Holiday Making Again

Having returned from our happy and, I trust, successfull (if a little wearying) CPAS camp - which I think we're meant to call a Venture - on Saturday and enjoying a restful Lord's Day yesterday, we're off on an Oak Hall trip to Lake Maggiore in the Italian Alps (which looks very nice) tommorow with about 35 others.

I'll be giving 6 or 7 talks from Ephesians (d.v.), so as I've been explaining (not entirely convincingly) to my parents and sister, it's not really just meant to be a jolly a holiday for me.

I'm ashamed to say I spoke on the same stuff last year on an Oak Hall trip, but I hope my talks will be improved, even if only a little bit.

One of the great pleasures of the trips is the opportunity for sequential Bible exposition. I think the brief is to speak for 20 mins +, maybe up to 35 mins a day, with the meeting lasting not more than an hour. Think I'll start at Eph 1:1 (or 1:3!) and see how it goes. How exciting. And what treasure there is in those chapters.

...that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all....

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith--that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

(Eph 1-3, ESV)