books”. The Bible is more like a library than it is a singular book. It is a collection of religious texts that for many years were considered individual works on their own. The Bible as we know it today was the product of editors combining many religious texts together years after the final book of the Bible was written.

It can also be difficult to find out who authored each individual book contained in the Bible. Several books make no mention of who their author is. The first five books of the Bible have been traditionally thought to be authored by Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy, Leviticus, and Numbers. However, nowhere in those books does it say that Moses wrote them and many scholars doubt that he did. This makes it hard to ascribe an author to them.

Likewise, in the New Testament, the Book of Hebrews was traditionally ascribed to Paul. However, the book itself makes no mention of Paul being the author. Additionally, it is written in a completely different style compared to Paul’s other books. This makes finding a true author almost impossible.

The idea that we could put anyone's name or even a complete list of names as the true authors of the Bible is impossible. My friend at this point asked me, “So, is God the author?”

Even that is a bit of a stretch. The Bible is about God and inspired by God, but God doesn’t always direct the written words of the Bible. Occasionally God does dictate words that are written in the Bible. The clearest example of this is the Ten Commandments. They are God’s words told exactly from God’s mouth to Moses to us.

However, in many other places, we are told God’s words in summary through the interpretation of the prophets. An example of this would be in the messages from Isaiah.

Even further removed from the direct word of God, you have writings that are only inspired by God. The books of Psalms and Proverbs are an instance of this time of revelation. The authors of these sections did not hear the word of God but were instead inspired by God’s Spirit.  

God is the driving force for the Bible but, in many cases, God is not the direct author.

In summary, we don't know who many of the people are that authored the books of the Bible and scholars spend a lot of time debating who the authors might be. What we do know is that the Bible itself is the inspired word of God. It is a wonderful book for us as Christians to find meaning in our lives and guidance when we need it. The more you know about the Bible, the more it reveals God’s Spirit.

Hopefully now if a friend asks you who authored the Bible you can give them a much longer answer than they expected too!