Bitesize Theology by Peter Jeffery

Bitesize theology by Peter Jeffery.
When you think of doctrine
Do you think of words that are hard to spell let alone understand.

Doctrine is simply a word to describe what the bible teaches and no believer should be afraid to grapple with it.

Only one body of truth and all believers need it all. This body of truth has words in it that have significance in their meaning.

Just as there is language of special significance used in surfing. Like surfs up dude. Check out that swell. How about those bowl waves off the peir. Or we road a six foot face reef break last week end.

Just like all those words are of special significance to surfer. So christians have words of special signifance. Like propitiation and justification.

How to be a spiritual millionaire. That's what this book is all about. Understand ing the spiritual truth in richs us beyond believe.

Chapter 2 God (geting to know God)

If we don't understand who God is we can forget about understanding the rest of the truth about him

What is God like? or what are his attributes.

Well firstly He is holy.
He has no sin and evil in him. He is morally perfect.

God is sovereign. He rules over every thing and every one. He has complete freedom to do as he sees fit.

God is the God of providence. So there is no luck or chance in God world. God is always doing something.
God is good. So we can trust him.
God is love. By understanding doctrine we should be bought closer to a God who love us.

Chapter 4 Jesus

Jesus is special.
He couldn't just be a man because he who be a sinner like you and I and need a saviour as we do.

Son of man
Jesus had to become a man in order to make atonement for our sin. He died in our place so that he might destroy satan.


Son of God
In Jesus God becomes a man. Giving up heaven and taking on a human nature and identified with us. So he suffered like we do

He is both fully god and man.

Jesus the Saviour.
He saved us from the results of sin.

Chapter 5 the Holy Spirit.

He is not an it.

His ministry.
He applies salvation to us by convicting us of sin.

His fruit.
The holy spirit goes on work in us producing Christ like fruit.

His gifts
We cannot further the gospel with out his gifts.

Chapter 6 The Trinity
Trinity simply means threeness. The threeness of God how cool is that. Its very hard to explain in the

Trinity at work.
They created the world.
They all play apart in our saving.
God the father planed it
Jesus did it dieing in our place.
God the spirit applies it.

Chapter 7 Sin breaking the law of God.

Our crooked and twisted nature refuses to stay inside Gods boundaries and leaves us well short of Gods standards.

Gods wrath.
Gods holiness makes hell as inevitable as his love makes heaven. Gods wrath is a right and necessary reactiow against moral evil.

Chapter 8 Atonement (God dealing with sin)

Old testment full of pictures of the atonement of Jesus.
This attoment was planed by God. Secondly it was not hit and miss.

Old testament Pictures of Jesus.
The passover and the day of Atonement.
The day of attonement. Shows substitution and propitiation.

Substitution.
Jesus Body broken for you blood shed for you. Innocent for us who are guilty

Propitiation.
Jesus faced Gods wrath at our sin and guilt and fully paid for it so God could look favorably on us.

Blood
Referrs to Jesus sacrificial death.

Chapter 9 Grace (Gods mercy to the undeserving.

What is Grace.
Grace is the free unmerited,undeserved favour of God to sinners. Grace depends on the merit of Jesus not on my merit and can therefore never lose its power

Chapter 10 Regeneration.

Born again to enable responsed to God. A new nature is given. Got it first comes regeneration and then repentance and belief. No repentance is possible with out being born again. The Holy Spirit must regenrate us.

Chapter 11 Repentance and Faith.
No repentance with out faith.

Repentance.
Must break with the past and live in future only to please God in every area of life.

Faith trust in the Lord Jesus. Faith hears the truth of the Gospel believes in certain facts and acts upon it.

Ongoing repentance.
Repentance is a daily experience.

Do the teachings of Jesus dominate my whole life?

Chapter 12 Reconciliation.

Bring together of two people together by removing the hostility between them.

Chapter 13 Redemption

Redemption means to set free from the slavery to sin by the payment of a ransom.

The world has put in bids for our soul offering sex money fame power and all other items in which it traffics. But Jesus our faithful bridgroom and lover entered the market place to buy us back. He bid his own blood.

Chapter 14 Justification

Jesus through his actions takes away condemnation but also gives us righeousness. We are not made rightous rather we are declared rightous in Gods eyes.

Chapter 15 adoption

Paul borrows this term from the first century legal system.

God makes us part of his family through his son. Justification clears the way for adoption. God wants his adopted children to reflect his character.

We as believers or as loved by God as his only son. This means that we share will share in all Jesus glory. Why not reflect that now in our day to day lives putting off the old self and putting on the new self.

Chapter 16 Union with Christ

Each believer is united to Christ in a living vital dynamic union with Jesus not in a theoretical way. We are in a relationship.

Our old self is dead killed with jesus on the cross. Sin does not master us any more because we are in Christ. Therefore although we sin we must not let sin dominate our lives.

If you are in christ you can't loose that.

The whole of your salvation depends on your union with Christ.

Chapter 17 sanctification.
(become who we are in Christ)
First lets be clear we are sanctified in Christ. But we are being sanctified by God.

The process of sanctification frees us from the power of sin and its rule in our life. It is a here and now process.

Is your life changing as a christian or are you seeing no growth?

Sanctification means that the power of sin is being overcome in us by God as he makes us more and more like him.

If you looked at your life this year verses last year are you growing in fighting sin.

Chapter 18 election

Election what is it: God saving by his grace some guilty sinners whom he has chosen.

Jesus did not just come to make salvation possible. He came to save a specific people...

Chapter 19 eternal security

We as Christians are saved by Jesus and kept by him. Nothing can separate us from his love.

The security of the sheep rests firmly on the Good Shepard.

Chapter 20 the second coming.

The coming of Jesus will be personal and physical.

Three views of Jesus coming back.
Post millennialism Jesus will come back following the 1000 years

Pre millennialism christ will come back before the 1000 years

A millennialism no actual 1000 years.

The question is will you keep looking to Jesus no matter what you believe about the millennial argument.

Gratitude, Greed, and Grumbling

The totality of God’s gifts is much more than we deserve. Though many Christians would nod their heads in agreement, few live as though it were actually true. Rather than gratitude for God’s grace we exhibit greed for our own gain. The difference between these two outlooks influences and directs every aspect of life:

	Gratitude	Greed
Attitude	Humility (Phil. 2:3)	Grumbling (Phil. 2:15)
Perspective	Grace: “I am a sinner who deserves death but Jesus paid the price and gave me his perfect righteousness.”	Entitlement: “I am a good person who deserves heaven—plus a comfortable, pain-free existence in the meantime.”
Desire	Jesus is enough to satisfy my life.	Jesus is not enough. I want wealth / fame / comfort / power as well.
Money	God gives. Therefore my money is his, and I use it to glorify him.	I earn. Therefore my money is mine, and I use it however I please.
Possessions	Contentment: I have enough.	Covetous: I never have enough.
Church	I serve as a member of God’s family.	I am served as a consumer.
Job	Work heartily for the Lord, cultivating thanks for God’s provision. (Deut. 8:17,Col. 3:23)	Work begrudgingly for the man, becoming bitter and jealous against others. (James 3:16)
Family	A blessing to embrace	A burden to escape
Future	Eternal: optimistic/hopeful (2 Cor. 4:7–9)	Temporal: pessimistic/anxious
Worship	Time, energy, and resources go to God.	Time, energy, and resources go to me.
Identity	Jesus and his achievement	My abilities and my achievements
Giving	Generous	Guilt- or gain-motivated (or non-existent)

Which column more accurately describes your life? In which areas are you encouraged? Where do you need to repent and seek forgiveness? Your church, your small group, and your family are following your example, for good or ill.

People who are obsessed with Jesus are risk takers

People who are obsessed with Jesus take risks.

People who are obsessed with Jesus aren't consumed with their personal safety and comfort above all else. Obsessed people care more about Gods kingdom coming than their own lives being shielded from pain or destress.

You just have to look at the life of Paul to see this. He was beaten he was ship wrecked etc. As a nation as people built in our culture is no you can't do that or this because you will be un comfortable. You have to have a bond a new car a nice house medical aid pension a stable Job and providing for my kids when I die. All good things but in our culture they are sometimes even in Christian circles they become absolute things.

Look at Paul in Phil 4 v11 to v12.
This book is all about living a life worthy of the gospel. Look at how Paul lives this out practically. He say I have learn to be content in what ever situation. Why? v13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

Jesus gives Paul strength Jesus sustains Paul. Our obsession with comfort and safety should be turned in an obsession for Jesus.

What this means:
If I suffer if I am uncomfortable if I am hard pressed. I need to look to Jesus for strength.

Resolved.
The pray more in every situation even when I am comfortable.

Look to my lord for strength not to the world.

Dwell apon 1 Peter 1 v6 that all discomfort and suffering is just temporary in light of eternity.

Crazy Love- Crazy life

I really enjoyed Francis Chan’s book, Crazy Love. I need to read it again.

On page 169 he describes how, while attending a Christian college, he began to purposefully put himself in uncomfortable situations, like sharing his faith in downtown L. A. Here’s what he discovered:

The greatest blessing I received during those trips to the inner city was seeing God work in situations where He has to. As a result, I’ve made it a commitment to consistently put myself in situations that scare me and require God to come through. When I survey my life, I realize that those times have been the most meaningful and satisfying of my life. They were the times when I truly experienced life and God.

Amen. This is why God invites us to move toward need—toward discomfort—not toward comfort. It is the secret Paul discovered and why he said, “For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10).

In Christ, your pain, even if delivered by a “messenger of Satan” (2 Corinthians 12:7), is designed to bring you joy because it’s designed to encourage you to cast your all on God, whose grace will be sufficient for you (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Dear friends and family

News from the family

Once again I can’t believe that it is that time of the year again- It was just the other day that we were celebrating the new year and now there are Christmas decorations in the shops and I am already planning in my 2011 diary!! Scary how time flies!!
The past 3 months have been buzy for all of us as a family- well, when is it not buzy when you have a 2 yr old and a 1 yr old running around the house!!!

The house is a display of boxes and brown tape lying around. I have been buzy with quotes for our move and organising the endless list of details which needs to be taken care of before we leave on 30 December and make our way down to Cape Town.
Daniella is still loving school. We have really been blessed with a wonderful school and teacher- she will be sorely missed next year.

Ethan is loving his new found freedom of walking around and being able to catch his sister and irritate her. He is very fond of her and he loves to play with Daniella- the feeling is not always mutual though on her part.

Clint has thoroughly enjoyed preaching this year! I have never met a man with such a heart for Jesus as my husband. There is NOTHING on this earth that he would rather do, other than tell people about Jesus Christ!

Updates on our other ministries.

Christ church Glenwood.

In July and August,we as a family were looking after the church as the Browns went back to England. It was great to serve as leader for that time. I (Clint) also preached through Titus during that time.
We are at the end of guest month (October). Ray and I preached a series called vintage Jesus this was so that partners in our church could bring guests.
We also organized an event at a restaurant so that our partners could bring guests. It went well with two non Christians with loads of good questions in attendance.

The Bible Talks student ministries.

Bible ministry training

We have had about 7 student leaders in Bmt over the past term. It was great to see the word of Christ dwell in them richly as we taught them Mark so that they would be equipped to teach it to others.

Friday meetings

We have just finnished our last one. It has been awsome to see people meet Jesus for the first time from the pages of the bible. I had an amazing response from the preaching of a short series I did on the real Jesus.

Sunday meetings

This meeting has really grown in size and maturity. At the start of this semester I was able to look at 2 Cor 8 and 9. Giving is such a big deal for us because of what Jesus did for us. This text always shocks me. That the Macedonia churchs gave under the situation they found themselves in. Grace was very clear to them.

Things to pray for...
Please prayerfully consider giving to our ministry now and in the future.
Please pray above all things we would trust God. The future is in his hands. We are far short of what we need for College.
Please pray that God will use us as missionaries were ever we end up.

We are having a fundraising event in November in order to help us raise some money for our move. We pray that it will be well attended and that it will be an evening of great fun and fellowship.

If we don’t speak again before we leave please pray for travelling mercies down to Cape Town, for us and the kids to a just to our new life and especially for Daniella to settle down well into her new school. Please pray that we will raise the money that we still need to support us monthly. We praise God for his continued faithfulness to us!!!

Have a blessed Christmas
All our love
Clint, Taryn, Daniella and Ethan

D Behoffer wrote these words

The basis on which Christians can speak to one another is that each knows the other as a sinner who, even given all one’s human renown, is forlorn and lost if not given hep. This does not mean that the others are being disparaged or dishonoured. Rather, we are paying them the only real honour a human being has, namely, that as sinners they share in God’s grace and glory, that they are children of God. This realization gives our mutual speech the freedom and openness it needs. We talk to one another about the help we both need. We admonish one another to go the way Christ bids us to go. We warn one another against the disobedience that is our undoing. We are gentle and we are firm with one another, for we know both God’s kindness and God’s firmness. Why should we be afraid of one another since both of us have only God to fear?’ (104/105)

‘The more we learn to allow the other to speak the Word to us, to accept humbly and gratefully even severe reproaches and admonitions, the more free and to the point we ourselves will be in speaking. One who because of sensitivity and vanity rejects the serious words of another Christian cannot speak the truth in humility to others. Such a person is afraid of being rejected and feeling hurt by another’s words. Sensitive, irritable people will always become flatterers, and very soon they will come to despise and slander other Christians in their community. But humble people will cling to both truth and love. They will stick to the Word of God and let it lead them to others in their community. They can help others through the Word because they seek nothing for themselves and have no fears for themselves.’ (105)

‘Nothing can be more cruel than that leniency which abandons other to their sin. Nothing can be more compassionate than that severe reprimand which calls another Christian in one’s community back from the path of sin.’ (105)

My Words

We really are so sensative these days. That rebucking a Christian friend that we are in a relationship with is very hard to do.