Go on a rapid tour of the whole Bible and see how all the promises God has made are fulfilled in His Son.
Part of the Good Book Guides series.
One Saturday, less than a decade after the end of Jesus of Nazareth’s life, a man named Paul stood up in a Jewish synagogue with a mind-blowing message.
“We tell you the good news,” he said. “What God promised our fathers, he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus” (Acts 13 v 33-34).
In many ways, in these two sentences Paul was summing up the story of the whole of the Bible.
God is a promise-making God. Throughout history, He has made huge, extravagant, wonderful promises to humanity. Crucially, God is also a promise-keeping God. What He says, He does. And at a particular point in history, He fulfilled all of His promises in the life, death, resurrection and rule of one human—Jesus, a carpenter from a small Jewish town. The good news is that God's promises are promises kept.
This Bible study for small groups will take you on a rapid tour of the whole story of the Bible. Over nine sessions, you’ll travel from the garden of Eden to God’s perfect new creation. Each session you'll discover one of God's wonderful promises, and see how He kept it in Jesus.
It’s a whirlwind tour. It’s a breathtaking tour. And it’s a tour we’re part of…
Introduction
Why study Promises Kept?
1. A very good world - Genesis 1
2. Broken by rebellion - Genesis 3
3. Covenant promises - Genesis 12
4. Delivered from judgment - Exodus 12
5. Everlasting King - Judges 2, 2 Samuel 7
6. Future beyond judgment - Amos 8 – 9
7. God in His world - Luke 9, 24
8. Hear the message! - Acts 1 – 2
9. In a perfect world - Revelation 21 – 22
Leader's Guide
Contributors | Carl Laferton |
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ISBN | 9781908317933 |
Format | Paperback |
First published | May 2012 |
Dimensions | 140mm x 210mm x 7mm |
Weight | 0.14 kg |
Print size | 9.0pt |
Language | English |
Pages | 112 |
No. of studies | 9 |
Publisher | The Good Book Company |
The Good Book Guides have been developed to ensure that each session not only seeks to uncover the meaning of the passage and see how it fits into the big picture of the Bible, but also leads people to apply what they have learnt to their lives. Flexible and practical, the Good Book Guides are ideal for small groups, or individual study.
The format is very user-friendly and the content is rich and accessible.
- Justin Taylor, Gospel Coalition blogger and Vice-President of Editorial, Crossway
God-centered, application-oriented, and driven by the text throughout, this resource is a gift to God’s church.
- Matt Smethurst, Gospel Coalition reviewer and Master of Divinity student at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
Here at Covenant Life Church, we have greatly benefitted from the small group resources from The Good Book Company. Many small groups in our family life ministry have used "Colossians: Confident Christianity" in their study of scripture. Additionally, our youth ministry has used "Romans 1-5: God and You" in their small groups. Both resources were very easy to use, helped the reader engage directly with the scriptures, and had a wonderful pastoral emphasis demonstrated in all the questions.
- Dave Brewer, Youth Pastor at Covenant Life Church, Maryland
An outstanding study guide. Promises Kept guides us through the entire Bible, showing us Christ. Simple but never simplistic, it helps us apply the storyline of Scripture to our lives with clarity and warmth. I look forward to using it in my church.
Promises kept is a fascinating study guide on God's promises from Genesis to Revelation. It shows you how you should live and to be pleasing to God's will. The references are from the Old testament and the New testament and show you how they come to being,how one leads to the other, I am finding it so interesting and I'm learning so much on how I should be living and it's making me feel so much better. I really would recommend everybody should read this, it really is an eye opener.
The overall concept really good and I am grateful for the wonderful overview I have been invited to take.
Unfortunately the questions were too leading and simplistic and I felt I was being spoon-fed. I am using it for a group study and soon realised I have to rewrite the questions in order to get enough out of it
We found this book to provide a great over view of the bible linking in from Genesis to Revelation, several of our home groups have now used it and all have found it to be great.
Our home group of 9 found this set of studies very helpful. The balance between old and new testaments was very interesting and held the attention, resulting in some challenging questions relating to our personal attitude and belief.
We did find them rather long, and I did want to link both testaments at the same time.
I have got 2/3rds of the way through using the course with one study group and have just started it from the beginning with another. Both groups are excited about seeing the links between the OT and NT. It is helping them have confidence in God's promises and how God has had a plan going way back which we see fulfilled in Christ. There is a lot in each study and you may need gentle encouragement to keep it flowing to meet your group's time allotment. For my groups which are less Biblically literate than some, I needed to print out the major references on a separate sheet so they didn't get lost. Overall I am very pleased with how this is being received and warmly recommend it. There is good guidance for the leader at the back of the book.
I have been using these studies with two ladies in a one to one setting, to help them grasp how Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament. It has also given them a good sweep of the Bible story from start to finish and strengthened their appetite for further study. I have recommended it also to the mid-week Bible Study group members to do at home over a few weeks to encourage them in personal in-depth Bible Study. It's a great resource provides a springboard for further exploration of the Bible. Well done Carl
There are a lot of Bible overviews on the market but this is one I love to use. Like other overviews, it's clear on the wonderful promises God has given to his people over time; but unlike other overviews you get to see how God fulfils those promises as you go along rather than having to wait until the final study! The links it draws between the Old Testament and the New are so helpful. And the application questions make the studies unswervingly relevant to every day life. Great for groups but i've used it in one to one partnerships too. Highly recommended.
We are a small group of mum's who meet regularly for bible study and prayer. We love to be challenged by what God has to say to us through His word and this study is helping in that ! It is well laid out and useful to have answers in back , as we all take a turn to facilitate ,and this does help us ! We have enjoyed the link between the Old and New testament. There is a lot to study in one session but if people have prepared for the study then a lot more can be got out of it. We were only sad that it did not cover the Flood but understand there is a lot to get into a study guide! Would definitely recommend the study guide to see how the whole bible fits together and how wonderful God is at keeping His promises.
Over 60 church members in small groups enjoyed Promises Kept this winter. The sessions were well constructed to show God's promises partially fulfilled in the Old Testament, fulfilled by Jesus in the New, and the promise of ultimate fulfilment when Jesus returns. Participants spoke of gaining a much clearer picture of the graciousness and power of God the Father, the sacrificial love of Jesus the Son, and the help and comfort of the Holy Spirit. It brought the whole bible to life! Highly recommended!
Well thought out studies, very good for using with new Christians and mature Christians who are interested in finding out more about the Bible. We have used this for lunchtime studies at work in pairs or in small groups. I especially appreciated the way that each study links up a passage from the Old Testament with one from the New Testament and makes links between the two. This is for the following reasons: it allows people to see how the Bible is consistent (God is the same in both Testaments!), and that speaks strongly of the Bible's reliability; it makes the studies more interesting (we look at two different types of text); it is quite hard to prepare a Bible study like this by oneself (because it requires so much knowledge of Scripture), so it is good that someone else has done the hard work. Most of the questions seemed to work well (i.e. they were challenging enough but not too hard), and doing the studies has pointed us towards fundamental truths about God, which we discovered for ourselves through reading the texts.