So I've read the Bible - what happens next?

There are 28 chapters in Luke's second book in the Bible - the Acts of the Apostles. It finishes in about 63 AD with the main character, Paul, having been under house arrest for two years, but free during that time to act as a Christian minister. That is the last part of the narrative in the Bible. It stops abruptly, as if there is a chapter missing, or Luke was going to write of third volume, or as if he suddenly died - although he didn't.

Paul's later letters actually give us some idea of what happened afterwards until he died in 67/68 AD. During that period we also have letters authored by Jesus' chief disciple, Peter, as well as Jesus' brother, Jude. Over the next three decades Biblical writings by Jesus' best friend when he lived on Earth, John, and the anonymous letter to the Hebrews all give us some idea of how the church was progressing up until the end of the first century AD.

That is really where 'Acts 29' would kick in, though: what happened after the end of the first century? The church is still going strong. The story continues today. To some extent we rely of the writings of early church leaders and historians to pick up the story from the second century onwards, but we are are also making church history now! The Church of England celebrates Biblical events from the beginning of December (Advent) until Trinity Sunday in June, but after that the Sundays are named the 1st Sunday after Trinity, the 2nd Sunday after Trinity etc, until we get back to December. Perhaps a bit uninspiring? Designed to tell us that it's over to us now to provide the action? This is interspersed by Saint's days, of course, which gives us a clue that the story is really continued by those who put their faith in Jesus over the ages.

And, of course, All Saint's Day on 1 November - that's us, if we have put our faith in him. All Christians are saved, sanctified (saintified). Some denominations give the special title Saint (with a capital 'S') to particular individuals, but all Christians are saints and the history of the Church in our time is what we, you and I, make of it. How does the bit of Acts 29 that we are creating now compare with Acts 1 - 28? That's up to us. We can make it tame, or we can make it the same. God is alive and at work in us today. You can read just a few examples of that here, but don't just take my word for it. Let's all live the Acts life.

How can we experience the Trinity?

The Trinity, or one God in three persons, sometimes seems like a human construct designed to explain something about God which ends up so difficult to grasp that it then needs to be explained itself. And that is probably about right. We do our best to find a way of describing the complex personality of God, but when we get to Heaven we might well find out that the reality is more subtle and more complicated. Yet whether or not we can fully understand it (and I have posted something recently to try to help understand the structure of the Trinity), what is perhaps more important is what it means to us in terms of our experience of God.

How do you think of God when you are praying? Probably the most common way is Jesus. After all, he came to Earth and became fully man as well as fully God, so we have more in common with him. He is the person who died for us to save us from the consequences of our sins and now shares his resurrection life with us; it is through faith in Jesus that we are saved (Galatians chapter 3, verse 26) and have the right to enter Heaven. Alternatively, if we pray something like, "When I look around at creation it makes me marvel at who you must be to have made all this," we are maybe looking at the other aspect of the the Trinity - the one God who made the Universe, with each of the three persons being involved in that one act.

We can have a living relationship with each of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, as well as with the one God that they all are, Yahweh

Clearly we can express our love, gratitude etc to Jesus for who he is, what he has done for us and his great love for us. Jesus, though, didn't want us to concentrate just on him. He taught us to start our prayers with, "Our Father." Similarly, he said that we can ask things of the Father directly and encouraged his disciples to do that (John chapter 16 verse 23). Part of Jesus' mission was to open up a direct communication channel for us to his Father.

Equally, Jesus wants us to have a relationship with the Holy Spirit. He was very excited about the fact that when he went back to Heaven the Holy Spirit would come to us (John chapter 16, verse 7) and it was then that we would be empowered (Acts chapter 1, verse 8). The Holy Spirit is the person of God who lives in us in a very intimate way. He is the one who is willing to be with us day by day, moment by moment. He is the one who causes spiritual fruit to grow in us (love, joy, peace, goodness, kindness, patience, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control, as listed in Galatians chapter 5, verse 22). He is the one who empowers us with his gifts (word of wisdom, word of knowledge, faith, the working of miracles, prophecy, tongues, interpretation of tongues, healing and discernment of spirits, listed in 1 Corinthians chapter 7, verses 7 - 11) so that we can preach the word of God powerfully, and with signs and wonders following as a testimony to its truth.

So the Trinity can be very real to us. We can relate to each of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit individually, and also to God as the One, Yahweh as he called himself in the Old Testament. Let us make the most of this great privilege and foster relationship with all of who God is.

Is God three or one?

As we reach Trinity Sunday, the mainstream churches consider the nature of the One God as three persons: the Father, his Son, called Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. This concept is hinted at right at the beginning of the Bible when the Hebrew word 'elohim' is used for God in Genesis chapter 1, verse 1. Elohim is a plural noun, but here treated as singular, like a single 'flock' of many birds. Similarly, in verse 26 of the same chapter, God said, "Let us make man in our own image."

The Trinity is difficult for human brains to comprehend fully. Taken at face value it is just a matter of God having three parts, like humans are head, abdomen and legs, or body, mind and spirit. However, it becomes more difficult when, in particular, we realize that Jesus is a complete person in his own right who related to his Father and the Holy Spirit as other people (John chapter 14, verses 16 & 17), but also claimed to be the same as the Father, in particular (John chapter 10, verse 30). The Trinity then becomes a mystery, since there is only one God, but he is composed of three distinct persons.

The Trinity is a dynamic, happy dance of love and respect between the inseparable Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The Universe, of course, reflects the nature of God in some ways. In particular, there are are some trinitarian examples in nature which help to give us some handle on the triune nature of God. One which I find especially helpful is the proton. We all come across these at school as the positively charged part of the nucleus of the atom. Protons can exist on their own and, as far as we know, if left to their own devices they will exist like that essentially forever. What is less well known is that each proton is made of three smaller particles called quarks. The special thing about quarks in a proton is that they cannot be separated under normal conditions. If we try to pull them apart the force holding them together gets stronger, rather than weaker in the case of most other collections of objects. The harder we pull at them, the more tightly they are held together, by things called gluons. Yet the proton is definitely made of three distinct quarks, which are actually quite small compared to the overall proton, while still being an indivisible proton that does what protons do.

The above is obviously a simplification, but true. In the same way, a simple explanation of the truth of the Trinity is that there is a single God made of three distinct persons who can never be separated. Theologians talk about the dance of the Trinity, which they call perichoresis - an everlasting loving, happy relationship of mutual respect, held together by constant communication. The amazing, and even devastating fact is that Jesus, who said that he had never been separated from his Father (John chapter 8, verse 29), was briefly abandoned by the rest of the Trinity as he died on the cross for our salvation (Matthew chapter 27, verse 46), but that is another story.