Through the Bible

Beginning on September first we will be reading through the Bible together.  John Stott's Through the Bible will be our common guide.  At the beginning of each week I will post a commentary and questions to start off our weekly conversations around the Word of God.  Sometimes I will directly engage Stott.  Other times I will bring other reading to bear.  But the focus will be on the actual words of Scripture and it's guidance for our common discipleship to Jesus.

As I come to the Bible again this year with a desire to hear the Lord's guidance and direction I do so with a couple of overarching queries:

1) How does the Lord effectively exercise his authority in our lives?  How, in others words, does his "kingdom come on earth as it is heaven?". How does the Bible narrate his regency?  What does it look like on earth when His reign is acknowledged by His creation?

2) There are two parts to the question above: How does God exercise his authority and how do we acknowledge and respond to it?  It seems to me there is a dilemma in the heart of God which scripture invites us into: God has all power but what He really wants cannot be forced.  How does God convert us (our unruly wills and our wayward hearts) to the joining of His purpose to heal the world, to establishing his kingdom on earth as it is heaven?  So we must look at our interactions with The Lord God, how He exercises his sovereignty - a sovereignty that comes to its fullest and truest expression in Jesus enthronement on Calvary.