Episodes
Saturday Jan 30, 2016
Gems in the Gospel of John - Part 18
Saturday Jan 30, 2016
Saturday Jan 30, 2016
Part 18: John 4:48
Signs and wonders
In this, verse 48, “Unless you people see signs and wonders,” Jesus told him, “you will never believe.” He was not speaking exclusively to the royal official and worried father for the ‘you’ is plural. At first the words sound like a rebuke, but Jesus went on to heal the boy that was so ill so his intent was more subtle than that. These words are used quite often by big meeting preachers to justify their claimed miracles and command people to believe. But that is not the intention of these words either and a sometimes very dangerous use of them.
It is much safer and wiser to take these words of Jesus as a comment on what happens, neither particularly encouraging or discouraging those who would rely on signs and wonders. It is important to note that exactly the same phrase is used in the Bible as a pointer to deceptive practices to be avoided (Matt 24: 24; 2 Thess 2: 9). But, positively, this episode is described as a sign in verse 54, the second one performed in Cana of Galilee. Jesus heals the boy. The NIV translates the crucial sentence as “your son will live” when it should more literally be “your son lives”. The action of Jesus is strong positive and instantaneous. So is that of the man. We are clearly meant to understand that he came to a strong, positive and totally valid faith as a direct result of this particular ‘sign and wonder’.
What should we make of this somewhat ambiguous situation? Surely this is actually the danger in signs and wonders – they focus attention on what Jesus can do for us, rather than on who he is. The royal official had a considerable advantage over us: he had met Jesus and could assess who he was. He knew both what Jesus could do and who he must be.
Who was, and is, Jesus? The Son of God; the Saviour of the world; the Lord of Glory; the Judge of the ages. Is that enough to be going on with? Of course we need to become convinced of these things which are not automatically obvious. And that is where the Resurrection comes in. Peter said, (Acts 2: 32, 36)“God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it. … Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.” Paul’s comment on that was (1 Cor 15: 20), “But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead,”
We are but human. We are quite capable of believing something today and its opposite tomorrow! Make sure your faith is grounded not on your subjective experience of the things that have happened to you or other people but on the objective facts of the word of God. The former may have brought you to faith as it did the royal official but work hard to transfer your true grounding to the latter, to his written word, the Bible and its sure testimony to the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is the Resurrection of Jesus that is the one and only sure, unmovable foundation for your faith and for mine. All other possible logical bases for our faith are secondary and derivative.
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Friday Jan 29, 2016
Friday Prayers 29 January 2016
Friday Jan 29, 2016
Friday Jan 29, 2016
Partakers Friday Prayers!
29th January 2016
We pray together and when Christians pray together, including across the internet and from different times, different nations, different churches and different denominations - that reveals Church unity!
Grant, Almighty God,
that since under the guidance of thy Son
we have been united together in the body of thy Church,
which has been so often scattered and torn asunder, —
O grant, that we may continue in the unity of faith,
and perseveringly fight against all the temptations of this world,
and never deviate from the right course,
whatever new troubles may daily arise:
and though we are exposed to many deaths,
let us not yet be seized with fear,
such as may extinguish in our hearts every hope;
but may we, on the contrary,
learn to raise up our eyes and minds,
and all our thoughts,
to thy great power,
by which thou quickens the dead,
and raises from nothing things which are not,
so that though we may be daily exposed to ruin,
our souls may ever aspire to eternal salvation,
until thou at length really slowest thyself to be the fountain of life,
when we shall enjoy that endless felicity,
which has been obtained for us by the blood of thy only-begotten Son our Lord. Amen.
Amen.
(A prayer of John Calvin)
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Monday Jan 25, 2016
Think Spot 25 January 2016
Monday Jan 25, 2016
Monday Jan 25, 2016
Think Spot - 25th January 2016
Here are some simple steps which may help you maintain a trust in God.
- Pray, casting all anxiety on God. He cares for you because you are His personal concern (The great apostle Peter, one of Jesus' closest friends wrote this in 1 Peter 5v7 "Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.")
- Accept and thank God that His peace has filled that area (Another great apostle, Paul, wrote this in Philippians 4v7 says "Then you will experience God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.")
- Learn to be content whatever your circumstances are, resting in God (Paul goes on in Philippians 4v11-12 "Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little.")
- Allow the Spirit to control your mind for life and peace (and again from the pen of the apostle Paul, this time in Romans 8v6 "So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace.")
- Trust God to fulfil your every need (Matthew records these words of Jesus in Matthew 6v32-33 "but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need." )
- Obey and follow God's commands to love God and love others (Jesus is recorded in Matthew 22v37-40 "You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.' The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.")
- Finally, be prepared to be obedient to the Father, in supplying the needs of others you meet and therefore showing you love God and other people! One way to show you are trusting and loving God is to be the answer to the prayers of somebody else and showing that love to them! Ask God to show you, how you can help somebody else in need this week and showing your love.
Go in peace this Monday, into this week, knowing God is worthy of your trust! God will take care of you, but not always in the way you expect! Expect Him to allow circumstances and situations to arise where you are to trust Him fully! He will help you if you ask! After all, He knows you better than anybody! And don't be afraid to help somebody else because by doing that, you show you are loving and trusting in God!
Father, I pray that You would help us to trust in You and that You would supply our needs, calm our concerns and help us to love You and others more fully. I ask this through the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit who lives inside all those who have peace with you. Amen
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Saturday Jan 23, 2016
Gems in the Gospel of John - Part 17
Saturday Jan 23, 2016
Saturday Jan 23, 2016
Part 17: John 4:26
You are … ( I AM …)
That the resurrected Christ made himself known first to a woman (John 20: 11, 14 – 16) is relatively well known and often commented on. That he made he made his true nature known first to a woman, this woman, this unnamed, unknown, member of a despised race is much less well-known and seldom commented on.
He said to the woman (4: 26), “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.” The translations here tend to be a bit misleading. To make better sense in the immediate story of the two words ‘I am’ the only ones in the original Greek, they have added a third word, called a predicate, ‘he’, to give ‘I am he’. Again it is well known that Jesus described himself seven times with different substantial predicates: ‘ I am the bread of life’, ‘I am the light of the world’ , ‘I am the gate’, ‘I am the good shepherd’, ‘I am the resurrection and the life’, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life’ and ‘I am the true vine’. What is not so well known is that Jesus said ‘I AM” without a predicate on another seven occasions. This is the first of these.
When Moses asked the Lord God what his name was at the burning bush he was given three answers. The third was “The Lord, the God of your fathers —the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob” which identified him as the right God, the one that their ancestors had been worshipping all those hundreds of years they were stuck in Egypt. The first name they were given was the mysterious one ‘I am who I am.’ The second one is the most useful one and the one that we are interested in here ‘I am’, somewhat hidden in the answer “I am has sent me to you”. The words ‘I am’ in Hebrew are closely related to the personal name of God, YHWH, which we vocalize as Yahweh. This is the name for God used by Isaiah when he wrote in 43: 10 and other places, ““You are my witnesses,” declares the Lord, “and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he” where again a ‘he’ has been added to what should read simply ‘I am’.
So what?
Jesus says very clearly to the woman is ‘I AM’ or ‘I AM God’. Whether she fully understood what he was saying we do not know – she may have done so since the Samaritans only used the first 5 books of the Bible and she will have been very familiar with just about every word of, at least, the story parts of those books. Later in John’s gospel when Jesus said to a crowd at 8: 58, ““Very truly I tell you, before Abraham was born, I am!” their reaction was, “they picked up stones to stone him” so they clearly understood the implications of what he had said.
Jesus was part of the Triune God – God the Father, God the Son and the Holy Spirit. He had temporarily
“made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant … he humbled himself” as Phil 2: 6 – 8 says. But he was still fully divine, still part of the Triune God, “the Word was God” and would be again as Thomas realizes when he calls him, “My Lord and my God” (John 20: 28). He had only allowed his divine nature and attributes to go into temporary eclipse so that, as the writer to the Hebrews says, (2: 16 – 18) “For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants. For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.”
What a wonderful saviour we have!
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Monday Jan 18, 2016
Think Spot 18 January 2016
Monday Jan 18, 2016
Monday Jan 18, 2016
Think Spot 18 January 2016
Matthew 5:9 records Jesus speaking these words "God blesses those who work for peace, for they will be called the children of God."
All over the world, people share a common desire for peace! But what is peace? The peace the world wants varies from the peace the Christian knows. The world sees peace as the absence of conflict and people being generally ‘nice' to one another. Peace in the Christian context goes further, saying peace is perfect harmony with God, other people, circumstances and self. Therefore perfect peace will not come until Jesus Christ comes again, and takes Christians to be with Him.
That doesn't give us as Christians a mandate to sit around not doing what we can for peace, because we are commanded to be peacemakers (Matthew 5:9), our God is a God of peace (1 Thessalonians 5:23), and the Kingdom of God is about peace in the Holy Spirit (Romans 14:17). Peace is to be our business! In a world full of conflicts, such as conflicts between nations, conflicts between neighbours, conflicts even within families and conflicts within and between churches, Christians are to be peacemakers!
With that in mind, here are some thoughts on what the Bible has to say on peace, to help you this week be a peacemaker:
1. Peace with God
Justified by faith (Romans 5:1-2)
Christ is our peace between God and man and between men (Ephesians 2:13-18)
2. Peace with others
Live at peace with everyone (Romans 12:17-20)
Do everything possible which leads to peace and mutual encouragement (Romans 14:13-19)
Be a peacemaker - a sign of real wisdom producing a harvest of righteousness (Matthew 5:9, James 3:17-18)
3. Peace within/circumstances
Peace is a gift of God (John 14:27, 2 Thessalonians3:16)
Worldly peace requires manipulation of circumstances, God's peace comes regardless of circumstances
We have peace in troubled times - an untroubled, unfearful heart and mind (John 16:33)
Go in peace this Monday, into this week, knowing that the God of peace lives inside you if you are one of His children! Yesterday churches around the world celebrated the feast of Pentecost - the coming of the Holy Spirit as promised by Jesus. If you desire peace with God, with others and in all circumstances, ask this Holy Spirit who lives inside you to help you! If you would not consider yourself as one of His children, ask Him to help you become one!
Father, I pray that this week we will do all we can to be peacemakers and make a difference in world in conflict. I ask this through the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit who lives inside all those who have peace with you. Amen
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Sermon - 1 Chronicles 29
Sunday Jan 17, 2016
Sunday Jan 17, 2016
David's Final Prayer
1 Chronicles 29:10-20
Introduction
Tonight, we delve into the book of 1 Chronicles and this great and perhaps last public prayer of the great King David! It is a fabulous piece of Scripture, I am sure you agree, that tells us a lot about God we as Christians claim to know and love, as well as how we are to respond to Him. Originally 1 & 2 Chronicles were one book. It was the final book of the Jewish Canon, probably written by Ezra and was also known as the "the events of the days", "the things omitted" which would suggest that Chronicles were to be regarded as additional to the books of Kings and Samuel. It's a book which was written for those from the nation of Israel who are now in exile, to remind them of their spiritual heritage - the journey & history of Israel as a nation. For us though, not least I, it issues certain challenges to us all.Here is the great king David!
Now here to Chapter 29, we have King David in his final days before handing over the crown to his son, Solomon. David is no longer the shepherd-boy who slew Goliath. He is at the end of his life. He wanted to build the temple himself, but God told him in 1 Chronicles 28v3 "You are not to build a house for my Name, because you are a warrior and have shed blood." The building of the Temple was to be ultimately achieved by his great son Solomon to do!What has happened so far?
So what has happened so far, according to the Chronicler? In the previous verses before our reading, we see how David has given publicly a great deal of wealth including gold, silver and other personal possessions for this building - the great Temple. This was to serve as an active encouragement for others to also give generously! Not only of their material possessions, but also as we read from 1 Chronicles 28v21, their talents and craftsmanship as well! This house of God would be a community effort - King & pauper alike, giving generously and honestly! So here is David, a man, who despite his many faults, is described as a man after God's own heart. Israel's greatest king, saying this prayer of intimate praise & adoration to his God in front of the assembled throngs. This prayer, like his gifts of gold etc., could be said, to be David's legacy to the nation of Israel, to Solomon and by extension also to us.1. WOW factor of God! (v10-13)
I get a wow factor of God reading this! Look how David talks of God! You can tell that David has had a vibrant and intimate relationship with this God - the God of his youth and his old age. He piles up the metaphors! He speaks of God personally: thou, thee, you, yours, our, I, my. David praises God for who God is! Verse 10 sets the scene "Blessed be thou, LORD God of Israel our father, for ever and ever." God is their father! He is everlasting! Before Israel was, He is and always will be! He was to be their God and they were to be His people. God takes care of them as a father does His children - giving generously, protecting them and always being available for guidance & wisdom.Verse 11 is perhaps the central verse of this prayer: "Thine, O LORD is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom, O LORD, and thou art exalted as head above all."
The whole emphasis is on the LORD God! Greatness, power, glory, victory and majesty - all are yours O God - throughout the earth and the heavens! Yours is the kingdom! Not ours, but yours, O King! For they are attributes of a king! God's greatness is vast, incomparable and unfathomable. God's power is that of a warrior: almighty, overwhelming yet alluring; and all power comes from Him to every dependent creature. God's glory is the exuberant and ecstatic magnificence of His very being!
Victory shows God as an all-conquering hero: transcendent and supreme, to whom all creatures and creation are subject. His victories are irrefutable and undeniable. His uncompromising majesty symbolises a dignity, regency, splendour and awesome magnificence! These things: greatness, power, glory, victory and majesty are essential attributes of who God is: indelible, immutable, unchangeable and permanent. God is a King in greater splendour than any of the excesses of King Louis XVI.
If you don't know about Louis, go look him up and the scale of extravagance! This God is a mighty King to be exalted above all things and He is to be held in His rightful place: high and lifted up! As for the kingdom, whose is it? Is it Israel's? No! Is it David's? No! It is God's and His alone! His Kingdom is of total magnificence and greater than the Roman Empire to come! Even greater than the British Empire, which was never to see the sun set on it. Jesus is probably quoting here, in what we call the Lord's Prayer.
So David's words resonate down through history. In this context however, David uses kingdom to symbolise the fact that the building materials, the amassed wealth, did not belong to Israel, but rather they were God's alone! God's kingdom shows His universal influence, authority and universality. Everything is God's! Its all His! Nobody can say they own ultimate possession of anything! The only reason, to paraphrase David, "we have this amassed wealth to build the Temple is because we have the leasehold to it! God owns the freehold, its all His and because of His generosity we can build Him this house!
And not only these material possessions, but also the imagination, ingenuity, craftsmanship, skills and talents - well they all came from God as well, so you craftsmen, bless God because God has blessed you with skilled hands to work on His house! Your strength is ultimately from His unlimited resources of strength!" This is no impersonal statue or idol like the surrounding nations.
This is the living God, awesome in all things yet willing to be involved in a personal relationship. This is the God, who through the Levitical Law, wants to live with His people of joy, to be their Living God! This God is the light of all things good, bright and blessed. He is the greatest of the greatest, truly incomprehensible yet also knowable. David is in utter adoration of this great God! I wonder if David knew that this physical Temple itself was only ever going to be a temporary building until the coming of the Messiah - when God would no longer dwell in a house made of gold and stone but rather live in human hearts.
It is out of His wonderfully glorious grace that the Lord God Almighty gave the gifts in the first place and the cheerful sacrificial response from His people in gratitude to Him was remarkable! All these things were given willingly - the possessions, the gold, the silver, the skills, the power and strength - all in service of the great God of Israel, the great Father of Abraham, Isaac, Moses and the other patriarchs. Surely, this is a God worthy of all praise, worship and life commitment! Each person praises differently and in different ways, so let's rejoice when we see other people praising God differently to our own style.
2. David - its all Him (v14-20)
That's the wow factor of God: a God who is abundant in greatness, power, glory, victory and majesty. Now let's look together at David himself! All the attributes of praise, given here by David to God, could with a great deal of justification, be said about Israel, or even David himself. They were at the time a strong nation and David quite rightly still on the throne. Israel's greatest King - full of power, might and majesty. But no!What does David say in v14? "But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort? For all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee." Its all about God for David! He would say that I am only here because of Him! David has been reflecting on his whole life - from the time he defeated the Philistine armed only with a sling and stone. He sees his past failures, the utter depravity of those but also his repentant heart before a holy God.
The end of verse 14 again, "All things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee", and this resonates down through history, in churches worldwide as the offering prayer. David exhibits great humility before God, and sets an example for his son, Solomon and the other people of Israel, to follow. And then in v15 "For we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers: our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding" David acknowledges that Israel were only tenants in the Promised Land - on a leasehold agreement. They were a nation of sojourners travelling a journey, from their foundation as a nation onwards. It is like David was saying to the Lord: "We are here temporarily but You, O God, are here permanently. What an amazingly generous God you are, giving with such exceeding grace to us." David confesses they are but transient and aliens in the land God had given them. It is an image tying them to their patriarchs as they wandered in the wilderness, living only on what their God provided them with, as they looked for the Promised Land.
It is also an image of an acknowledgement that all life is supremely dependent upon God and God alone. God was to be their God and they were to be His people - to be shining as a light to all nations as God's representatives. Here is the mighty King David, bowing in humility before a great God whom he adores, serves and worships. He knew that his whole life had been one of dependence upon God for all things, and David was exhibiting this before his people. David's prayer was that the people of Israel would continue to depend on God but also exhibit that dependence and show how God supplied them graciously.
Not only for David but also for the Chronicler too! He was recording this for the people of Israel when they were in exile. The Chronicler reminds the people in exile to be utterly dependent upon God for all and everything. For the Chronicler, the building of the Temple was more a matter of the heart, and built upon the faith of God to supply. This faith was expressed in the building made of gold, silver, wood and other metals. It was due to God's generosity alone the Temple would be built and nothing to do with David and his people. It would have been a tremendous temptation to be filled with boastful pride about it. It was a test of people's hearts to see if they really did love their God.
Then in the final words of this prayer, we see David praying for unreserved and enthusiastic giving from the people. He changes from acknowledgment to petition. In verses 18-20, David exhorts an outpouring of generosity from his people, from a heart filled with thanks - a heart acknowledging total dependence on God for all things - a heart & life of loyal obedience to Almighty God. Solomon also was to be wholeheartedly obedient and devoted fully to God. A heart filled with peace with God, a life totally devoted to Him, exhibited with joyful giving. That's what David was praying for his people and for his son Solomon. Its also what the Chronicler was expecting from the people in exile as he recounts this to them. It was to be a community effort of devotion and obedience to an almighty God, on whom they were dependent for all facets of human life. Everybody giving what they could - out of riches or poverty.
3. So what?
Firstly, we saw the wow factor of God: a God who exudes greatness, power, glory, victory and majesty. Then we saw David's utter adoration and dependence upon the God that he knows intimately. So, finally, what does all this have to do with us? How often do we receive from our God, but not thank Him for it? We are to be thankful for every good gift that is given to us. We offer praises and thanks to Him, for who He is and for His generosity and grace towards us. Tonight's bible passage was a superb piece of thanksgiving.When was the last time you thanked God for all the things He has given you? How can we put this thanks and praise into action? Lets see quickly! Firstly, I am convinced there are enough wealthy Christians sitting in churches in the West, who could make significant donations and virtually eradicate a lot of the poverty in the developing world and indeed their own countries. This would be active Christian giving on a radical scale. In biblical stories, such as this from 1 Chronicles 29, its always those who had the most, gave the most as an example to others of God's generosity. After all, God owns it all anyway and it's only given as a loan from God and not a transference of ownership.
As Christians, we are to desire to mature spiritually - growing in adoration, obedience and commitment to God. Perhaps the greatest indicator of today, concerns our giving. Giving is to be done whole-heartedly and cheerfully. It is also not so much about how much is given, but how much is left after giving and the attitude behind it. God looks beyond that which is given to the motive and attitude behind it. All our money and possessions belong to Him anyway, as we have seen, so giving is to be in response to this. Our money and possessions are a leasehold agreement not a freehold one. Giving done willingly is also not done to boost our own egos or for the feel-good factor, but rather to bring glory and honour to God as a thankful response to His giving all things to us.
Many prayers seemingly go unanswered because God is waiting on people to be obedient to Him, in order to answer the unanswered prayers of others. . We are to be generous with everything we have, not just in the area of money but with our very lives. We all have time, information, knowledge imagination, gifts and talents. All these too are to be given back to God . That may well take radical action to do, but radical giving is what we are called to do. God has given everything so that you and I may live and have life, so by caring and giving, we will reflect that. Let's be radical church together and encourage others to be likewise.
But, as we have seen, it's not only about giving money and resources. Giving is also to include skills, information, imagination and knowledge. Remember, the priests and craftsmen were waiting to give in the building of and service within the Temple. Churches, particularly these days, need to capture the imagination of those looking for a church home, and get them involved. Involvement in such a way that it builds up commitment to God and a growing adoration of Him. If people are involved, they will stay. It means training them up, to be fit for service within the church. If training for service doesn't occur, then commitment and dedication to God is likely to be diminished. If the same people do the same thing year after year, that local church will eventually die out. Each local church is only one generation away from closing its doors permanently. Giving, as we saw in tonight's passage, is also a community affair. This Church is to be a community, both within the church and outside of it, where the strongest members support the weakest members. Our leaders here at PBC give demonstrably I think- including their time, possessions, money, knowledge and wisdom.
But, as we also saw tonight, it is not just for leaders to give! Giving is to be for everyone! Every church has a fantastic array of knowledge, wisdom, possessions and imagination. Let us share that with people outside the church. Who knows what our caring and giving will do for them as it reflects the glory of God! Too often, we are found turning a blind eye to the suffering of others where the necessities of life are in sparse existence. Too often we neglect to give up our personal space, time, imagination, information and money generously to help the poor and needy in our local, national and global communities. By doing this giving collectively, we will show our faith to be real and practical. There are people out there in our local community just waiting for somebody to give generously to them. We need to be seen to be radically giving to all - of our money, our possessions, and also our time, imagination, knowledge, practical help, care and love. Let us show our relevance to our local community and not be seen as just a curious gathering of people meeting on a Sunday. If you have ideas of how you can help the church here at PBC in anyway, then see the elders or the Pastor and talk to them about it. So if I could summarise all this up in one sentence, it would be something like this
"Ask not only what your God can give to you,
but what great things you can do and give to your God."
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Saturday Jan 16, 2016
Gems in the Gospel of John - Part 16
Saturday Jan 16, 2016
Saturday Jan 16, 2016
Part 16: John 4:7b
You are … ( I AM …
Two people meet up in this amazing story. We will think about the first, the unnamed woman, here and the other, Jesus, in the following study.
No wonder she was surprised by the question Jesus asked, she was a woman – second class citizen in the thinking of those days; she was a Samaritan – long antagonistic to the Jews; she had a somewhat doubtful moral background – having had 5 husbands and now living with a man she was not married to (although there is no word of condemnation from Jesus so she may just have been a very unfortunate lady). On the positive side she was able to carry on a vigorous and effective conversation with a strange man and the village people gave her enough respect to come out to see Jesus at her suggestion.
We must not overlook the fact that Jesus treated women quite differently from that expected by the culture of his day. That is not immediately clear from the Biblical accounts that we have, but that may be because they were all written by men! But there are many easily overlooked hints that women had a considerable role to play in the early church. The news that Jesus had risen was entrusted to women (John 20: 1). As we shall see in the next study the news that he was God came first to a woman – this woman! Junia was an apostle (Romans 16: 7). Phoebe was an important and highly trusted member of the church in Cenchrae (Romans 16: 1). Women participated in the church services in Corinth (1 Corinthians 11: 5). The passages in which women’s participation in the church services are restricted (1 Corinthians 14; 1 Timothy 2) are both rather odd since they appear to contradict things Paul says elsewhere.
It would be nice to be able to claim that Jesus started a trend that has lasted through the 2000 years since but that would probably be overdoing it! Paul said (Gal 3: 28), “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Jesus had already amply demonstrated the truth of that, showing that neither race, nor status, nor gender is of any significance in the Kingdom. To those we should add for our world skin colour and education level. There may not be a clear trend through the many years since but Jesus made a statement that set a target. Only now as with modern sophisticated machinery nimble fingers and a quick mind become more important than brute strength is the equality of women being increasingly recognized.
The sharpness of the contrast John has drawn by his choice of Nicodemus: well known, named, respected, male and this unknown, unnamed, doubtful, female for his two stories close together is a warning to us just how easy it is to slip into an attitude of ‘not one of us’. There is no ‘them’ and ‘us’ in the Kingdom.
The ground is level at the foot of the Cross.
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Friday Jan 15, 2016
Friday Prayers 15 January 2016
Friday Jan 15, 2016
Friday Jan 15, 2016
Partakers Friday Prayers!
15th January 2016
We pray together and when Christians pray together, including across the internet and from different times, different nations, different churches and different denominations - that reveals Church unity!
My Heavenly Father,
I thank You,
through Jesus Christ, Your beloved Son,
that You kept me safe from all evil and danger last night.
Save me, I pray, today
as well, from every evil and sin,
so that all I do and the way that I live will please you.
I put myself in your care, body and soul and all that I have.
Let Your holy Angels be with me,
so that the evil enemy will not gain power over me.
Amen
(A Morning Prayer of Martin Luther)
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Monday Jan 11, 2016
Think Spot 11 January 2016
Monday Jan 11, 2016
Monday Jan 11, 2016
Think Spot 10 January 2016
Have you ever wondered what constitutes a growing church? Do you know that it isn't just a list of names on the church roll or a social club. Neither is it a large number of people who have made "decisions for Christ". So, what constitutes a church which is living and growing in both spiritual quality as well as numbers?
Here are 4 pointers for you as a Christian to go into the week thinking about how you can contribute to the church you attend:
1. Full of 'Kingdom of People' - people who declare Jesus is Lord, reflecting His values in word thought and action.
2. Full of people who are filled with the Holy Spirit, that is people who allow their lives to be totally controlled by the Spirit, and letting the Spirit flow through them.
3. Full of people involved within their local community, utilizing their spiritual gifts for the glory of God.
4. People whose lives are oriented around
Commitment to Jesus Christ - following Jesus' commandments, and learning daily hww to be more like Him.
Commitment to the Body of Christ, the Church; Loving the Body and Bride of Christ just as Jesus loves the Church.
Commitment to working within the local community - utilizing the gifts God has given them (and everybody has them you know!) for the glory of God and exhortation of the other people.
There is no such thing as a full Christian life without those three things in the above set priority - Jesus, church, community. If the priority is shifted in any area then our priorities are wrong. Christians aren't to just to be Christians on a Sunday but 7 days a week. Not just to associate with other Christians, but to affect their local community throughout the week for the glory of Jesus Christ. To do this, this week, think about these questions:
Am I fully committed to Jesus and His teachings?
Am I fully committed to working within my Church?
Do I want the Church to grow in quantity and quality?
Am I fully committed to my local community and seeing Jesus glorified within it?
Go into the week, knowing God can use you to help extend His kingdom in your local community. Thank you.
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Saturday Jan 09, 2016
Gems in the Gospel of John - Part 15
Saturday Jan 09, 2016
Saturday Jan 09, 2016
Part 15: John 3:17 – 21
The journey of faith
Emphasis in this chapter has traditionally fallen on the beginning of the Christian life. Being ‘born again’ has concentrated attention on how we start. But the next few verses after the famous 3: 16 turn the emphasis onto the continuing life and the end of it. Here they are: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.”
Our Christian life is a journey – as indeed is every sort of life.
I like to think of the end of it as that part of a journey that is arriving in a foreign country or returning back home to one’s own country. At the airport there are two major hurdles to overcome. The first is going through passport control; the second is going through the baggage check area to make sure that we have only good and permissible things in our cases.
The first of these is a good analogy to being born again. Jesus said “no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again from above”. We want to enter the country that is our destination. We must have a valid passport. Paul says we are “citizens of heaven” (Phil 3: 20). We have dual citizenship! We have two passports. We are citizens of our earthly country and we are citizens of heaven. What a privilege!
But we must have the right luggage too. Our first and most important luggage is believing in Jesus. Three times the word ‘believe’ appears in verse 18. Positively – we must believe. Negatively - if we do not believe we are condemned to perish as verse 16 has said. What exactly perishing consists of we are not told and it is not really possible to work out the details from the rest of the New Testament. Perishing, hell, fire and other uncomfortable things are all mentioned – many of them by Jesus himself. It is certainly not that “being with Christ” that Paul says is “better by far” (Phil 1: 23). It is like being a stateless person, rejected from the country we want to enter and condemned to travel endlessly round the world, not finding anywhere prepared to take us in. Not a nice experience.
Our luggage needs to be light – not light in weight but glowing with light, radiant with light, bursting out through every crack in our case. Our deeds must be good. We must want to come into the light; not afraid that our deeds, which will be exposed at this grand final checkpoint, will be anything to be ashamed of. We must live in the truth – in the light of God and his Christ, so it may be seen plainly who we are and that we have walked in the light of God through the journey of life since we gained our passport for the kingdom of God..
My apologies if you have never travelled that far and flown into the airport of a foreign country; never needed a passport and never had the unwelcome experience of going through baggage control. I hope you still get the vision of how this illustrates our journey as Christians and encourages you to make sure you have your second passport with you and have packed your bags very carefully as you have lived the journey of the Christian life.
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