Hearing The Way: What the First Christians Heard in the Story of Jesus
Kayle de Waal
These days it is hard to imagine a society where travel to the next town might take a day or two on foot, where the majority of people do not know how to read and knowledge is entrusted to a privileged few. As Jesus and then His followers moved around the Mediterranean, His message was conveyed by word of mouth—and where the first stories of Jesus and letters were written, they were then read to the earliest groups of believers. It was in this context that they “heard” the way.
When I picked up Kayle de Waal’s new book Hearing The Way, I was challenged to realise that back in the days of the apostles these facts were a way of life. This book takes you back to these times and explores how the apostles used the knowledge of the Old Testament, which the people already had, to explain the new concepts that they were presenting to them.
Head of the Avondale Seminary at Avondale University College, Dr de Waal explains how each of the New Testament writers draws on key passages in the Old Testament to help the people they are talking to understand Jesus’ mission on earth and what He had in store for them. Hearing the Way is read best with your Bible in hand and this helps you begin to see the New Testament in a new light. At the end of each chapter, there are questions to encourage discussion, making it great for workshopping or small groups.
Reading Hearing the Way will not only bring new insights to reading the New Testament but will inspire you to live as followers of “the Way” and let others “hear the Way” from you.
Hearing the Way—and other books by Kayle de Waal—are available from Adventist bookshops in Australia and New Zealand.
Sonia Knight is resources manager for Adventist Media.
