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A History

More than 15 years ago Greg Gordon, the founder of sermonindex.net asked me to write a regular series for weekly publication on his website. At the time I was a frequent contributor to sermonindex.net in the discussion forums and had served a brief period as a moderator.

The Plan

Greg asked me to create a series that included introductions to some major themes of biblical truth. We were aware that although many contributors to sermonindex.net were seasoned saints with several years of thoughtful Bible study behind them, there were also some who were very new to Christian truth. So some of the basic truths explored were very basic truths.

The plan I developed was to follow the life of Abraham in a leisurely manner and draw on the lessons of his life. I chose the title of ‘Abraham, my friend’ and as a sub-heading added ‘the making of a praying man’. The execution of the plan was so ‘leisurely’ that at times the subheading was hardly in sight although the focus on ‘the making of a man of God’ was a major focus of the series.

The Response

Over the course of the weekly instalments, we were able to discuss aspects of each study in the discussion forum on sermonindex.net. The flow of the discussions often shaped the focus of the subsequent instalment. So sometimes we lingered for a while before moving on.

We identified Abraham as the ‘father’ of all believers. He was, we might say, the prototype, and his manner of faith becomes the starting point for all saving faith. The kind of faith that ‘pleases God’ is the kind of faith that Abraham manifested, not only at his beginning but throughout his ‘steps of faith’ as Paul describes them in Romans 4:12.

When the series came to its conclusion I was frequently asked to consider publishing ‘Abraham, my Friend’ as a book and this was very much my intention. I consulted an old Bible College friend Roger Page, who was a senior manager with the Christian Literature Crusade. He advised several improvements and I tried to implement many of them. I started that book ‘Abraham, my Friend’ long before my book ‘The Better Covenant’ but always stalled at the same point. The dynamic element of the forum discussions was missing and at times those discussions caused me to reiterate truths that had been introduced weeks and sometimes months earlier. In other words, I found it difficult to convert what had been a weekly blog into a literary masterpiece! I have several files on my computer that bear witness to these failed attempts. And yet, I still get requests to publish these blogs as a book, and this, 15 years after their birth.

So… here is Plan B

I plan to revisit the original series and republish them as a series of weekly blogs on my own www.biblebase.com website. I intend to stick fairly closely to the style and level of writing that I used in the original but I will edit them (together with my co-worker Allan Halton in Canada) with a view to publishing the completed series as a book. If you choose to follow the series please add any comments that will help me to keep something of the dynamic that I and others found so helpful during the originals. Once we re-establish our own Biblebase Discussion Forum on  www.biblebase.com that might be another place to talk. (I’m working on this with another co-worker, Robert Wurtz II in Independence, Missouri. The wonders of the web!)

I am told, by my experts, that Podcasts still have some mileage for younger folk and for people with long work commutes so I plan to return to the practice of creating a companion Podcast for each instalment. So you will be able to both read and hear as you choose.

Make a date?

So if you would like to receive your weekly instalment straight into your email box please ‘subscribe’. It’s free and we will try to make sure you get your regular weekly diet of ‘Abraham, my Friend’. We hope to have the first instalment in your email box by the first Friday in March 2019.

And finally…

That ‘Abraham’ image. I first saw it many years ago where it hangs in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. Its formal title is ‘the head of an old man’ and it is by Italian Baroque painter Guernico (1599-1666). I think I was still writing the sermonindex.net weekly instalments when I first saw it and it pinned me to the spot. There was something tentative in the face of the man that fitted my sense of the man Abraham. There is an unspoken question in his face, and with his left hand on his chest it is as if he is saying ‘Me?!?’ As you read the instalments you will find that Abraham is a real flesh and blood man, not just theatre and certainly not a plaster saint. At times his next ‘step of faith’ tested him to his limits. This ‘Abraham’ does not have that rosy glow of absolute certainty that we sometimes meet in contemporary Christianity. This is a man who could have prayed that gospel prayer, ‘Lord, I believe. Help thou my unbelief’. If there is no possibility of failure there is no trial of faith.

Robert W has negotiated with the Ashmolean Museum for us to use the image for all our electronic needs on the website and in the blog and podcast. When we are ready to publish in book form we shall have to pay their proper commission!

I hope you will join us as we follow Abraham’s steps of faith and I pray that we will take some such steps of our own.