Utumishi Blog

Praise God for a good day at MTC. The theme that seemed to come out throughout the day for me was (it sounds a bit depressing to say it but actually it was wonderful) death and the greatness of Jesus who has defeated death.

We started with Romans 6 and found that we’ve already died and thought through some of the implications of that.

Then we started to grapple with the reality of suffering as we opened the book of Job. Sammy noted that he’d never heard the book preached from (certainly anything more than a random one verse) in Kenya. His outline for Job 1:1-2:10 for us: (1) Job is really blameless; (2) Satan is really powerful; (3) The LORD is really in charge; (4) The LORD gives terrible permissions.

We had 30 minutes on the great African theologian Athanasius who was fearless in the face of death because he knew, “Death has become like a tyrant who has been completely conquered by the legitimate monarch; bound hand and foot the passers-by sneer at him, hitting him and abusing him, no longer afraid of his cruelty and rage, because of the king who has conquered him.” I was speaking too quickly but the notes are here.

Then Pst. Sukesh gave us a wonderful session on Christ in the Whole Bible. The notes are here. We returned again to Romans 6 as the parallel to the Israelites release from slavery and destruction in the days of the Exodus and looked to Hebrews 2 to find the one who, “shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death – that is, the devil – and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death”. And the greatest of all death passages – Isaiah 52-53 – was the summit of our session: (1) The person of the saviour – a servant, not outwardly attractive; (2) The work of the saviour – crushed instead of us; (3) The outcome of his work – justification (v11). Here are the notes: Christ in all the Bible.

Harrison led us through an extremely useful session on guidance, giving us a real perspective shift, encouraging us to see Christ as our all in all and the things of this world in the light of eternity. Notes here: Gospel and guidance.

Finally Pst. Edward Ngaira shared his pilgrimage, including his struggles to come to terms with the loss a great spiritual hero and then also his mother. Job 1:21 came up again and Pst. Edward left us with the prayer of Psalm 90:

⁹ All our days pass away under your wrath;
we finish our years with a moan.
¹⁰ Our days may come to seventy years,
or eighty, if our strength endures;
yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow,
for they quickly pass, and we fly away.
¹¹ If only we knew the power of your anger!
Your wrath is as great as the fear that is your due.
¹² Teach us to number our days,
that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

As we go into tomorrow (Tuesday) please pray:

• That the Father would be opening our eyes wider and wider to see Jesus and to see our brief time on earth in the light of his great and gracious plan.
• For Christine teaching us on Augustine, Harrison on the doctrine of salvation, and Sammy on mission and being steadfast in the marketplace.
• That apprentices would be seeing things for themselves from the Word and growing in deep convictions that would guide them and keep them standing contra mundum.