Steve Watt, April 27th 2010
How do you imagine God? What is he like? A great Architect? A loving Father? A mathematician? The Great Cosmic Destroyer? Go on, picture him for a moment. How do you like to think of God?
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Today I was challenged about the mental picture I hold of God. Consider the second commandment God gave to Moses.
“You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
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Undeniably this is talking about visual images and statues, but it makes sense if you apply it to mental images as well. To create a mental image of how I like to think of God actually obscures who God is. To create a mental picture of how I’d like God to be encourages me to think falsely about him. If I think of God as just a loving Father, I obscure his justice. If I think of him as a Brilliant Architect, I obscure his mercy.
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God is much bigger than any picture I can imagine of him. I cannot use my powers of deduction or imagination to work out what he is like.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.
Isaiah 55:8 (ESV)
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God is so other to us that we cannot imagine what he is like. His wisdom is so far beyond ours that we cannot puzzle out anything about him. We can only know what God has chosen to tell us about himself.
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And God has spoken.
Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.
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He has spoken in various ways and told us about himself. Sometimes he spoke directly, like at Mount Sinai (see Exodus 19 and following), other times he spoke through a person. But God has revealed himself. If you want to know him then don’t use your imagination, use your brain and read the scriptures for they show us God as he truly is.
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If you want to know what God is like, then listen to what God tells us about himself.
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photo credit: kevindooley
Posted in Thoughts
Nathan.Gallagher, April 25th 2010
Its 2am, I’m sitting in front of my laptop listening to some ol’ school DC Talk, and I have run out of ways to procrastinate from writing my first blog, so here goes:
I got to head along to another committee meeting Friday morning at Sammy Broadfoot’s, and despite our group being depleted due to illness, prac and a couple of member’s bizarre desire to travel interstate to chase a piece of flying plastic, we had a great time. I learnt a number of things that morning; without Roger there, committee runs much quicker, Matthew Sheridan has skipped his cleaning duties 2 weeks in a row and I realised that we should so bring back ‘fire and brimstone’ preaching.
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After going through the usual formalities, like Emma Lovegrove’s reasoning behind running like a chicken out of the Brennan room during Wednesday’s epic flash mob, we got to read through one of Jonathan Edward’s sermons – Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. Edwards was one of the main preachers involved in the First Great Awaking (1730’s and 1740’s) and is widely acknowledged as America’s most important and original philosophical theologian. His sermon, which is primarily based on one verse of scripture: Their foot shall slide in due time. Deuteronomy 32:35 is 7,184 words long, and an incredibly eye-opening text, which is why I’ve decided to share it with you today.
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Edward’s sermon has 11 ‘considerations’, some being: God may cast wicked men into hell at any given moment, All that wicked men may do to save themselves from Hell’s pains afford them nothing if they continue to reject Christ and God has never promised to save us from Hell, except for those contained in Christ through the covenant of Grace.
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But that’s enough of my essay for now, if you’re interested, I’d encourage you to have a read through his sermon, it’s both eye opening and applicable: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/edwards/sermons.sinners.html
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Peace out,
Nathan Gallagher
photo credit: Markus Rödder
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Posted in Thoughts
Sam Broadfoot, February 26th 2010
NCS Leaders’ Conference
Kickoff
O-week
Lighthouse Walk
What a great night!! – it was awesome to see so many new faces and heaps of new people come along to check out NCS. Top food from the chefs, awesome weather from God and uber welcoming all round! Almost a shame it has come and gone, but there is more on the horizon to be excited and prayerful about…
Faculty Dinners
Big Day Out
photo credit: JoshuaDavisPhotography.COM
Posted in Events, News, Prayer, Thoughts
David Goswell, February 20th 2010
For those who didnt know (or forgot), NCS sponsored me to go as a missionary to Bangladesh for a month over January. I have been asked to write a short summary of the trip.
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We did two main things over there, evangelism and contextualisation (helping pastors out with practices in their church community). Evangelism was probably my favourite and most rewarding experience. We told stories from the bible, about creation and about Jesus to the villages in the mountains. The villages couldnt get enough of these stories, they had never heard anything like them before. The village elders would even come to our camp to try and get more stories out of us that they could relay back to their people. When we were in the villages, the children would all sit down the front with their mouths agape. Everyone was excited by these stories, and soon forgot their fears that we were trying to convert them to christianity (which we were), and became lost in the stories.
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So yea, the evangelism was hella rewarding. Aparently – most of the people who come to Christ in BD come through the stories they hear about Christ (rather than through proposition, which is something we put alot of emphasis on in western evangelism).
One thing i noticed is that over there they have evangelism as a job. I dont think i have ever heard of anyone in western civilisation who evangelises for a living (save Smith Wigglesworth, but he’s in heaven now).
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The second thing we did over there was contextualisation. My group focused on the christian marriage ceremony that the marma people group undertook. Our aim was to reduce syncratism (where they have mixed in their cultural beliefs with christian beliefs). I will give you an example of one practice that we asked that they remove from their practice. They strangle a chicken, then boil it. When the marriage ceremony is complete, they remove a main artery from the neck of the chicken. A straight artery means a good omen for the marriage – a curly one means a bad one. We did research on this and found that divination is an abomination to the LORD. Also that strangling causes blood to seep into the flesh and in acts 15 (i think) it says that we must not eat blood. We strongly recommended to the pastors that they remove this ritual from the marriage ceremony.
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So that is a brief few examples of what we got up to over in the big BD (no really its the size of tazmania – with 156 million people). Of course there is a month worth of experience for me to talk about, but i will keep this post short.
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Bless you all, go in peace
photo credit: naquib
David
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Tags: Bangladesh, Contextualisation, Evangelism, Mission
Posted in Thoughts
Sam Broadfoot, February 11th 2010
Steve and I just spent the last few hours dreaming and scheming and laying plans for O’Week.
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It’s going to be a fun week!
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We’ve got BBQ’s Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday, we’ll be giving out business cards like there’s no tomorrow, there’ll be so many conversations that you could literally drown in them…. And not to mention the Light House Walk on Thursday night at the Train Sheds.
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We hope you’re getting excited about welcoming stacks of new students to Newcastle Uni, we certainly are!
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Why not take a minute now to pray for the incoming students?
Pray that’ll enjoy starting Uni and make good friends quickly.
Pray that we’ll get to meet them during O’Week
And pray that God will give us words to speak and will help us make them feel welcome.
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photo credit: Lyndi&Jason
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Tags: Newcastle Uni, Oweek, Prayer
Posted in News, Prayer, Thoughts
Sam Broadfoot, February 5th 2010
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2010 is upon us, the 3 months of holidays are almost over, and it’s time again to prepare for an onslaught of new students!
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The shear number of incoming personnel makes every O-week seem like a daunting task: how do I welcome so many people?
Even if I only shook hands, smiled and introduced myself to each newcomer, I’d be overwhelmed; drowned in a sea of new faces, names, backgrounds, personalities, expectations, tastes, questions, and doubts.
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And yet I’m confident. I’m looking forward to O-week and meeting new people, because welcoming the throngs of individuals isn’t a job I’ll be doing alone.
During O-week, it’s exciting to see the body of Christ at work – I’m excited because as NCS we’ll be welcoming together. We have a throng of our own. And not only our own, but God’s own.
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I’ve already been encouraged at the NCS Leaders’ Conference earlier this week, and with Kickoff coming soon (20th of Feb!) I can’t wait to get prepared with all of NCS for the good work ahead. To see God working through his people, diverse yet united, eager to serve their King, standing firm in one spirit, contending as one man for the gospel… what a privilege we have in being a part of it all!
Tags: Kickoff, Newcastle Uni, Oweek
Posted in Thoughts
Steve Watt, February 3rd 2010
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Gee I’m excited by this new website!
There are just so many possibilities, so many different things that we could include…
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Which makes me wonder…. if you were designing this website what would you include? An events calender? Bible commentary? What would you like to see? Please give us your comments below….
photo credit: luc.viatour
Posted in Thoughts
