March through Colossians - whole book

There's a great book I want to recommend to you called Promises Kept: The Message of the New Testament, by Mark Dever. There is one on the Old Testament too. Mark Dever is the senior pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church right on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C., and the essence of these 2 books came from sermons he preached at his church. The sermons were "overview sermons" where he preached the main content of a Bible book in a single sermon (so, 66 sermons in all). His strategy is fascinating, and behind it lies a desire for God's people to understand (and live in light of) the whole storyline of Scripture. Seeing the forest.

I hope that the opportunities we've had to read the whole book of Colossians in one sitting have helped you to see the forest so that you can better understand the trees.

Here's a great excerpt from Dever's book:

"I cannot remember when I first thought of preaching sermons like this. It may have been when I was discipling a recent Muslim convert and asked him to teach me the book of Hebrews in three meetings (I thought he would learn it better by teaching me). At each meeting, I would read a sentence or two from Hebrews and ask him where the verse fit into the book's argument. I did not so much care if he could tell me chapter and verse references; I was more concerned about whether he understood the overall flow of the book, and how any one idea from the book fit into that flow.

"As we worked through Hebrews this way, I found that an overview was beneficial not just for my friend but also for me as a pastor. When I preach a passage like Ephesians 2, do I approach the chapter in context? That is, am I using chapter 2 in the same way Paul uses chapter 2 within his larger argument as it unfolds in Ephesians?

"The Hebrews overview also got me to thinking about my congregation. I want the members of my church to become so familiar with the books of the Bible that they know how to turn there as easily as they turn to popular Christian books. So when the members of the church struggle with conflict, I will encourage them to read the book on conflict resolution by Ken Sande, but I also want them to have been trained by an overview sermon to immediately ask themselves, 'I wonder what James says about this situation?' When members want to learn about the Christian life, let them read C.S. Lewis and J.I. Packer; but let them also think to read 1 Peter and 1 John! When people struggle with discouragement, by all means read Ed Welch on depression; but also read Revelation! When people worry they are slipping into legalism, I hope they know to reach for Martin Luther or C.J. Mahaney on the cross-centered life; but I also hope they know to reach for Galatians. I am even happy for the congregtation to read Dever on the church, but I would prefer for them to know Paul's argument in 1 Corinthians."

By the way, in his chapter titles he summarizes each Bible book with a word or phrase. The one for Colossians is...(can you guess? What would you say?) "New Life."

So when you feel weighed down and fogged by anything bad, especially your own sin, you could do worse than to take 10 minutes to read the book of Colossians and be refreshed and reoriented by the new life you have in Christ.