On October 18 Bishop Stephen opened the Chelmsford Annual Bible Conference in prayer, with over 300 delegates present.
Dale Ralph Davis, a pastor theologian from the USA, led with rugged spiritual insight four sessions on Joshua going into the land of Canaan’s sin-sick terrain, to show us that God is absolutely just and holy, that his ways of dealing with our failure and faithlessness are extremely odd. Davis showed us that these strange ways (by our standards) are to help us understand the story of God’s grace, its claims on our lives and its realism because of our sinful nature.
The realm of terrible wars was entered, one that speaks of God ‘zapping evil’ which is hard to hear in our ‘nice’ ‘clean’ world. We might not like God’s Old Testament view of sin but it was the Bible Jesus knew. It was God’s justice on an unjust people.
A book to get us excited
Dale spoke with passion about a book of the Bible which begins with one funeral and ends with three, to ‘get us excited’ about the fulfilment of God’s ultimate promises through the cross and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Just as Rahab, the shady lady, found refuge in God from God so all must find the grace writ large on the Old Testament’s pages. The day’s event closed with praise and prayer by the Bishop of Barking, Peter Francis.
