September Update - 2022

Welcome to my Romans 15:8 blog for September.

It was good to meet up with some of you from the Romans 15:8 network at the conference and to get some appreciative feedback regarding these blogs. I am writing this block on the 4th day of the Days of Awe leading up to Yom Kippur. I hope many of you are finding the CMJ Days of Awe prayer guide is a valuable resource for this period.

With kind regards and shalom,

Alex

Teaching Reflection of the month

For this month’s reflection I direct you towards the current CMJ Days of Awe prayer guide. If you do not have a copy, there are spare copies available from the CMJ office at Eagle Lodge and this resource is also available on the CMJ UK website.

This year we are not using a specific Biblical text as the unifying theme for the notes as we have done in our three previous publications: 2019 (Jonah), 2020 (Ezekiel) and 2021 (Jeremiah) but we are exploring the theme of ‘remembering’ or ‘remembrance’ and will be looking at a range of texts from Genesis to Jude. Once again, we have a range of contributors from six CMJ national groups. Each contributor brings their own style and insights yet there is a unity of teaching throughout this document.

While most readers of this resource will use this resource to help them pray and study during the Days of Awe, I also believe this resource provides helpful teaching material for private reflection, sermon preparation and Bible study material which can be applicable at anytime in the Church year.

Ministry News Update

Lots of ministry events have taken place recently, including the major outreach in Warsaw. The outreach took four main lines- firstly teams on the streets of Warsaw (in 6 locations) giving out Gospel literature and seeking to engage in Gospel conversations. Secondly online teaching and chats. Thirdly a series of public lectures (input from Aaron Eime and Richard Harvey) and fourthly a Bible Comes to Life Exhibition which generated much interest and provided a good contact point for many.

Sadly, during the mission, a number of us had Covid, including myself, but thankfully the team was big enough (40+) to be able to carry out all of the planned activities. Also, all of us recovered from Covid and were able to travel back from Warsaw as planned. A full report of the mission will appear in the next edition of News and Views.

In addition to the Poland Outreach I have just returned from the Global Mission Conference (New Wineskins) in North Carolina. During this conference which was attended by over 2000 delegates CMJ USA celebrated its 40th anniversary with a lunch at with Archbishop Foley Beach was the main speaker. CMJ USA also hosted a series of teaching sessions, and I presented a paper on Examining God’s Strategy for reaching the Nations as revealed in the Biblical mandate to take the Gospel to the Jew first.

Book Review – Jesus Life and Times. Steve Maltz (Malcolm Down Publishing, 2022)

In 1882 Alfred Edersheim (a Jewish Believer in Jesus, Pastor and Academic) wrote what has been described by many scholars and Christian teachers as an absolute masterpiece and the definitive book on The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah (the actual title of the book). This book offered a detailed and unsurpassed examination and exploration of the background of Jesus’ ministry from a Biblical Jewish viewpoint.

Steve Maltz (writer, blogger, and the founder of the web community Saltshakers) provides an accessible re-working and retelling of this classic book for today’s audience. This was a major undertaking by Steve (if you were at the CMJ conference in July you may well have heard Steve speak about this project) and one in my view he achieved with distinction.

For me as I read through the short chapters (but there are 54 in total!) I appreciated many of the insights as one is taken on a journey from the birth of Jesus to His resurrection. I particularly valued how Edersheim engages carefully with the Biblical texts, the Talmud and oral traditions; in doing this he makes clear the total divergence between the Talmud of Rabbinical Judaism and the key messages of the New Testament.

Monthly Memory Verse

“For from sunrise to its setting My Name will be great among the Nations….” (Malachi 1:11) Messianic Jewish Family Bible- Tree of Life Version

(This verse -or part of a verse was the conference verse for the New Wineskins mission conference – September 21-25th)