Fall Book Study

Join us this fall for a study of the book A Walk Through the Bible by Lesslie Newbigin!
We will meet in the Fellowship Hall on Wednesday Nights from 6:00-7:00pm, starting Sept. 27.
Books can be purchased at City Lights Bookstore for $12.
Please contact the Church Office if you need childcare!

Schedule:

• 09/27 – Week 1 – Ch. 1: A Unique Account

• 10/04 – No Meeting (Family Night Supper)

• 10/11 – Week 2 – Ch. 2 & 3: Chosen by God

• 10/18 – Week 3 – Ch. 4: Judges, Kings and Prophets

• 10/25 – Week 4 – Ch. 5: Return and Renewal

• 11/01 – No Meeting (Family Night Supper)

• 11/08 – Week 5 – Ch. 6: God’s Kingdom and Jesus

• 11/15 – Week 6 – Ch. 7: Sacrifice

• 11/22 – No Meeting (Thanksgiving Break)

• 11/29 – Week 7 – Ch. 8: Future Revelation

“What is there within the Bible? What sort of house is it to which the Bible is the door? What sort of country is spread before our eyes when we throw the Bible open? The answer is a strange, new world – the world of God.”

— Karl Barth

New Sermon Series!

Dear church family,

In a recent sermon, I mentioned that I’ve been reading through a new biography of Eugene Peterson, the beloved Presbyterian pastor who died in 2018.  It is called “A Burning in My Bones,” and I commend it to all of you.  It offers a beautiful look into a pastor’s life (and, more so, a Christian’s life), revealing the heart of someone who sought to follow Jesus along the dusty road of discipleship.

One aspect of the book stood out to me, which was Peterson’s commitment to Bible reading.  As a preacher, teacher, and author, Peterson was constantly immersed in Scripture.  At the same time, he recognized the ways that we get Scripture wrong.  We mishandle it and thus fail to experience its riches.  We so often treat the Bible like a textbook, or even like the phone book (does anybody use phonebooks anymore?!) that we fail to see it as God’s book, intended less for our information and more for our transformation.  Yet that is precisely why God gave it to us.

Peterson himself once wrote:

The challenge… regarding the Christian Scriptures is getting them read, but read on their own terms, as God’s revelation.  It seems as if it would be the easiest thing in the world… But as it turns out, in this business of living the Christian life, ranking high among the most neglected aspects is one having to do with the reading of the Christians Scriptures.  Not that Christians don’t own and read their Bibles.  And not that Christians don’t believe their Bibles are the word of God.  What is neglected is reading the Scriptures formatively, reading in order to live.

“Reading in order to live.”  I like that.  It’s what I hope we, as a congregation, are doing every Sunday, and on the days in between.  We read in order to live.  When we worship, we come into the presence of God and are sent back out by God.  And at the center of that rhythm is the Word – the written Word that bears witness to the living Word, King Jesus.  We Christians read, listen, and respond in order to live.

If you’re like me, you could use a refresher on this kind of reading.  Things have been so out of whack for the past 15 months that we may have fallen out of practice!  So why not make a fresh start?  Why not clear away the clutter and recommit yourself to a practice of daily Scripture reading and prayer, with weekly Sunday worship as your anchoring point?

Beginning this Sunday, June 6, I will be preaching through the Old Testament book of Exodus.  This is, hands down, one of my favorite books in the Bible – for good reason.  Exodus tells the story of Moses, the great hero of God’s people, Israel; and the story of God’s mercy, which carried the people out of slavery, through the wilderness, and into the promised land.  Because of this, Exodus remains the foundational story for the Jewish people today.  And it’s foundational for us Christians, too, as we turn our eyes to the new Moses, whose name is Jesus.

I want to invite you to read Exodus with me for the next three months.  Read Exodus not just for information, but for transformation.  Read Exodus the way you would enter the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  Explore its rivers and trails, its mountaintops and valleys, its people and promise.  Find someone to read it with you.  Ask questions.  Wrestle with the text.  Pray.  This summer let’s find ourselves within this story – and the great Story of God – that we might truly live.

See you Sunday,
Blake

Mark: The Way of Christ

On Christmas Eve we heard the good news of Emmanuel, "God with us." But who is the God who is with us? Who, in other words, is Jesus Christ? And who are we in his light?

This is the focus of the gospel of Mark, and it will be our focus in this winter season. We invite you to join us as we study Mark together and recommit ourselves to the way of Christ. You can access our live-stream worship services on Sunday mornings at 11:00am by visiting www.sylvapres.org.

Weekly Sermon Scriptures*

• 1/10/2021 - Mark 1:9-15 (Baptism of the Lord)

• 1/17/2021 - Mark 1:16-20

• 1/24/2021 - Mark 2:1-12

• 1/31/2021 - Mark 6:6-13

• 2/7/2021 - Mark 6:30-44

• 2/14/2021 - Mark 9:2-10 (Transfiguration Sunday)

• 2/21/2021 - Mark 11:1-11 (First Sunday in Lent)

• 2/28/2021 - Mark 11:12-26

• 3/07/2021 - Mark 14:1-11

• 3/14/2021 - Mark 14:12-26

• 3/21/2021 - Mark 14:32-42

• 3/28/2021 - Mark 14-15

• 4/1/2021 - Mark 15:33-41 (Palm Sunday)

• 4/4/2021 - Mark 16:1-8 (Easter Sunday)

*Scripture passages subject to change!

Guiding Questions*

For Interpretation:

1. What do I learn about God in this passage?

2. What do I learn about people?

3. What do I learn about relating to God?

4. What do I learn about relating to others?

For Application:

1. What does God want me to understand/think in this passage?

2. What does God want me to believe?

3. What does God want me to desire?

4. What does God want me to do?

*From “8 Questions to Help You Understand and Apply the Bible”

Why Study the Old Testament?

Our new sermon series on the life of David gives us a great opportunity to renew our love for the Old Testament. This too is the Word of the Lord! For further thoughts, check out Matt Meyer’s post below:

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Why Study the Old Testament?

By Matt Meyer for InterVarsity

The Old Testament can be kind of a pain. It prompts debates about evolution. It’s full of obscure laws that we don’t even bother to follow, difficult-to-pronounce names, and hard-to-understand poetry.

And what do we even begin to make of the portrayal of God in the OT? In The God Delusion, evolutionary biologist and author Richard Dawkins writes:

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.

Yikes. I mean, sometimes it seems like the Old Testament is more trouble than it’s worth. Maybe it’s best to sort of just forget about it or gloss over it on our way to the important part of the Bible. You know—the good part. With Jesus.

Is the OT really worth the effort it takes to read it?

Faith, Love, Jesus, and Donkeys

The more I’ve studied the Old Testament the more I’ve come to see how important it is for Christians to understand it and how tragic it is that the OT can be so neglected and underappreciated. So here’s my list of why I think we as Christians should become OT experts.

1. The OT reveals God’s patient and tenacious love. The OT unfolds over thousands of years. (The New Testament, by comparison, spans less than 100 years.) And in the OT we encounter people who are a lot like us: sinful, stubborn, prone to wander away from God and to make stupid choices. And yet we see a God who chooses to stick it out with this messed-up group of people.

Reading through God’s interactions with his people in the OT helps me remember just how steadfast God’s love really is.

2. The OT helps deepen our faith. As Richard Dawkins points out, the picture of God in the OT can be troubling and confusing. But instead of running from the questions the OT raises for us, we have an opportunity to dive head-first into the questions.

In fact, the OT is filled with examples of people who have plenty of their own questions to hurl at God: Job, Elijah, and Jeremiah, just a name a few! Dealing with the sticky issues helps our faith grow and mature, and it shows us that we’re in good company when we ask tricky questions. If God can handle the questions that came from those folks, God can handle our doubts and questions too.

3. The NT tells us to know the OT. Ever read 2 Timothy 3:16-17? “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” Paul wrote that before any of the NT was Scripture—in other words, back when the only Scripture in town was the OT. So we can take these verses as a strong exhortation to get to know the OT.

4. It’s fun! Bears tearing young hoodlums to pieces? Family drama that could rival any soap opera? A talking donkey? All these stories and more are treasures to be found in the OT.

5. The more you understand the OT, the more you will understand Jesus. We often forget that Jesus was thoroughly Jewish. He was immersed in the world of the Hebrew Scriptures. In fact, it’s hard to overstate how much the OT shaped his life and mission. If we want to become like Jesus, we can’t get around the OT.

Is the Old Testament sometimes tricky? Yes. Maybe even boring in spots? Yeah. But growing in our faith is worth the hard work of poring through the OT and discovering the riches it contains.

See also: Jesus on Every Page: 7 Reasons to Study Your Old Testament by David Murray

The Story of David

This Fall I will be preaching through the life of David, which you can read about in 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel. David might be a familiar to you as the shepherd who became a king; as the boy who slayed a giant; as the author of most of the Psalms. He wasn’t perfect — far from it — but he’s gone down in history as “a man after God’s own heart.” Most importantly, he helped set the stage for the coming of Christ.

What can we learn from this man’s story? How can his life and witness shape our own stories, as followers of Jesus? Read about David and join us on Sunday mornings to find out!

Schedule:

“David” by Michelangelo

• 9/30 - The Story of David

• 10/7 - David & Samuel

• 10/14 - David & Saul

• 10/21 - David & Goliath

• 10/28 - David & Jonathan

• 11/4 - (Guest Preacher: Dr. Richard Burnett)

• 11/11 - David & Bathsheba

• 11/18 - David & Absalom

• 11/25 - David & God

The Fruit of the Spirit

This summer I'll be preaching through the Fruit of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5 (see below).  At the heart of this passage is a beautiful vision for Christlikeness.  I hope you'll join us as we explore this vision together.  - Blake 

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.”

— Galatians 5:22-25

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”

— Jesus, John 15:5

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Summer Schedule:

• Week 1: The Fruit of the Spirit (intro)
• Week 2: Love
• Week 3: Joy
• Week 4: Peace
• Week 5: Patience
• Week 6: Kindness
• Week 7: Goodness
• Week 8: Faithfulness
• Week 9: Gentleness
• Week 10: Self-control

Some Resources:

• Fruit of the Spirit Children's Song
• 9-A-Day Campaign videos
• 9-A-Day Fruit of the Spirit intro video

Happy Easter!

“Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.

They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”

“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.

He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”

Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”

Jesus said to her, “Mary.”

She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).

Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.”

— John 20:11-18

“As the risen and ascended Lord, Jesus does not now sit in heaven with his arms folded waiting for us to do something religious that he can affirm (an image from Karl Barth). Jesus is not our cheerleader from the heavens hoping we will get faith and ministry right. Neither does Jesus want to get more involved in our ministries. Why would he? Our ministries are not redemptive. We don’t raise the dead, forgive the sinful, heal the sick or bring in the reign of God.
Rather, Jesus has his own resurrected ministry to do — raising the dead, forgiving the sinful, healing the sick, bringing in God’s reign (note the present tense!) — and he wants us in on it! ”

— Andrew Purves, "The Resurrection of Ministry"

                        I have seen the Lord!

Who's Your Shepherd?

Today we heard John 10:1-21: Jesus calls himself the Good Shepherd! Here are some additional resources to aid you as you reflect on this powerful passage.

-Blake

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“As a shepherd he is gentle towards his flock, but fierce and formidable towards wolves and thieves; in like manner, Christ is kind and gentle towards those who commit themselves to his care, while they who willfully and obstinately reject his yoke, shall feel with what awful and terrible power he is armed.”

— John Calvin, commentary on Psalm 110

“When so much shepherding has gone so wrong,
So many pastors hopelessly astray,
The weak so often preyed on by the strong,
So many bruised and broken on the way,
The very name of shepherd seems besmeared,
The fold and flock themselves are torn in half,
The lambs we left to face all we have feared
Are caught between the wasters and the wolf.

Good Shepherd now your flock has need of you,
One finds the fold and ninety-nine are lost
Out in the darkness and the icy dew,
And no one knows how long this night will last.
​​​​​​​Restore us; call us back to you by name,
And by your life laid down, redeem our shame.”

— Malcolm Guite, "The Good Shepherd"

You Are What You Eat

Malcolm Guite, "I Am the Bread of Life":

Where to get bread? An ever-pressing question
That trembles on the lips of anxious mothers,
Bread for their families, bread for all these others;
A whole world on the margin of exhaustion.

And where that hunger has been satisfied
Where to get bread? The question still returns
In our abundance something starves and yearns
We crave fulfillment, crave and are denied.

And then comes One who speaks into our needs
Who opens out the secret hopes we cherish
Whose presence calls our hidden hearts to flourish
Whose words unfold in us like living seeds
Come to me, broken, hungry, incomplete,
I Am the Bread of Life, break Me and eat.

Alexander Schmemann, "For the Life of the World":

Centuries of secularism have failed to transform eating into something strictly utilitarian. Food is still treated with reverence...To eat is still something more than to maintain bodily functions. People may not understand what that 'something more' is, but they nonetheless desire to celebrate it. They are still hungry and thirsty for sacramental life.

John Donne, "Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions," Prayer:

Therefore I beg of thee my daily bread; and as thou gavest me the bread of sorrow for many days, and since the bread of hope for some, and this day the bread of possessing, in rising by that strength, which thou the God of all strength hast infused into me, so, O Lord, continue to me the bread of life: the spiritual bread of life, in a faithful assurance in thee; the sacramental bread of life, in a worthy receiving of thee; and the more real bread of life in an everlasting union to thee.

Come and See

Then Jesus turned, and seeing them following, said to them, “What do you seek?”
They said to Him, “Rabbi, where are you staying?”
He said to them, “Come and see.” - John 1:38-39

Week 2 in John’s Gospel finds us making the turn from knowing about Jesus to following after Jesus. John the Baptist acts as our guide, helping us (and those first disciples) get their bearings for this new adventure. What will you do when he comes calling, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world?

- Blake

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“We need to pledge ourselves anew to the cause of Christ. We must capture the spirit of the early church. Wherever the early Christians went, they made a triumphant witness for Christ. Whether on the village streets or in the city jails, they daringly proclaimed the good news of the gospel.” - Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength to Love

"Those who aren't following Jesus aren't his followers. It's that simple. Followers follow, and those who don't follow aren't followers. To follow Jesus means to follow Jesus into a society where justice rules, where love shapes everything. To follow Jesus means to take up his dream and work for it." - Scot McKnight, One.Life: Jesus Calls, We Follow

John the Baptist and the “pointing hand” (Grunewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece)

The Light Has Come

“In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.” - John 1:4

Today we started our new study of John. Here are a few of the things I mentioned. Hope you can join us in reading and praying along through this beautiful Fourth Gospel. 

 - Blake

“John flies like an eagle above the cloud of human weakness and looks upon the light of unchanging truth with the most lofty and firm eyes of the heart. And gazing on the very deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which he is equal to the Father, he has striven in this Gospel to confide this above all...” - Thomas Aquinas

From Falling Up by Shel Silverstein, gettin’ all theological: 

“Of the Father’s Love Begotten” (because sometimes hymns say it best):

And never, ever forget: 

Coming in 2018: The Gospel of John

Starting Jan. 7, I'll be preaching through the Gospel of John.  This is a first for me.  I've tackled bits and pieces of John before, but never the book in its entirety.  I'm looking forward to digging in with you.  Give it a read and see what you notice about Jesus, the Word made flesh who made his dwelling among us (John 1:14).

- Blake

P.S. -- Take a look at these resources and commentaries to go deeper:

Live in Unity

You can't be a Christian alone.  We can't be Christians alone.  As Scot McKnight says, When it comes to the Bible, WE is always bigger than ME.  So how is God challenging us to go a bit deeper with our brother or our sister?  How is God calling us to expand our horizons and see his hand at work through our church, and not just in our individual lives?

Reflect on these questions, and on the quotations below, as we seek the Lord's blessing together.

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“I have come to feel that the primary reality of which we have to take account in seeking for a Christian impact on public life is the Christian congregation. How is it possible that the gospel should be credible, that people should come to believe that the power which has the last word in human affairs is represented by a man hanging on a cross?

I am suggesting that the only answer, the only hermeneutic of the gospel, is a congregation of men and women who believe it and live by it. I am, of course, not denying the importance of the many activities by which we seek to challenge public life with the gospel– evangelistic campaigns, distribution of Bibles and Christian literature, conferences, and even books such as this one.

But I am saying that these are all secondary, and that they have power to accomplish their purpose only as they are rooted in and lead back to a believing community.”

— Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (1989), 227.

“Christianity means community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ. No Christian community is more or less than this…

The death and the life of the Christian is not determined by his own resources; rather he finds both only in the Word that comes to him from outside, in God’s Word to him. The Reformers expressed it this way: Our righteousness is an “alien righteousness,” a righteousness that comes from outside of us (extra nos). They were saying that the Christian is dependent on the Word of God spoken to him. He is pointed outward, to the Word that comes to him…

But God has put his Word into the mouth of men in order that it may be communicated to other men. When one person is struck by the Word, he speaks it to others. God has willed that we should seek and find His living Word in the witness of a brother, in the mouth of a man. Therefore, the Christian needs another Christian who speaks God’s Word to him. He needs him again and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged, for by himself he cannot help himself without belying the truth. He needs his brother man as a bearer and proclaimer of the divine word of salvation. He needs his brother solely because of Jesus Christ. The Christ in his own heart is weaker than the Christ in the word of his brother; his own heart is uncertain, his brother’s is sure.

And that also clarifies the goal of all Christian community: they meet one another as bringers of the message of salvation.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together

“I take literally the statement in the Gospel of John that God loves the world. I believe that the world was created and approved by love, that it subsists, coheres, and endures by love, and that, insofar as it is redeemable, it can be redeemed only by love. I believe that divine love, incarnate and indwelling in the world. summons the world always toward wholeness, which ultimately is reconciliation and atonement with God...

I believe that the community-in the fullest sense: a place and all its creatures-is the smallest unit of health and that to speak of the health of an isolated individual is a contradiction in terms. ”

— Wendell Berry, Health is Membership

Bono & Eugene Peterson on The PSALMS

Our study of the Psalms continues!  Check out this great conversation between Eugene Peterson (writer of The Message) and Bono (lead singer of U2):