August Update - 2019

• Welcome

Welcome to my Romans 15:8 monthly blog for August 2019. I t was good to meet up with some Romans 15:8 members at the CMJ Conference last month. I also had an opportunity to promote the network at the LCJE international conference in Toronto. If you are reading this blog and have not yet signed up to the network, please do so. If you do sign up your name will be added to the current list of Roman 15:8 members. This list is now publically displayed on this site so hopefully if there are some members you know you may like to make contact with them in order to share in fellowship and for mutual encouragement. Also please do use the question option on the site- as always it’s good to get questions and feedback and to enter into discussion with network members and others. Shalom Alex

• Teaching reflection of the month (August) During the LCJE amongst many excellent teaching sessions and discussion times I met with some key leaders who have pioneered outreach amongst Jewish people who have been strongly involved in Kabbalah teaching and practices. I have a number of good teaching tracts on this theme and will happily post them to any Romans 15:8 members on request.

• Ministry news update The past few weeks have been fairly light in ministry terms as I have had 2 weeks away on annual leave. The main ministry event for me was the LCJE International conference in Toronto. This was the 11th International Conference and it took place between August 11 and 16th, in North York, Toronto. Please visit the LCJE website www.LCJE.net for a full report of the conference. You can also download from this site all the papers presented at the conference along with the conference statement - “Making All Things New”.

• Book News I have enjoyed reading two books this month which I warmly recommend to you. Firstly the book by Robert P Gordon - Holy Land Holy City (Paternoster, 2004). Robert Gordon is Regius Professor at Cambridge University and he brings much insight as he explores the connections between the physical geography of Israel and the spirituality of the Bible, along with ideas about sacred space and pilgrimage. The chapter (chap five) on the site of Golgotha I found particularly interesting and I would urge any visitor to the site to read it. Overall the book is well researched and very helpful, yet I found Gordon’s reliance on a ‘preterist hermeneutic’ at times somewhat limiting, to put it politely! The second book is the best-selling The Silk Road by Peter Frankopan (Bloomsbury, 2015). This book is wide-ranging in its aim – no less than seeking to give a ‘History of the world’. The Silk Road becomes the lens for doing this, beginning with the creation of the Silk Road which Peter Frankopen sees as “…the bridge between east and west, the very crossroads of civilisation.” Frankopen then traces majestically over 3000 years of political, military, cultural and religious history up until the present day with some interesting references to Israel and the ‘Arab Spring’. • Monthly Memory Verse As part of the LCJE conference we studied in small groups the book of Colossians – so it seems appropriate to give two memory verses this month from this letter of Paul. (Romans 15:8 network members maybe interested to know that my book Walking an Ancient Path (Glory to Glory publications, 2016) deals with issues around Christology, Monotheism and the Trinity and in part is based on Colossians 1:15-20. This text is considered by most NT scholars to be one of the four key NT ‘Christological texts’ - along with John 1:1-18, Philippians 2:6-11 and Hebrews 1:1-4) “He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ.” (1:28) “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority.”(2:9-10) (Verses taken from the NIV)