In this recording, we conclude our exploration of Paul's pastoral heart before turning to a look at how Paul's life and teaching guide us in our experience of suffering. We find that suffering is hardly an afterthought or pastoral platitude of Paul's life, but a central plank of his understanding of his own ministry, and what it means to be a Christian at all. To follow Christ, for the Apostle, is to share in his sufferings, that by any means necessary, we may attain to the resurrection from the dead (Philippians 3:11).

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There are many ways we could look at the life and example of the Apostle Paul, and many facets of his life we could focus on. For the next two weeks, we will focus on those aspects I have found particularly encouraging as a disciple and as a minister. These two foci are by no means meant to be exhaustive accounts of Paul's fascinating life and personality, but merely two areas that have some prominence in the New Testament, and may be encouraging (and challenging!) to us today.

In this lesson, we look at Paul's pastoral ministry, how it is that he cared for the people under his charge in accordance with the Gospel. By these means, we will get to know the man a bit, and we will also grow in his understanding of the Gospel and the difference it ought to make in our lives.

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Today we begin our three week study of the Apostle Paul, one of the most fascinating figures in the Bible. Rather than doing a simple chronology over the next three weeks, as we've done with the other figures we've looked at, we'll actually try to get through a whole chronology of Paul's life in today's lesson. In the next two weeks we'll then focus on two particular aspects of Paul's life, and how he can be an example to us. We're going this route primarily because the source material with Paul is so different than what we've seen so far. We don't simply have a straight forward narrative, as we had with Joseph and David. We have a narrative in Acts coupled with an entire collection of Paul's personal correspondence, in which a great many details about his life and his manner of being a disciple are revealed. So we need to look a Paul a bit more deliberately.

A summary of Paul's chronology
Each column = one of three missionary journeys
Green = cities where Paul spent some time
Blue = important people
Red = when Paul writes on the NT letters

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We conclude our miniseries on the Women of the Word by taking a look at what the Scriptures say about the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of our Lord. We will limit ourselves to the biblical witness about Our Lady, as Anglicans have never required belief in the extensive doctrines which grew up around her in the Middle Ages. We discover that quite apart from these doctrines, the Scriptures present her as a woman of deep and persevering faith. Like all humans, she is a sinner in need of God's saving grace, and she didn't always understand her son's mission and what that meant for her. But she always stayed faithful to her son no matter what, and for that we should honor her the more.

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In this lesson, we explore the witness of Hannah, the mother of Samuel, as recorded in the opening chapters of 1 Samuel. Here we see her incredible faith, in the face of opposition and religious ridicule, vindicated by God and richly rewarded. In addition to inspiring the Mother of our Lord in her pregnancy, we are also still reading about Hannah and singing her song today!

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In this lesson, we explore the place of women in the Bible, especially against the backdrop of contemporary culture which claims that the BIble is fundamentally misogynistic and has led directly to the oppression of women.

After laying a foundation to appreciate the Bible's witness about women, we explore first Rahab the Canaanite, who exhibited heroic faith in Israel's God, and thus saved her whole family, and became by God's grace an ancestor of the Messiah. Rahab teaches us that no matter how bad our beginnings, God generously honors simple trust in him, which is more than sufficient for our salvation.

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In this lesson we conclude our series on King David, looking at the period after the consolidation of his reign in Jerusalem. During this period, there's a significant shift in the narrative, with a focus now on David's mistakes and failures. Despite the contrast with the earlier period of David's live, it is in this season that we learn what David is truly made of, and why God esteems him so highly. Even in his weakness, he is humble and vulnerable before God, completely abandoned to his will through faith in his goodness. We also explore briefly the deep insight into David's heart and his brand of faith so pleasing to God by looking at the psalms. In all these things and more, we see how God through David prepared the world for the arrive of his Son Jesus, the heir of David, who looks so often like his ancient ancestor. This is at the last the highest tribute God pays to David, who becomes the most significant foreshadow of Christ in all the Old Testament.

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In this lesson, we look at King David's rise from harassed fugitive to king of all Israel. We see how God protected David even from himself while he lived in exile, preventing him from staining his hands with blood and giving grounds to the accusation of regicide and usurper. This dynamic is especially explored in his interaction with Abigail, and his non-presence at the final battle where Saul and Jonathan are killed. David also has clean hands in the destruction of Saul's house in his interactions with Saul's chief commander Abner, Ish-Bosheth ben Saul, and Mephibosheth ben Jonathan. Finally we see the climax of David's exaltation in his conquest of Jerusalem and procession into the capital with the ark. In the latter episode, we see David's humility before God, as he learns from his mistakes.

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In this lesson we dive into the life of King David, Fr. Adam's favorite figure from the Old Testament.

Two quick caveats about our time with David:

1. Unlike our study with the Joseph, in which we were able to go into some depth on most every passage about the Patriarch, we will not be able to be as thorough with David. His life is the focus of two whole books of the Bible, First and Second Samuel, and three days is not nearly enough time to pay attention to everything. In a similar reason, we will not be able to spend hardly any time on the Psalms, over a third of which David is said to be the author. Our focus will be primarily on David's heart toward God.
2. The story of David is way bigger than David. To him is given the Messianic line, the promise of an eternal heir who will be God Incarnate, Jesus Christ. For that reason, David looms large in the overall story of salvation, and we will not be focusing as much on that aspect of his life. Again, we will be spending our time focusing on the man himself, and what we can learn from him about faithfulness to God.

That said, in this lesson, we look at David's contest with Saul, and what that tells us about the kind of faith that God admires. We begin with David's anointing by Samuel in 1 Samuel 16, and we conclude with David on the run, hiring himself out as a mercenary to Achish, king of the Philistines, in 1 Samuel 27.

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After rising to power, Joseph is suddenly confronted by the chance to avenge himself on his brothers went they present himself to them, not recognizing him, to buy some of Egypt's surplice grain during a famine. Will he take it? Or will he demonstrate that God has changed him according to his own purposes throughout his many trials? And perhaps more to the point, have Joseph's brothers changed at all from when he last saw them eleven years before?

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