Welcome to another Thursday UNFILTERED blog post, the only blog that has a great title for a new manual for church audio techs. Title it Sound Doctrine.
To my joy, more and more readers are using the new book in churches, fellowships, and Bible study groups. I actually wrote it with that goal in mind.
The publisher’s bulk discount option is still available. And as promised, in May, I intend to unveil a plan for groups to go through the book together. Stay tuned for that.
Also, thanks to all of you who have sent me testimonials of how it’s transformed your reading of the New Testament. I’m glad to know that the last three years of my life working on this project were not in vain.
Last year, I came across this lightning quote:
“Christianity was also, to my surprise, radical – far more radical than the leftist ideologies with which I had previously been enamoured. The love of God was unlike anything which I expected, or of which I could make sense.
In becoming fully human in Jesus, God behaved decidedly unlike a god. Why deign to walk through death’s dark valley, or hold the weeping limbs of lepers, if you are God? Why submit to humiliation and death on a cross, in order to save those who hate you?
God suffered punishment in our place because of a radical love. This sacrificial love is utterly opposed to the individualism, consumerism, exploitation, and objectification, of our culture.
Just as radical, I realised, was the new creation which Christ began to initiate. This turned on its head the sentimental caricature of ‘heaven’ I’d once held as an atheist.
I learned that Jesus’ resurrection initiated the kingdom of God, which will ‘bring good news to the poor, release the captives, restore sight to the blind, free the oppressed.’ (Luke 4:18)
To live as a Christian is a call to be part of this new, radical, creation. I am not passively awaiting a place in the clouds. I am redeemed by Christ, so now I have work to do.
With God’s grace, I’ve been elected to serve – in whatever way God sees fit – to build for His Kingdom. We have a sure hope that God is transforming this broken, unjust world, into Christ’s Kingdom, the New Creation.”
Sarah Irving-Stonebraker didn’t expect those words to ever leave her lips.
She holds a PhD in History from the University of Cambridge, where she was a Commonwealth Scholar at King’s College.
Her academic career includes prestigious positions such as a Junior Research Fellowship at Wolfson College, Oxford, and roles as an Assistant Professor at Florida State University and Senior Lecturer at Western Sydney University.
In addition to her academic achievements, she has published extensively, including award-winning books like Natural Science.
But this highly-educated woman defied expectations when she left atheism and embraced a new truth – the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ and His glorious gospel.
Her words resonate perfectly with the timeless gospel of the kingdom, the central theme that my new book builds the story around.
I hope they stir you.
Until next Thursday,
fv
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