Journey Outside the Camp

New editions of Firm Foundations and The Stranger on the Road to Emmaus

I was recommending to a friend some books that were useful as Sunday School curriculum. I was telling her about The Stranger on the Road to Emmaus and Firm Foundations: Creation to Christ. Both these books teach the Gospel message chronologically, starting from Genesis and working sequentially and building the story all the way up to the Resurrection. It was the way Jesus taught the two disciples about himself as they walked along the road to Emmaus in Acts 24. Over the years, my wife and I have seen so many people come to a full understanding of the Gospel and put their trust in Jesus because of going through these books.

I was most pleasantly surprised to find that both these books have new editions. Firm Foundations has been around for more than 20 years so it was really good to see this new edition. It has revised text, updates maps and charts and all the resources are also included in a CD-ROM. That's handy.

The Stranger on the Road to Emmaus is into its fourth edition. It has a nice new cover but I couldn't get a sense of what else was updated on the inside.

Codex Sinaiticus is now online

One of the most important texts for the Bible is now available online! Codexsinaiticus.org lets you view the actual codex online. The codex was written some time between AD 325 and AD 360 and originally, it contained the complete text of both the Old and New Testaments in Greek, as well as several other writings. Written on vellum parchment, the codex was discovered in 1844 in the Greek Monastery at Mount Sinai, hence the name.

Codex Sinaiticus: The start of Romans 1

This codex is significant because it is one of the earliest manuscripts of that helped us understand the what the early church considered part of the canon and also who to arrange the sequence of the books of the Bible.

To quote from the site:

The ability to place these 'canonical books' in a single codex itself influenced the way Christians thought about their books, and this is directly dependent upon the technological advances seen in Codex Sinaiticus. The quality of its parchment and the advanced binding structure that would have been needed to support over 730 large-format leaves, which make Codex Sinaiticus such an outstanding example of book manufacture, also made possible the concept of a 'Bible'. The careful planning, skilful writing and editorial control needed for such an ambitious project gives us an invaluable insight into early Christian book production.

Well, looking at the actual text of codex, I have to say, it's all Greek to me! But seriously, it's exciting to be this close to the actual Greek text of the New Testament. (The OT portion, of course, is the Greek [Septuagint] version of the Hebrew text.) Like I like to tell my classes, "The English Bible you have in front of you is not actually the Bible! It's a translation." To see the actual text is awe-inspriting.

Who are you, O man

My wife and I were discussing God's fairness in election. We agreed that he was sovereign and as the ultimate Sovereign, God chooses whom he will save, not based on any merit we may or may not have. This is to show that he alone makes these choices because he can. On the surface, it just seemed to smack of unfairness. Why are some chosen and others not! How can that be fair to us? How can he be loving and do such a thing?

Then, the Holy Spirit struck me with Romans 9:20—"But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?”

Indeed! Who am I? Who are we? As it says in Isaiah 40:12,

"Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand
and marked off the heavens with a span,
enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure
and weighed the mountains in scales
and the hills in a balance?"

Who indeed, but God. God is so big, there is none like him. All creation belongs to him. He made the world to glorify him. We are literally like dust to him. Who are we, that he should pay any attention to us? How can we, who are insignificant, face God and tell him what he can and cannot do? How dare we? We are the created being. He does what he wants with us.