CMED Course- Discovering The Big Story Of The Bible And Our Part In It

with Revd Howard Peskett

“As the rain and snow come down from heaven, and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”  (Isaiah 55.10,11).

What is this large book which all Christians treasure but so few Christians read?  John Wesley wrote, “I want to know the way to heaven; God has written it down in a book.  Oh, give me that book!  At any price give me the book of God!”  George Whitefield found light and life and power from above when he “.. began to read the Holy Scriptures upon my knees, laying aside all other books and praying over, if possible, every line and word.  This proved meat indeed and drink indeed to my soul.”  John Keble wrote of the bible, “Who that hath felt thy glance of dread/ Thrill through his heart’s remotest cells,/ About his path, about his bed,/ Can doubt what Spirit in thee dwells!”

On this study day we will helicopter over the whole terrain of scripture.  We will study the shape of the bible, especially the Old Testament.  We will study the place of Jesus Christ as the focus of prophetic testimony and apostolic witness.  We will summarise the process by which these 66 books have come to have a unique authority for Protestant Christians (with a brief side-glance to the Apocrypha).  We will discuss how today we can live within the Bible’s great, continuing story; how we can inhabit this story; how we can perform this drama; how we are ourselves (or not) the greatest translation of scripture as it becomes visible in our lives.  And finally we will choose our own TWELVE WORDS to summarise the great story of the bible, which we can use as we seek to share the good news (the gospel) with others.

Augustine said, “We understand not by active intellect at work on the OBJECT but by contemplative turning, by love, desire and delight.”  This is the spirit in which we will approach this day.

Howard Peskett is a retired priest living in Penzance, formerly the Dean of the Discipleship Training Centre in Singapore; the Vice Principal of Trinity College Bristol; the Rural Dean of Penwith.  He has spent a lifetime encouraging men and women, in Asia and in the UK, to believe that they can themselves discover the meaning and the wonder of the Bible as they seek to love and follow Christ.

10am Coffee, 10.30am Start, 4pm Finish.

Click here to book a place.