Bob Tedesco is an accomplished writer with a deep passion for the study and application of Scripture in everyday life. With a background of over 50 years in pastoral care and several decades as a consulting engineer, he brings a unique mixture of faith and reason to his Christian writing and teaching.

Through this book he intends to uncover some forgotten or ignored elements of God’s design, and to inspire the reader to explore the treasures of Scripture with the intention of applying that wisdom to their daily lives. Most of the information in this book is oriented toward Christians who seek to build or maintain relationship-based groups. As more parishes, congregations, and movements explore small group structures, this material will be especially helpful.

In short, most Christians today have been shaped and molded in secular cultures which have eroded the biblical principles upon which a successful Christian life is founded. This book is intended to help us grow in a biblical worldview and to live our lives according to God’s Design.

This book is available from Amazon.com in both print format and ebook format. 

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An excerpt from the Introduction to God’s Design: Life According to God’s Word:

Introduction

Consider the architect who has designed an urban renewal center: a multiplex with apartment buildings and retail outlets. The project was launched with some local news fanfare and with great expectations. After the first building is “roughed in,” the architect decides to visit the site. To his dismay, he discovers that the purchasing agent has provided lower grade steel beams, the foreman has substituted some lower strength bolts; and worst of all, the foundations have been made from an uncertified cement supplier. 

After exploring possible solutions and repairs, he decides to level the first building and start over.

The history of mankind is something like this: cheap substitutes which change the design and ultimately do not work.

By Design

The Scriptures provide the blueprint for Christian living. There seem to be endless insights for Christian living and many of those insights seem to have even deeper levels of wisdom waiting to be discovered. For example, “God is love.” A new Christian will get that at some level. As a disciple matures in his relationship with the Lord, he will observe and discover the depths of this simple statement. As his prayer life grows, he will discover and experience the profound nature of “God is love.” 

Basic Principles

The basic principles of living “by design” are initially laid out in Genesis.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”

Genesis 1: 27-28

The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.” Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” So out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.

Genesis 2: 15-19

 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, and he ate.     

Genesis 3:4-6

To the woman he said, “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life…”

Genesis 3: 16-17

These Scriptures reveal some fundamental characteristics of God’s design: 

• He thinks he is in charge.
• He gives us things we are allowed to do.
• He gives us things we are not allowed to do.
• Man has free will and is free to choose.
• He will test us.
• When man chooses to disobey, there will be consequences.

For many of us, this will seem obvious and basic; but these are some of the first and most basic principles that must be understood and embraced before we can explore the other elements of God’s design as revealed in Scripture. In part two of “God’s Design”, we will consider: 1) the roles of men and women; 2) order in the family; and 3) some interesting elements in the early chapters of Genesis.

Remember, the architect is offended whenever the site supervisor, the foreman, the purchasing agent, or the technicians act outside of the design.

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Top image credit: Photo of By God’s Design book cover, © courtesy of the author, Bob Tedesco.