It is significant that God – YHWH in the Hebrew Old Testament – is first known as ‘Providence’ (YHWH-JIREH), within the explicit context of redemption history, as he supplies a lamb for Abraham to sacrifice instead of Isaac (Gen 22:14, 8).  From the outset, therefore, that is, the doctrine of providence rests on the doctrines of both creation and redemption, grounded in God's foreordained purposes for mankind in Jesus Christ. As we will see below, the providence of God, his governance of creation and history, stretches outward from his saving purposes, which came to their fulness in Jesus Christ and embraces every dimension of life.

All the goodness that there is in this beautiful world is caused by the perfect goodness of God. For a basic fact of Biblical doctrine is that God who is good in himself shares that goodness with others. God’s essential goodness – his goodness in himself – the goodness of his being and nature, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is given in all kinds of ways by the Creator for the good of creatures, who are not God.

The good news begins with God. For the gospel’s main message concerns ‘God with us’ in the Lord Jesus Christ ‘to save his people from their sins’ (Matt 1:21, 23). The fundamental focus of the Christian good news regards ‘God incarnate, Jesus of Nazareth, who did for us what we could not do for ourselves, in order to bring us, a lost people, back to God.’ So the first great reality of the gospel is God himself. God is where the gospel begins.

At the Paris Olympics this summer, people cheered on their nation’s athletes as they took part in many different sports, disciplines, and events.

Revd Dr Bekele Deboch, a prolific evangelist and church planter, organized John Stott’s first trip to Ethiopia, and is now involved in training pastors at the Ethiopia Graduate School of Theology. Great Truths caught up with him recently and asked him about the pressures and possibilities for gospel ministry in Ethiopia.

There are two principal assumptions or experiences that we can bring to the Book of Exodus that may impact our understanding ... It speaks powerfully to the minds and hearts of anyone experiencing exploitation and injustice precisely because of its account of Israel’s liberation. ... It also addresses the tension many Christians feel between what we read in the Word of God and what we feel in our own human experience.

The gospel can be cast in both careful formal language as well as in everyday informal language. It is something that addresses and speaks to all of us, something that all of us can grasp hold of, understand, and relate to at whatever level we will. ... There is a comprehensiveness and an immensity to the Biblical good news. Yet all its elements are interlinked, gathered around a central strand, unified by a single person. ...

‘The physical resurrection of Christ is not an isolated historical fact. It is inexhaustibly rich in meaning for Christ himself, for the church, and for the whole world.’ Certainly, the significance of Christ’s resurrection saturates every aspect of New Testament teaching. Its meaning may be presented in several ways.

The texts of the New Testament claim that although Jesus was dead and buried on a Friday afternoon, early the following Sunday morning, roughly 36 hours later, his corpse had revived, and he had physically come to life again in a new unprecedented bodily form. Supporting this is substantial detailed historical evidence, including numerous first-hand eyewitnesses ‘who talked with a person whom they took to be Jesus, and witnesses who saw the empty tomb.’