Description |
For over a decade, SEAN’s overview of the Bible (Abundant Light, now called Pure Gold) has been used all over the world to ground Christians in understanding and using the most important book ever written. Now updated and modernised, the new Pure Gold provides the church with an invaluable small group learning tool. The course contains ten home-and-group studies which takes growing Christians on a journey through the books of the Bible, teaching its make-up and demonstrating the unity, integrity and application of its unchanging message.
Pure Gold gives an excellent grounding in an overall knowledge and understanding of all the books of the Bible, and how they fit together to give us a wonderful picture of God's plan for mankind.
What relevance has the land of Ur, the time lines, the dividing of the kingdoms and Joseph’s imprisonment to us today?
All of these jewels and many more will unfold as you begin your journey with Abraham as he leaves all he has known to set out to follow the call that God has placed on his life.
The story comes alive as you begin to understand that God’s promises given to this great man of God, 2000 years before Christ, stretch through history to their fulfilment in Christ. The Holy Spirit begins to minister in special ways through this course, taking head knowledge on into the context of a living faith as you look not only at God’s promises but also at his commands and warnings.
The excitement and anticipation grows as Joseph becomes the main character; we see his courage and perseverance through trials; and his compassion for his brothers as he forgives them for all that they had done against him. We follow the people of Israel into Egypt until they are released from bondage and begin another stage of history marked by God parting hte waters of the Red Sea and setting them towards the promised land.
Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy now begin to make more sense. The journey is divided into four stages as we unravel the meaning of the covenant, the promises that the Israelites made before God and the consequences of their breaking the promises. We climb Mount Sinai before descending to wander in the desert for 40 years eventually reaching the plains of Moab. We say goodbye to Moses, and meet another great leader, Joshua. As we face battles and giants with this man we are again reminded of God’s grace and power to conquer our own enemies of pride, jealousy, anger etc and pereserve with His calling.
If this isn’t enough to whet your appetite for this wonderful course, how about learning the five proofs of the Bible’s reliability, how it was written, the background of the New Testament and so it goes on.
All is set out in the clearest and simplest way, yet at the same time is profound in its teaching. It is an ideal course, especially as part of a discipleship programme, to follow on from the Life to the Full (older version was published as Abundant Life) course, or as a follow-up for Alpha groups.
Its aims
Pure Gold aims to introduce the student to this fascinating book, the Bible, and to explain its overall plan and teaching in a way the student can understand, so that it is seen to be totally relevant to us; to encourage the students to apply its teaching to their lives and ministry today.
The course will help students to do this by:
Showing the continuing relevance of the Bible to each Christian's life, witness and ministry, today.
Forming the habit of systematic and disciplined reading of the scriptures.
Demonstrating different methods of Bible study.
Showing how to apply the Bible's teaching in practical situations.
Training the student to use the Bible as a sword.
Emphasising that God's word is like a lamp to guide our steps
each day.
Teaching that the Bible can be read as a letter that shows His love.
Emphasising that Christ is coming again.
We would hope and expect that, through this course, students will go on to read the Bible regularly for themselves.
The curriculum includes an explanation of:
When, why, and how the different books were written
The arrangement and history of the Bible
The books of the Law, History and Poetry
The message of the Prophets
The background of the New Testament
The four Gospels
The historical book of the Acts of the Apostles
The Letters to the churches and individuals
The book of Revelation |