What’s the Bible in one sentence? It can be easy to view the Bible as a variety of writings that are put together without a pattern or purpose. But, this is not the case at all. The Bible, we find, tells one unifying story with one purpose. This week we look at what this story is, how it can be summed up in one sentence, and how we can shape our lives around it. We’re thankful to have pastor Jonathan Neufeld with us to walk us through the Bible’s story.

 

Who is Our Guest?

Jonathan Neufeld is a pastor at Central Community Church in British Columbia. He’s married to his wife Korinna and has graduated with a Master of Divinity from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Episode Links

To find out more about the church Jonathan’s a pastor at, check out Central Community Church.

 

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Isaac:

With me today is Pastor Jonathan Neufeld. Jonathan pastors in the Lower Mainland, Chilliwack, here in BC, Canada. He’s served generally in ministry for the last five years. But, has been in the church for a long time.

He’s just got his Master of Divinity from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. When was that, by the way?

Jonathan:

I graduated just over a year ago.

Isaac:

Just over a year ago. Okay, that’s awesome. It’s great to have you with us today in studio.

Jonathan:

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Isaac:

Who are you? I mean, we know a little bit about who you are. It’s great to have someone face-to-face, because usually, if you’re a regular listener of indoubt, we’re talking to someone via FaceTime Audio or Skype.

Anyways, yeah. Tell us a little bit about who you are.

Jonathan:

Yeah. Well, as you said, I’m a pastor right now in Chilliwack at Central Community Church. I lead one of our campuses up in Promontory there. But, I’m probably most known to your listeners, at least, because of my relation with Dr. John Neufeld, who I normally call dad.

Isaac:

There you go.

Jonathan:

Yeah. I, obviously, grew up in a bit of a Christian home. I really grew up knowing a lot about the Bible. I was the pastor’s kid, I was the good pastor’s kid. You hear about sort of the rebel ones or the bad ones. I was really the good one.

I was the kid who had all the answers in Sunday school. But, the problem was, especially growing up, I just realized I didn’t actually believe those things. Those were the things I knew. I knew how to act, I knew what to say.

But, truth be told, I didn’t believe most of those things that I was saying. Those were just the answers I thought I had to say because I was the pastor’s kid. At least, for me, where God really started getting a hold of my life was hwen my uncle was actually killed in a car accident. Really, suddenly, out in Alberta, he was killed. I remember going to his funeral and for the first time I was sitting there going, “I could actually die at any point. I would stand before a God who could actually see through all of my lies. All of the things, all the right answers I said but didn’t really believe, God could actually see those things. He’d actually know what all was going on there.”

That was really at the point where I just realized, this was something I either had to make my own, because, I had no guarantees I was going to live until 70 when I could then do it on my death bed. No, you never really know. It really became my own around that time. That’s really where I became a Christian,