Stacey's blog

Last night a young woman was interviewed in my church about the year she spent at Bible college, having taken leave from her job to do a Diploma in Sydney.
It was great. She talked about the encouragement of spending time with other Christians, the blessing of being able to take time to study God's word, and the privilege and responsibility that are ours in having the access we do to such excellent Bible teaching. She talked about the way that studying God's word changes how we do ministry because it changes who we are.
All this I have found to be true.

Just last week one of the students in my English class commented 'I think that you have a very happy religion'.
Maybe it was my grin (a combination of nerves and my delight at the questions they were asking), but I would rather think that it was in response to my answer to her previous question: 'So are you saying that if you are a Christian, all you have to do is believe Jesus and you will go to heaven?'.

As I write this, there is a week of the school term left, and I find myself wondering again where the term has gone! A new school term brought with it a new semester of study with the Timothy Partnership, and another opportunity to study God’s word and be encouraged and equipped in ministering to others. The subject I am doing is OT 202, which unfathomably seems to have three different titles. But I am glad, because each gives a slightly different, and helpful, perspective on what the subject is about.

Remember at school, on the first day back, when you had to write a story that began like that? That’s a bit how I feel today. When one of my sons was in kindergarten he got into trouble because he wrote “In the holidays I played red-butt”. He had been given a soccer goal for his birthday shortly before the holidays, and that was pretty much what they and all the neighbours had done for two weeks. But his teacher objected to his use of the word ‘butt’.

It just so happened (I’ve been looking with my Bible study group at the coincidences in the book of Esther) that the subject I’d hoped to do this semester was unavailable, so I enrolled in another. And in case I was in any doubt about who was really in control, in the first week of term in my English class one of the students asked about the various rulers mentioned at the beginning of Luke 3, the topic I had been reading about in NT201 the previous day.

On average, we’ve covered 30 years of history a day over the semester as we’ve studied the period from the creation of the world to the exile of God’s people in Babylon – Genesis though to 2 Kings. I guess that explains in part why the semester seems to have flown!
After doing my exam on Friday (and spending a long time sitting and drinking coffee with my friend and fellow student, Kate) I spent the Queen’s Birthday long weekend at PY Winter Camp (If you missed it, there’s always Summer Camp, or next year. Find out more here: www.pynsw.org.au ).

So I finished the Numbers essay, with 37 mins to spare! (despite the excellent encouragement of my fellow student David, to hand it in a few days early!) I think it must run in our family, because this week in our house there has been a fair bit of staying up late to finish something that is due tomorrow.

Yesterday we went to my grandmother’s funeral; today the kids have gone back to school (except the Vomiting One), and English classes started again (without me). It was the end of the holidays, and the end of an era. My grandmother, who died just shy of her 98th birthday, was a remarkable woman whose life was a testimony to God’s grace. Having attended church for most of her life, she became a Christian at about 50, when she really understood the death and resurrection of Jesus for the first time.

Last Sunday night in church we read Psalm 119:25-32.The psalmist talks about being 'laid low in the dust', and says his 'soul is weary with sorrow'. As I looked around me I knew that there was a number of my brothers and sisters in Christ who would echo those sentiments, who are carrying significant burdens. The psalmist doesn't shy away from the real struggles of living in a fallen world. But at each point he turns to God's promises and his word. That is where he finds hope. I thought about the Israelites in the desert.

Colossians 1:15-19 has long been one of my favourite parts of the Bible for thinking about Jesus' God-ness.
And it wasn't immediately obvious (at least to me)how studying an Old Testament overview subject through the Timothy Partnership would help me look at Colossians with my Bible study group.
But considering side by side what it means for man to be made in the image of God, and what it means for Jesus to BE the image of God has helped me to see more fully than ever before that these verses in Colossians are also about Jesus' man-ness.