The author Allan Harman is Principal and Old Testament Professor at Presbyterian Theological College in Melbourne, Australia. Here’s a look at the blurb…

How does the Old Testament relate to your faith? Is it just a repository of thrilling stories and strange rules which have been superceded by the New Testament? Or is it a source of guidance and learning that gives us a vibrant Christian life? Allan Harman here explains many different aspects of the Old Testament, particularly the importance of covenant in God’s relations with humanity. This is seen at Creation, and with Noah and Abraham. He also covers the history of Israel, looking at the exodus and the covenant instituted at Sinai. In particular, he shows how the Messiah is anticipated. Surveys are also given of what it meant to be a ruler or king in Israel as well as a prophet and a poet.

Although Professor Harman is an academic, this book is written in very plain English and is very easy to read. It gives a very good overview of the Old Testament in 112 pages. I am not a huge reader but was able to read it in two fairly short sittings.

If you are a Christian and wanting to know more about the Old Testament, this book will help you to get a really good overview in a short time. I found it really helped me to understand God’s covenant relationship with mankind and His deep love and concern for us all.

The best thing of all is it is available online at Koorong for only A$3.50. You can find it here.

God Bless,

Dave

In the first chapter he outlines a case for house churches and why they work. Things like they are Biblical, they empower all believers, they simplify the way church is done, they foster authentic community life, they free up finances for community projects and they are easily reproduced etc. After reading this chapter I was convinced.

However, it raised a couple of questions for me. 1. How do you start a house church? 2. What about meeting together when you first decide to begin? These are pretty big questions for someone who has gone to a traditional Sunday morning church for most of the last 20 years.

As I read through the rest of the book these questions were answered. It seems that starting a house church and meeting together is less about the gathering at first, and more about making connections with people and reaching out to them with Jesus’ love. It is about being missional in your everyday life in a natural way. It is about connecting with people and inviting them on a journey of discipleship or following Jesus.

It seems that once you have been reaching out and discipling people, then a natural gathering of people forms. This then becomes a simple/house church. Rather than gathering first focus, the focus is on reaching out and discipleship and the gathering is a natural extension of that.

I must say that I found this book very refreshing and one that really appeals to me. I have always enjoyed the smaller meetings in people’s homes rather than the Sunday morning event that takes place. For me personally the close relationships and genuine care that takes place in the smaller groups has always felt more like “church” to me. It has been about “being the church” rather than “attending the church”.

If you are interested in reading Roger Thoman’s book you can find it on his website here http://www.simplechurchrevolution.com/download.htm.

God Bless,

Dave

I just added a new article/message to my main website. It is titled, “How to be a living sacrifice”.

The article is based on Romans 12:1 and looks at seven things from Romans 12 that helps us to see what being a living sacrifice is all about.

You can find it here – http://www.passionaustralia.org/livingsacrifice.html

God Bless,

Dave

Pastor Mark Conner from CityLife church is doing a series titled, “How to make wise decisions” on his blog at the moment.

It touches on making good choices, finding God’s will and how God leads us. So far it is a four part series with more to come.

I found them to be great advice. You can find the posts here…

1. How to Make Wise Decisions (Pt.1)
2. How to Make Wise Decisions (Pt.2)
3. How to Make Wise Decisions (Pt.3)
4. How to Make Wise Decisions (Pt.4)

God Bless,

Dave

Today I thought I would share some more advice on commitment to being a Christian parent. In the first chapter Dr Sears shares seven things that God expects from us when raising our kids as Christian parents.

1. To love God (Deuteronomy 6:5)
2. To fear Him (Deuteronomy 10:12)
3. To walk in His ways, to be an example (Deuteronomy 10:12)
4. To know Him, to have knowledge and application of His Word (Deuteronomy 10:13)
5. To teach His Word to your children (Deuteronomy 6:7, 11:19)
6. To discipline your children (Proverbs 19:18)
7. To avoid provoking your child to anger (Ephesians 6:4)

He goes on to say that before we can instruct our children we must understand God’s Word ourselves. First we must know, love and fear God ourselves and live according to His teachings. Then we can impart them on to our children.

Of course these seven points don’t talk about loving, caring for and providing for your child’s daily needs. These go without saying.

However, I think they do show us how important it is to God to pass on our faith to the next generation and they give us some good guidelines to follow as Christian parents.

God Bless,

Dave

Two things in the book have really helped me over the years. The first one is about priorities and the second is about setting your goals as a father.

The priorities that Dr Sears talks about is ordering the things that are important in your life. He says that we need to define our priorities and make a commitment and stick to them. Dr Sears suggests that we arrange our lives as such on page 40…

1. God – our relationship with God
2. Family – our next most important responsibility
3. Work – our jobs that help us make a living
4. Church – our church/ministry responsibilities

The second helpful thing from the book is about setting the big picture goals as a father and spiritual leader of the home. These are found on page 41…

1. Love the Lord and love your neighbour as yourself
2. Fear God and keep His commandments
3. Pray for wisdom to make the spiritual decisions which lead you and your family towards your ultimate goal
4. Have a knowledge of Scripture and apply it to your life
5. Live a Christ-centred life in relationship with God as your Father

I have found these two things very helpful advice to me as a husband and a father. I have often referred back to these principles whenever life seems to be getting out of balance or I am going through a tough time. I find these things are the anchor for which I build my family life upon.

If you are a parent or will become one soon, I would encourage you to get a copy of Dr Sears book. It is a handy resource to have in your bookshelf to refer to.

God Bless,

Dave

It has 31 fully illustrated pages and looks at 230 people in total. It is divided in a number of major headings like the first families, Egypt, the Judges, the first Kings, the Prophets, people in the Gospels, Jesus’ friends and foes, the first Christians and Paul and his circle.

Some of the people have a simple one paragraph description about them and the Bible references where their full story is found. While others who would be considered major Bible characters might have three to four paragraphs and the Bible references.

I have found it very useful for when I want a quick overview of some of the major people of the Bible and where their story is found. And being only $2.95 at Koorong it is very cheap too! If you are interested, you can find it here.

God Bless,

Dave

I came across this really cool website today – it is called WalkingBible.org. It is set up to help people memorise Bible verses. It uses images, music, text and spoken word to help aid in the memorisation process.

They have a number of different themes you can memorise Scriptures on. You can even build your own theme based on the 900 plus verses they have stored.

They have set up one on my verses I recommend for new Christians. You can find it here.

God Bless,

Dave

Today’s Our Daily Bread was very good. Something in it spoke to me, so I thought I would share it. It is titled, “God loves adverbs”. You can find it here.

God Bless,

Dave

This year I thought I would try something different so I did a Google search for free journal software. I came across a free program called iDailyDiary which looks pretty good so far. Here’s the blurb from the website…

iDailyDiary Free Version

iDailyDiary provides a simple interface that immediately gets you started taking daily notes, creating a journal, putting your thoughts into writing and much more.

The iDailyDiary editor is “richtext” with the ability to insert graphics, URL’s, Hypertext links and links to other diary pages. iDailyDiary is fully searchable so you can always track down those important dates and reminders.

Key Features

Works with MS Windows 9x, ME, 2000, XP, 2003, 2008, Vista, 7
Data files encrypted and password protected
Richtext Editor
Fully Searchable
Insert Pictures, URL’s and Hypertext
Multiple “pages” for each day
Export to HTML format to create web pages
Supports Unicode (non-western character sets)
Mutli-Language GUI, including Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Turkish and Japanese

I thought I would share it for those who are thinking about starting a journal or a prayer journal. You can find it here at http://www.splinterware.com/products/idailydiary.htm.

God Bless,

Dave

PS. A friend of mine read this post and also suggested Examen.me which is a journal and devotional program. You can find it here http://www.examenme.com/