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Craig Roberts |
Everyone who wants to teach and understand the word of God faithfully needs help. This is why we have Bible colleges, Bible study groups, why we have preaching in our churches, why we meet with others to read the word. This is also why we have Bible commentaries such as those in the Reading the Bible Today series.
For 25 years, this series has been helping pastors and educated laypeople not just to understand the Bible better, but to know how to help others to think through what God’s word means for our lives today. Edited by Bishop Paul Barnett, a prominent theologian of the Sydney Diocese, and written by Sydney Anglican theologians, we continue to hear time and again from church leaders and laypeople how much this series has benefited them. These stories have come from Africa, South America and Singapore to name a few.
It was in thinking through how to make these riches accessible to leaders and laypeople across the globe that the Developing Biblical Scholarship program was born. Designed to equip leaders and laypeople in emerging countries with Bible resources they can trust at a price they can afford, the DBS program holds so much potential for enabling Christians to grow in their own knowledge of the Scriptures and in their ability to teach and lead others in their church, diocesan and college contexts.
Please feel free to commend this series to others who you know will benefit from its use.
We have met at GAFCON recently to affirm the authority of Scripture, and to encourage each other as we stand firm on the solid foundation of the Bible. As we each seek to fulfil the GAFCON mission to ‘guard the unchanging, transforming Gospel of Jesus Christ and to proclaim him to the world’ in our different contexts, it is vital that we grow in our own and others’ knowledge of God’s word, and understand the difference it makes to life in this age.
Our desire is that, in making Bible resources that are trustworthy and easy to understand, and affordable for all who belong to the body of Christ, we may see Christians strengthened to follow Christ faithfully, to stand firm against the storms of life, and to lead and teach others according to the truth he spoke and the example he gave for us to follow.
This is what the Developing Biblical Scholarship program is all about. I heartily recommend the resources made available through this program, and trust that they will be a great blessing to you and those in your care.
