Living Covenant
Fresh Perspectives on Ancient Faithfulness
Edited by Jarrod Stackelroth
For many of us who grew up going to children’s Sabbath school week by week, most of the stories of the Old Testament are familiar to us—but too often, only at the kid-friendly level that we first encountered them. The challenge is to get past this assumed familiarity and go back to re-discover them with much more complexity and sometimes difficulty and challenge.
These stories are often not as neat as the way in which we were taught them—and we will likely find one or two characters that we might not have given much thought to. And the voices of others can prompt us in this re-reading task in helpful ways. This is the offer of Living Covenant.
Collecting the series of articles from Adventist Record over the past 18 months, the 30 mostly younger writers jump into the stories of their chosen Bible characters from their contemporary vantage point, asking what they might teach us about God and living faithfully in our lives today—positively and negatively. Adding to the original articles are question for group discussion and personal reflection that take this reflection even further and deeper into the reader’s own life and experience. Collection editor Jarrod Stackelroth also adds an introduction to the series, as a well as a foreword from South Pacific Division president Pastor Glenn Townend.
Perhaps even more than the previous collections from the Record team—Living 28 and Living Kingdom—the contributors to this book are younger and more diverse, an intentional focus in seeking to encourage and benefit from the contributions of these new writers. As such, Living Covenant is an ideal resource for use in the context of a small group, youth group or class, inviting you to share your reflections and stories.
And most importantly Living Covenant will nudge you back to that task of re-reading the original Bible stories, seeing them with the contributions of these fresh eyes and taking the opportunity to re-see them for ourselves. Living Covenant—and the other books in the “Living . . .” series—is available from Adventist bookshops in Australia and New Zealand, or online.
