Queen's Road Cell

Selwyn asked how we reconcile the fact that in many places in the OT God says that some things are to be a "statute forever" with the fact that we are no longer required to keep the Mosaic law. We can answer this at different levels: It is clear that when Jesus says that , "until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished."  (Mt 5:18) and just before that says (Mt 5:17) that he came to fulfill and not to abolish the law, that His idea of the permanence of the law is fulfilled in Himself. The law and promises point to the reality of Jesus (Heb 10:1). On another level we should consider what "forever" means in the Mosaic law. Very often the phrase "a statute forever" is said to apply "throughout your generations" or "to his offspring". This would imply that as long as an inheritable priesthood is in existence...

We asked ourselves the question: What is leadership? I said this can be defined as speaking and acting (= influencing) others in order to achieve a goal. John Piper helpfully notes that in Christian leadership, 1) The goal is Biblical 2) the followers can come from any gender or ethnicity (i.e. they are potentially universal) and 3) the leader has a Christlike character. We also mentioned how a Christian leader would have a pastoral concern for the spiritual health of his/her followers Edmund Chan defines aspects of leadership as follows: Status (official position, title) Stature (how others view us, how we view ourselves) Substance (how God views us) We note that there are limitations to knowing what people think of us. We are even not always able to be good judges of our own state. We know some things about ourselves that others don't know about us (our secrets), things we don't know about ourselves that others know about us (our blind spots), things we know about ou...

There is no pic of Ellie climbing up our grilled door until she was above head level!

Some of us had the opportunity to join many others from FFMC for this!

Grace was sharing about her experience in a church in London that seemed to over-emphasize the Bible as the only source of God speaking to us. The role of the Holy Spirit seemed to be primarily that of interpreting Scripture to believers. We spent some time discussing the idea of revelation: "general" revelation (Rom 1:18-20) is sufficient grounds for condemnation, but "special" revelation is necessary for salvation. The Bible is special revelation. God has revealed Himself most fully in His Son (Heb 1:1-2). I think we are to distinguish this foundational idea of how God reveals Himself to man from the idea that God communicates His will and desires to us in ways that are outside Scripture. He uses dreams, or a Christian brother's/sister's encouragement, the worship time in church, or circumstances to point us to Him. The key consideration is that all these means of communication must never go beyond what Scripture teaches - this is still the final authori...

We started with Question 3 then moved to Question 2 before ending with personal sharing on Question 1. I asked the question: What is it (except for the last red/blue part characteristic) about the blue bar column that is distinctively Christian? Put another way, can a non-Christian be a 'blue-bar' person, or can only Christians be 'blue-bar' people? Our answer was that non-Christians can indeed have blue-bar characteristics, but never for the reasons and basis on spiritual truth that Christians have. For a disciple of Christ, every aspect of his or her life - both blue and red bars - is radically God-centered. All we do in both in our outer appearance to others and our inner lives is done before the face of God. We need both external accomplishments as well as inner substance. We did say that it was not helpful to be very spiritual but quite useless in a job! We also asked if this whole idea of red and blue bars was a Biblical idea at all? Certainly the Bible celebr...

The 3 gifts of Christmas: The gift of frankincense – worship 19  The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20  Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” 21  Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22  You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23  But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 24  God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” (John 4:19-24) Introduction Frankincense is part of the holy, exclusive anointing oil (Ex 30:34), It is used in grain and food offerings (Lev 2:1-2, 15-16), but not in sin offerings (Lev 5:11) or offerings of remembrance to t...