danny’s space

On Monday we learnt heaps in strand group, saw the sights of Canberra (yeah, not that many really..), and were challenged about the church by Gibbo.

In the morning we had 3 great hours of strand group, where ideas and thoughts started to come together to form a more coherent picture. Interesting questions that were posed include: ‘If Jesus has a body, where is he?’, ‘When did Adam and Eve die?’, and ‘In what sense is death an enemy?’. The answers went something like ‘He has been exalted as God and therefore is not subjected to time and space limitations’, ‘Spiritually died when they ate the fruit, and physically died later’, and ‘Death is against what God created us to be - it prevents God’s purpose for creation being worked out in us’.

Essentially the group analysed information from various passages in the Bible to gain a systematic view of resurrection. 1 Corinthians 15 was particularly central to understanding the cruciality of Christ’s resurrection to our faith. Basically, Christ’s death and resurrection, never to die again, guarantees that he will return to judge the world, and indicates that death has been defeated (although not totally destroyed). The resurrection demonstrated the effectiveness of his death on the cross. And it promises that death will be eventually destroyed. This day will be fantastically joyous for those who are safe in Christ, but terrible for those who do not know Christ as God’s just judgement is upon them.

A useful analogy was also arrived at concerining death, sin and the law. 1 Cor 15:56 ESV says “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.” This means that the power of sin comes from God giving the law authority to condemn. So it’s like a courtroom scenario where the judge has power to condemn, a power given by the law of the land, given by the maker of the law. Basically sin has the power to condemn, but only because God has given it authority through the law he has given.

An interesting point was made from Ephesians 1:15-23 which emphasised God’s power in raising Christ from the dead. Another particularly striking point was that the resurrection was God’s response to what Christ had done - like it says in Philippians 2:6-11

Lunch followed a morning of strand group, and after lunch we had a nice 4-hour length of free time in the sweltering Canberran heat. The Sydney Uni bunch planned for a tour of the major sites of Canberra, and we started at the National Museum. I’m not a big fan of museums - they bore me to say the least. Plus I reckon the NM is a bit overfunded, money that could be better spent elsewhere like in education and research. Granted museums are educational, but does the architecture have to be so expensively extravagant? The best part was when Dee and I finally escaped the museum’s interior and played around on the water feature outside.

Then James took a few of us around on an embassy tour while the rest of the group went to the National Library to have coffee and to use their free internet to check email and exam results. We met up with the library people after going on the embassy tour. I don’t think the guards at the US embassy were particularly pleased at us driving around it a few times. I’ve already said too much. Some embassies were just a plot of land with a sign at the front. Pretty standard compared to the US fortress.

After the relaxing break where we got to hang out with each other, came dinner and then the evening session with Gibbo about the church. It was a challenging reminder not to despise your church despite its shortcomings, as God dwells in his church. Also we were taught that we are God’s new temple and that God is at continually at work constructing his church. We have one true priest, the Christ, not the pope. The church is built on Christ alone as the cornerstone, not any other foundation.