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Resources For "Devoted" Series From Each Harderwyk Preacher I. New For This Week From Counterfeit Gods by Tim Keller “What is an idol? It is anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give.” (Keller, p. xix) “A counterfeit god is anything so central and essential to your life that, should you lose it, your life would feel hardly worth living.  An idol has such a controlling position in your heart that you can spend most of your passion and energy, your emotional and financial resources, on it without a second thought.  Ist can be family and children, or career and making money, or achievement and critical acclaim, or saving ‘face’ and social standing. It can be a romantic relationship, peer approval, competence and skill, secure and comfortable circumstances, your beauty or your brains, a great political or social cause, your morality and virtue, or even success in t...

Resources For "Devoted" Series From Each Harderwyk Preacher I. New For This Week Early Manuscript Collection at University of Michigan - Were you aware that one of the best collections of early manuscripts of both the Old and New Testament in the United States is housed at our own University of Michigan?  The fragment referred to ast "Papyrus38" contains Acts 18:27-19:6, is part of our text for today and is only about 240 years after Acts would have been written.  (In terms of text archaelogy, this is a VERY short time span.)   CLICK HERE to see a photo and get a bit of background.  Even more impressive is the "Chester Beatty Papyri Collection." It contains "Papyrus46" which is a century OLDER (that is closer to the original writing)  and includes the entire text of Hebrews, Ephesians, Galatians, Philippians, Colossians, nearly all of the 4 gospels and significant portions of nearly every other New Testament book  - CLICK HERE for some backgro...

Resources For "Devoted" Series From Each Harderwyk Preacher I. New For This Week "Bridges Out From The Heart" - This phrase was used in both Celebration and Fusion this week to point to ways in which God made the heart of all to "go looking" for things that can only be found by God in the Gospel.  CLICK HERE for The Secular Longing by Jeremy Treat on TheGospelCoalition.org site Eternity In Their Hearts by Don Richardson - CLICK HERE for an Amazon link to the book with the story of Epimenides and many more historical examples of Bridges of God Into The Heart of people groups.  The 1972 movie Peace Child - the story of Don and Carol Richardson discovering a Bridge of God as they ministered among the Sawi people - is available online by CLICKING HERE .  Note: Be prepared for  '70's era low-budget production as well as various states of native dress and un-dress.  Perhaps more interesting is this 15-minute 50th anniversary followup film by Pioneer...

Resources For "Devoted" Series From Each Harderwyk Preacher I. New For This Week 1) In Fusion this Sunday we will be addressing how the Kingdom of God comes up against the Kingdoms of this World.  It is easy to become focused on the Competing Kingdoms and the changes we want to see in this world that we can forget about the centrality and foundation of the Gospel.  Without this Gospel Good News found in Jesus Christ - that Kingdom work will either fail, will be distorted and manipulated or will be at best incomplete.  It starts with the Gospel of Jesus Christ - led by the HS - all for the glory of God and the furthering of His Kingdom. NT Wrights helps remind us of this fact as he talks about Paul's reply to the jailer in verse 31, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved - you and your household." “Having made that clear, the confident appeal of Paul and Silas, that the jailer should ‘believe in the Lord Jesus’ so that he and his household may be saved...

Resources For "Devoted" Series From Each Harderwyk Preacher I. New For This Week The Bible Project - Galatians Bible Book Overview - There is a connection between the issues of Acts 15 with events and teaching in the Book of Galatians.  Bible Project does a nice job making the connections in their summary of the book of Galatians. CLICK HERE for the video,   Bema Discipleship Podcast “Not to Burden You”  - This podcast offers great insight into the Jewish history and theology that was at play in Acts 15.  It offers great insights for today as well. - CLICK HERE A Presbyterian War From The Beginning! - King George III - CLICK HERE for Pastor Bill's blog post with sources on the influence of Calvinist theology on the Declaration of Independence. II. From The Commentaries On This Passage From Reformed Expository Commentary by Derek Thomas -  What emerged at the Jerusalem Council? The answer to that question seems to be very clear: a commitment to the salv...