For Sunday’s creative element I built an amazing blue screen. Amazing, not in quality, but that taping blue scrapes together hung from the ceiling tiles worked! This allowed the video to transport us to a new reality, with double rainbows and cows (prepare your imagination for Sunday).
Scripture’s words transport us to a new possibility. Revealing a world unhindered by fear, because it lives with resurrection. Death dethroned. Jesus as Lord.
We believe in our minds that we still live in that reality. We confess the truth of resurrection. But something hinders us. As I read the stories of the Bible — our Resolve2021 readings are in Acts: the church preaches under constant threat, gives away their wealth, miracles abound — it all seems impossible for us. What hinders me… is me.
Of course I doubt I would have believed in any of the disciples either. James and John desired to call fire from heaven. Peter denied. Thomas doubted. Paul approved of murder… yet they made scripture real life.
When we read the Bible, we are transported back to that reality. But the Bible is more than a blue screen. It does more than transport our imaginations. The Bible connects us to God. The Spirit makes the words alive and active. By simply reading, submitting to the truth, as Richard Hays writes, “We may indeed expect to be transformed as we read.” The Spirit alive and active means that even I can make scripture real life.
I hope you are reading along with us for Resolve 2021. A chapter a day (M-F) and we will finish the New Testament at the start of Advent. Today is Acts 15, next week is 16-20. If you need help remembering download the church app: search “Chandler Baptist Church” on Apple or Android.
Join us this Sunday for Worship at 10:30. We continue our series in Acts, this week looking at why we were named Christians in Antioch. Join us streaming on Facebook or Youtube. Or in person, distanced and masked.
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