Home Groups start on Wednesday 25th April. This term we will be studying part of the book of Mark.
The groups meet in people’s homes from 8pm. If you would like to get involved in a group, do speak to Ian.
News
Serving
There are lots of opportunies to get involved in church.
Here are just a few:
- Serving tea and coffee at the 9am or 10:45am service
- Operating the powerpoint during the 10:45am service
- Helping in the office with admininstration tasks
- Welcoming people at services
- Cutting the grass and keeping the grounds tidy
- Doing odd maintenance jobs around the buildings like painting
If you can help, even as a one-off, email the office: info@holyredeemer.org.uk.
Here’s a verse to reflect on, 1 Peter 4:10.
New website launched
To mark our 80th Anniversary year we have launched a new website.
You are looking at it. Welcome!
The site provides information about of all our news, activities and upcoming event. The website theme is responsive, which means that it adjusts to the size of an iphone or tablet. We have also changed the primary domain name from holyredeemerstreatham to the shorter holyredeemer.org.uk.
Let us know what you think by posting a comment below. Any suggestions for improvement or information about broken links are welcome.
Our history | Plans to Serve 80th Anniversary project
Video of Hip Hop Night
Watch the highlights of Dying to Live? – the Hip Hop night that was held at the Holy Redeemer on 19th March 2010.
The evening featured The Rescued, E.Tizz and New Direction Crew. Around 120 people came to hear the music, including a MOBO award winning artist. Si ended the evening by explaining John 3:16.You can also see photos of the evening here.
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The film by Katy Brock is unfortunately no longer available.
Find us on Facebook
The Holy Redeemer can be found on Facebook ®
Facebook® is a social networking site with more than 350 million active users. Alot of people spend a lot of time on the site (often when they should be doing other things!). The site provides an easy way to keep people up-to-date with our news and to invite friends to our events.
How does it work?
The Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feed from the Holy Redeemer Church website will now automatically updates the Facebook® page with our news. From time to time we will also post details of events, videos and photos of life at church.
Isn’t there already a page on Facebook®?
There is a Holy Redeemer Streatham ‘group’ rather than a ‘page’. A ‘page’ is more versatile and can be linked up to our news feed. To avoid confusion, the old group will now be called ‘Friends of the Holy Redeemer’ and can be used by current and past members to keep in touch.
Keep up with our news by becoming a ‘fan’.
Image by Gauldo, Flickr. Facebook is a registered trademark of Facebook, Inc.
The Bible-in-a-year Challenge
The challenge for the new year is to read the whole Bible in a year.
In our series on the Bible at Cafe Church last year (listen), we saw that ‘scripture interprets scripture’ – that is, the difficult parts of the Bible are usually explained by the clearer bits of the Bible. A good way to better understand the Bible, therefore, is to get to know more of it.
Bible-in-a-year is a way to help you do this. The readings are grouped together to help you see the links between passages and they are divided up so that you can read through the whole Bible in a year. It is a great way of reading or listening to the Bible and takes about 15 minutes a-day.
Here’s how
There are at least two ways you can do it: On-line. You can read and or listen to the Bible in a year on-line. Visit the website below and it will give you 3 daily readings. Use the same computer, and it will keep track of your readings so that you can pick up where you left off. Alternatively you can create a ‘Feed’ to deliver the readings to your computer everyday. Click on the ‘One year’ button below to visit the website.
Year Bible. Another way you can do this easily is to buy a One Year Bible. A year Bible is the same as a normal Bible but, again, it groups readings together under date headings. There are various publishers that produce these – one example is below. Alternatively, if you like using your Bible, you can print off a list of readings for the year here.
Click here to buy
Take the challenge
Why not take up the challenge? You could listen to the day’s passage in your lunch break on your computer at work. You could try reading the Bible in another translation. It will take discipline to keep doing this throughout the year, and you may need to catch up on daily readings that you miss. But committing to do it with others helps.
Sign-up on the Holy Redeemer website (leave a reply below). See who’s already on the list below, and ask each other how you are getting on during the year.
Christian Resources for Children
Following the last Families’ Lunch, a list of Christian Resources for Children was compiled from those materials recommended by church members.
The Families’ Lunch happens once a month to encourage parents to bring up their children to know and love Jesus. For details of the next lunch, see the ‘What’s happening’ section of the website
Let us know what useful Christian Resources for Children that you have used. Post your recommendations below.
Paul and Jesus: An Unholy Divide?
Did Paul create Christianity or simply follow Christ?
Many people find Paul’s teaching difficult. It is often argued that Paul changed the message of Jesus – for the worse: he replaced Christ’s message of love with a dogmatic gospel of his own that is altogether less tolerant. Did Paul create an unholy divide between Christ and Christianity?
Watch
In the Channel 4 programme, The Hidden Jesus, Robert Bexford argues that he did (see below).
ii
The Talk
In an excellent talk given on Sunday 26th April , Dr David Wenham explains why the evidence does not support this view.
iiDr David Wenham is Vice Principal of Trinity College, Bristol, and is also chairman of the New Testament Group of the Tyndale Fellowship. He is a leading scholar on the relationship between Paul and Jesus. After studying theology in Cambridge and Manchester University, he taught New Testament in India and then at Wycliffe Hall and the University of Oxford for 24 years.
His publications include, Paul: Follower of Jesus or Founder of Christianity?, Paul and Jesus the True Story and The Parables of Jesus.
Questions
What is the Didiche and does it contradict the Bible?
The word ‘Didiche’ means ‘teaching’ and contains early Christian teaching. The date of the document is uncertain but is probably around AD100. There is certainly some overlap between its teachings and the New Testament – for example, it refers to the ‘two ways’ of living and the ‘Lord’s supper’. But its silence on some issues does not add up to a contradiction as Bexford suggests; as with the letters of Paul, it is not trying to give us a complete account.
Is there any evidence that the apostles accepted Paul’s teaching?
Paul tells us that he went to Jerusalem; he presented and explained what he was preaching and the leaders of the church gave him the ‘right hand of fellowship’ (Gal 2:9)- they approved of it. That is Paul’s account. But the apostle Peter talks of Paul’s writing in his second letter and says that some of his writing is ‘hard to understand’ (be encouraged those of you who find some his letters difficult!) but some people twist his words ‘as they do the other scriptures’ (2 Pt 3:16). So here the apostle Peter accepts that Paul’s writings are the same as the scriptures. There is also the historical fact that church accepted Paul’s teaching very early on (not after Constantine as some claim), despite the fact the he used to be a persecutor of Christians.
How do we know that Christianity was not based on the ‘mystery religions’?
The Greek mystery religions do have some ideas parallel to Christian ideas, e.g. myths of gods dying and rising, sacred meals, etc. But the Christians did not get their ideas from these pagan religions, but from first century events in Jewish Palestine. So, where did the idea of Jesus dying come from? The disciples saw him die on a Roman cross outside Jerusalem! The last thing that one would invent is the idea that your messiah would be crucified. Crucifixion was a shameful, degrading punishment used by the Romans. Crucifixion was not in the mystery religions. Again, the idea of Jesus resurrection came not from a mystery religion but from the disciples’ experience of seeing the risen Jesus. And the Lord’s supper was originally a Jewish Passover meal.
How can we be so confident in the date of 1 Corinthians in the Bible? Listen by clicking here.
What are the best books on the reliability of the New Testament?
I ought to know the answer to this question, but am not sure that I do! I would suggest three to start with:
The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable by F.F. Bruce. The professor under whom I studied wrote this some years ago. This has been reissued and is a good book.
Is the New Testament Reliable?: A Look at the Historical Evidence by P. Barnett. This is a more recent publication by an Australian who is a very good scholar of ancient history.
Why Trust the Bible?: Answers to 10 Relevant Questions by A. Orr-Ewing. Amy lives just down the road in Peckham and his written this popular but useful book.
