MEDA and The Marketplace

MEDA, in this case, stands for Mennonite Economic Development Associates. I stumbled across their website in the course of doing some work on looking at business from a Christian perspective.

Their website describes MEDA as ‘creating business solutions to poverty’.

‘For more than 50 years, MEDA has been designing and implementing innovative and effective market-driven economic development programs that improve the livelihoods of millions of people living in poverty around the world.

‘Founded by a small group of service-oriented business people, MEDA has grown to become a large, dynamic international organization comprised of thousands of members and supporters across North America and Europe. MEDA believes its work is not done until it is proven to be sustainable, replicable, scalable and measurable.

MEDA produces a magazine called The Marketplace, which carries some interesting-looking pieces I’ll be reading more closely. The archive, with downloadable pdfs, is here.

Route 66 Through The Year: Colossians 1:15-23

Spring Harvest’s ‘Route 66 Through the Year’ is designed to take readers on a tour through each of the 66 books of the Bible over the course of a year, with each day’s reading featuring a short passage and comment written by a variety of Spring Harvest speakers.

I have contributed notes for this week on Colossians, looking today at 1:15-23.

Read: Colossians 1:15-23

Paul wrote letters not narratives, but it is the biblical story that funds his pastoral engagement with churches. That story sometimes bubbles to the surface as it does in 1:15-20, where we are taken from creation to consummation through the cross in six verses. And at the heart of it all is Jesus.

He is the one who embraces beginning and end, who is himself the image of the invisible God, the Lord of creation and redemption – for the sake of his church. The creator, sustainer, and reconciler of all is none other than Jesus, the Lord of all.

And what goes with the confession of Jesus as Lord is the assurance that there is no part of ordinary, everyday reality that falls outside the scope of his loving oversight. As Paul will make clear in the rest of Colossians, Christ’s lordship has implications for every area of life – to the extent that what underwrites our discipleship, our marriages, our working days, and our engagement with the world is not just the truth about Jesus as creator and redeemer of all things, but our relationship with him as Lord and with each other as his people.

Father God, may this amazing portrayal of Christ’s lordship broaden my horizons and shape the way I go about my next task, my next conversation, my next meeting, my next purchase.

Marc Cortez on Gospel Summaries and the Bigger Story

Marc Cortez has a nice post here, the second in a series on the gospel, this one stressing the importance of setting our summaries of the gospel in the bigger story.

1. This story centers on God manifesting his glory in his creation.

2. This story revolves around God’s plans for his people.

3. This story takes a terrible turn with the Fall.

4. This story continues with Israel.

5. This story reaches its climax with Jesus.

7. This story won’t be done until God’s plans are accomplished.

Route 66 Through The Year: Colossians 1:1-14

Spring Harvest’s ‘Route 66 Through the Year’ is designed to take readers on a tour through each of the 66 books of the Bible over the course of a year, with each day’s reading featuring a short passage and comment written by a variety of Spring Harvest speakers.

I have contributed notes for this week on Colossians, looking today at 1:1-14.

Read: Colossians 1:1-14

Delivered by Tychichus and Onesimus (4:7-9) and coming with greetings from Paul’s coworkers (4:10-15), Colossians was to be read out in the Christian gathering (4:16). Although written in collaboration with others, not least Timothy (1:1), the authorial voice belongs to Paul (4:18). He is the ‘I’ who speaks throughout, allowing us a glimpse of how he pastored early congregations. And we too are nurtured in our faith as we read, reflect and respond in our own contexts today.

Paul will get to instruction and direction soon enough. Crucially, however, what comes first is thanksgiving and prayer. He begins by thanking God for their faith, hope and love – all of which spring from the gospel of God’s grace (1:3-8).

His prayer in 1:9-13 flows out of his thankfulness for them and – as always with Paul – it’s worth noticing what he prays for, and why he does so. Here it’s that they will be filled with knowledge of God’s will, will walk worthy of the Lord, will be strengthened with his power, and will give thanks to God for rescuing them from darkness and bringing them into light.

Let’s give thanks today for our brothers and sisters in Christ, and pray for each other – for wisdom, fruit, growth, strength, and gratitude for the redemption and forgiveness we share in his kingdom.

Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal 13 (2008)

Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal has a three year delay between the time of actual publication and the moment when the articles become freely available online. The 2008 volume has now appeared online, containing the below articles, including a friendly engagement with D.A. Carson’s Christ and Culture Revisited.

William W. Combs

The Meaning of Fellowship in 1 John

Andrew David Naselli

Keswick Theology: A Survey and Analysis of the Doctrine of Sanctification in the Early Keswick Movement

Jeffrey P. Straub

The Emerging Church: A Fundamentalist Assessment

Mark A. Snoeberger

D.A. Carson’s Christ and Culture Revisited: A Reflection and a Response

Book Reviews

9Marks eJournal 8, 6 (November-December 2011) on Church Revitalization

The latest issue of the 9Marks eJournal is now available as a pdf here.

In the Editor’s Note, Jonathan Leeman writes:

‘There’s more here than you might expect. That was true for me. I’ve been hearing the argument for church revitalization for years, and it has always sounded like a conversation about practical matters. There are practical reasons to sometimes plant a new church. And there are practical reasons to sometimes revitalize an old church.

‘But reading through the articles for this edition of the eJournal I discovered something larger, something older, something more basic. Church revitalization, it occurred to me, goes to the very heart of what it means to pastor. And the desire to see churches revitalized, I dare say, should be a constituent part of a Christian’s heart. Could it be that we’ve been missing something as basic as evangelism and discipleship, even if it’s rarer?

‘Church planting is a great thing, and there’s no need to take anything away from it. But there should also be a default setting in a Christian’s heart that always longs to see dying churches revitalized. It’s not like the debate in your head about whether to fork over $2000 to the mechanic to fix your clunker of a car or to just buy a new one. It’s more like a decision about whether to walk away from a dear but difficult relationship. Our hearts should never want to do that, even if once in a great while we must.’

Centre for Public Christianity (November 2011)

The latest email newsletter from the Centre for Public Christianity contains links to several helpful video interviews with scholars on matters related to the Bible.

Accuracy in the Oral Tradition

New Testament scholar and author Professor Craig Keener explains why we can trust the gospel accounts of Jesus’ life.

The Story of Stories

In the second part of our interview with Theologian Kevin Vanhoozer he recommends that we view ‘the greatest story ever told’ as a five-act “Theo-Drama”.

Reasons to Believe

John Dickson quizzes Professor Craig Blomberg on why he is confident the New Testament documents are reliable.