Each Gospel writer presents Jesus as divine but they often do so through a Jewish lens and we simply miss it. Instead of looking for the moments in the Gospels and pointing and shouting, “He’s divine!!” I want to encourage us to read through the Gospels as the story of how YHWH (GOD) came back to his people at last. He did so in Jesus Christ!

The Gospels make up around 46% of the New Testament and the four writers are dedicated to retelling Jesus’ story in different ways to illustrate major themes and points. My hope with this series is to expose the major themes within the gospels that would have been more apparent to first century Christians than they have been to us. The structure of this series is based off of N.T. Wright’s book How God Became King where he wrestles with the question of “What is the Gospel behind the Gospels?” I highly recommend this book if you’re looking to expand your personal study. He uses the imagery of listening to a symphony through a four-speaker surround sound system to illustrate how we’ve approached the Gospels.

Matthew writes his gospel account in a way that if you know the story of God's people, images of Moses, Israel, and their story begin to jump off the page. I've prided a daily devotional reading this week to prepare you for next Sunday's sermon. Blessings to you as you study God's Word this week as you prepare to come back together as a Family next week.

We’re done with The Story till the first Sunday of September. Throughout the summer, I want to focus on the Old Testament imagery in the New Testament and help us see how Jesus embodies the narrative of Israel and help us better understand our calling as a church. We’re starting this Sunday with a communion service where we will look at how Jesus took the narrative of Israel, embodied in the practice of Passover, and reimagined it in a new narrative in his life, death, burial, and resurrection. We all come to the Table with a diversity of narratives. These narratives shape who we are. When we take up the bread and the wine in Communion together, we take up a common narrative as we move forward. Let’s look back together as we look forward to what Christ has called us to.

The same message is laid down before us that was set before God’s people 2400 years ago with Malachi: Will we be faithful to God’s call “to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ” (Eph 1:10) who replaces the Temple with his body, the Church. Will we be the Israel, Israel failed to be?  

Esther is such a fascinating book. Up to this point in scripture, God has communicated with people, shown up in divine action, sent prophets who speak with His voice, and much more. God is absent from the book of Esther in all of these ways. Over the last few months, I’ve tried to point to literary structures and devices to help bring life to the text. We miss a lot because we are so far removed from the context, language, and culture. I hope those things have been of benefit to you. Today, I want to wrestle with a theological question that comes out of Esther and post a video for you to watch to find more out about the book itself. The question I want to pose to us this week is this, “What do you do when you do not hear God’s voice?”

My prayer for the church at Queen City is that we will move beyond going to church and start being built into the Temple, God’s dwelling place in Charlotte. This means that as a people, we seek to make the world around us more like the Creation God intended for it to be. What does that look like to you?

The book of Daniel is set right after Babylon’s first attack on Jerusalem and they had plundered the city and its temple and taken a group of Israelites into exile. Among them, four men from the royal family of David: Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abedmego. The book tells of their struggle to maintain home in the land of their conqueror. 

Have you picked up on the rhythm of the Story yet? From the very beginning God has called His people to draw close to Him, they walked away, and God continued after them. There are seasons in relationships. Sometimes you feel close and sometimes not so much. I believe it is healthy to go through the ebbs and flows of relationship with God. I’m not saying that it is good to turn to idol worship. It is essential to have your thumb on the pulse of your relationship with God to recognize when you need to draw closer and deeper in relationship with Him. If your relationship hasn’t changed in the last 10 years, maybe your idle worship has become idol worship? Be ever increasing in your walk with God and let Him transform you. In the words of John the Baptist (John 3:30), “He must increase, I must decrease.”