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Episodes
24 minutes ago
24 minutes ago
Part 9 - Hebrews 3:13
Working Together
Exactly the same thing is true here. We need fellowship, preferably fellowship of the sort that encourages each other with the sort of friendly fellowship contact that a small group can give. We need to have a good schedule for such things and stick to it. Once a week in a big church building listening to a preacher is not really the best way to do this, popular though it is! If you live in one of those parts of the world where the small shops are closing and everyone does most of their shopping in big stores, supermarkets, then also driving to a big church once a week, or even less often, would seem to fit with that lifestyle. But we are people, naturally gregarious people, if not quite pack animals, who need human contact to live good and happy lives. Going in to a big church once a month for some entertainment is not what we were designed to do!
As our writer goes on to say,
“ See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end.” (Hebrews 3:12–14).
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2 days ago
2 days ago
Part 8 - Hebrews 3:1
Jesus rules
The writer says “Therefore fix your thoughts on Jesus” (Hebrews 3:1) This reminds me very much of the old song that starts ‘fix your eyes on Jesus’. Both of them are very good advice.
The image they bring to my mind is that of a collie sheep dog. We, in this country, herd sheep with the help of dogs who race around the flock and move it in the right direction. A collie will walk alongside its master or mistress scarcely taking its eyes off them and so walking very awkwardly. At the slightest command they are away very fast to follow voice or whistled instructions. Not only are they very obedient they are also very intelligent - one of the most intelligent breeds there is. So if there is a fold in the ground that takes them out of sight of their master they will almost certainly continue to do the right thing.
In the previous chapter the writer has been explaining things about Jesus, how effective his death has been for us in making us acceptable to God in spite of our sinfulness and general waywardness. He has now come to a ‘therefore’, challenging us to live in a way worthy of Jesus. (He does this most of the way through his book, alternating descriptions of what Jesus has done for us with challenges of how we should respond to him.)
Here his ‘therefore’ indicates that we are being challenged to act towards him as a sheepdog does to its master: with complete obedience whenever possible and intelligence when it is not. That is an intelligence that has been well developed by our past history of concern for scripture reading whenever possible, studying it and developing a good working knowledge of what it says.
When and how we do this is important. It used to be that everyone was exhorted to start the day, everyday, with Bible reading and prayer. That is all very well if you are retired and come to life as soon as you wake up. If you have a young family, need to start work as soon as you can, or, like me, are quite hopeless until you have some breakfast inside you, that is not very good advice. What you need to do is to set yourself a pattern of activity with the Lord that will fit into your day or week. I remember one time in my life when it was one evening each week, always the same one, which I dedicated to Bible study and prayer. That fitted into my life in a way that an early morning daily ‘quiet time’, as we used to call it, would not. Don’t worry if you can’t fit into someone else’s idea of what you should do. Make up your own schedule and stick to it. The good Lord will surely approve of you if you do that provided you are consistent and persevering.
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3 days ago
3 days ago
Part 7 - Hebrews 2:17
Jesus atones for us
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.
A few days ago, as I write, Liverpool football club took on Real Madrid for the Champions of Europe cup. The game is remembered for two awful mistakes made by Loris Karius, the Liverpool goalkeeper. They might still have been beaten but he made sure they were. He threw the ball out far to close to an opponent who was able to score easily from it, then he let a very catchable ball slip through his hands into the goal. One can only imagine what he felt like in the changing room afterwards. He must have sat in a corner and wished the ground would open up and swallow him! Nothing he could do would remedy the situation. Nothing he could do would atone for his awful mistakes. They had lost and that was that. He will have been the outcast of the team. He will have been lucky if anyone was prepared to say anything kind to him. He will not have been at-one with the rest of the team. (Only much later did they realise he may have been concussed in an earlier incident.)
We too have made some awful mistakes. Nothing we can do will make us winners who can appear before the great Lord God. Although we may not have broken any of the greatest laws of mankind such as murder or adultery, we have failed to love the Lord our God with all our hearts and souls and minds. We have lost the game of life.
But we are not as Karius. We, amazingly, have been put at-one with the Lord God. Not through anything we have done or could possibly do, but because of what Jesus has done for us. Jesus has made at-one-ment for the sins of the people. He has done that by his death on the cross; by giving his blood as a sacrifice for us. Later our writer categorically announces that “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness” (9:22) The reference is, of course, to the blood of animal sacrifices made for the forgiveness of sins. Why that should be is never completely clear but it is a fundamental background understanding through scripture. The writer to the Hebrews is going to go on to explain this background in great detail though he only uses the word ‘atonement’ once more in his book.
Rejoice then! We have been accepted into the favour of the Lord God through the action of Jesus. Charles Wesley’s great hymn starts, ‘And can it be that I should gain an interest in the Saviour’s blood’
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4 days ago
4 days ago
Part 6 - Hebrews 2:10
Jesus our pioneer
Our main emphasis here is going to be on that word ‘pioneer’ but before we go there here is another thought from this verse.
Have you fully realised that you are a brother or a sister of the Lord of Creation? He is your elder brother. WOW and triple WOW!
The word translated ‘pioneer’ in the latest NIV or ‘author’ in the older one is quite tricky to get the full meaning of. Authors write down something that has not been written before; pioneers hack a new way through the jungle where no one has been before. I like to think of the word ‘pathfinder’ as a possible translation although I can’t find it in any version. A ‘pathfinder’ is a member of a unit of the British army whose dangerous job it is to go ahead of the main force; to identify where helicopters can land; to locate the enemy and where he can be best attacked. And those are just the things that Jesus did for us - with a bit of imagination.
It was the great and amazing intention of the Triune God that Jesus, the earthly embodiment of that Trinity, should be the pathfinder to force a way through the jungle of sinful humanity, to search out the enemy, Satan, and to die in doing so. In that victory his true people became his brothers and sisters. So, as the next verses say, “ Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.”(2:11) and “ Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil”.(2:14)
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5 days ago
5 days ago
Part 5 - Hebrews 2:9
Jesus as representative man
“we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honour because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.”
Our writer quotes the psalmist (Psalm 8:4–6) in Hebrews 2:6-8:
“What is mankind that you are mindful of them,
a son of man that you care for him?
You made them a little[ lower than the angels;
you crowned them with glory and honour
and put everything under their feet.”
It is a tricky passage as is obvious from the lengthy footnotes in most English versions. The second line seems to be singular while all the other lines refer to mankind in the plural. It is the nearly unanimous opinion of modern translations that this is correct. The quotation refers back to Genesis 1:26 where God says, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” In an astonishing act God put the care of this world of ours in the hands of mankind. We haven’t done very well with it. As I write the main problem seems to be plastic in the seas. For centuries mankind has assumed that the oceans are so big we can dump anything we like into them and they will absorb it. It is now clear that there is so much plastic in the seas, which will break down into ever smaller particles without dissolving, that all the fish and other creatures in the seas will be poisoned by them. We have scarcely done any better with the land. We continue to fight over it with each other and generally mess it up.
But our writer can see good in even these problems. He goes on to say in Hebrews 2:9, “we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honour because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.”
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5 days ago
5 days ago
Malachi
Welcome to the last installment in our series about the minor prophets. Our final book is Malachi, the last book in the Old Testament. There is something very exciting about this book! Perhaps it’s the sense of anticipation contained within it. The first book of the New Testament lies just over the page! But before we get there, Malachi has serious words from God to convey to his people. The name Malachi means “my messenger” and this theme is picked up during the prophecy. It is likely that Malachi was a contemporary of Ezra and Nehemiah, writing in the mid 5th century BC.
To recap the history briefly, Judah had been permitted to returned from exile in Babylon in 538 BC by king Cyrus of Persia. Haggai and Zechariah had encouraged the people to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. God had promised his people great restoration and he had promised that he would dwell among them, but the political and social environment of the day remained very difficult. Judah was small in land area and in population; the second temple was an inferior shadow of the former magnificent temple; Judah was allowed some freedom to self-rule but they were still under the ultimate control of Persia and they endured a lot of hostility and opposition from their neighbours.
The people had become cynical and disillusioned and their worship had suffered as a result. Malachi’s prophecy is a loud wake-up call to the nation, urging them to turn back to God and renew their covenant commitment to him.
The prophecy consists of a series of charges that God brings against his people. God then anticipates the way the people will question the validity of the charges, defensively asking how they can be true. In each case, God explains why his accusations are valid.
The book opens with God’s declaration that he has loved his people. The people ask, “How have you loved us?”, showing their cynicism about God’s steadfast covenant love for them.
God’s first accusation against the people is that they are the ones who have not shown love, failing to honour God and despising his name. God outlines in more detail some examples of this in their behaviour.
The priests have been offering sacrifices that are offensive to God. The only animals acceptable for sacrifice in the temple were healthy, whole animals without sickness or defect. The priests were responsible for checking the condition of the animals that the people brought for sacrifice. They had neglected this duty and compromised their standards to allow the offering of blind, lame and diseased animals at the temple. God would rather that the temple doors were shut and no offerings brought at all rather than these half-hearted, second-rate offerings be made.
The people were trying to cheat God by keeping back the better animals for themselves and bringing the ones that were not fit for anything else to the temple. To use a lesser analogy, one way that we show our love for another person is the care we take over choosing a gift for them. How offended would your husband, wife, or friend be if you promised them a perfect gift, and they knew you’d bought it for them, and then on their birthday you gave them a second-hand, slightly damaged and rather dirty gift instead and kept the perfect one for yourself? How much worse it is to bring a defective offering to God, when the issue at stake isn’t someone’s birthday gift but the very serious issue of offering a sacrifice for sin!
In chapter 2 God makes a second accusation, this time regarding the way the people have abused the marriage covenant. Firstly, they have intermarried with people from pagan nations, who worship idols. Secondly, they have adopted a casual attitude to divorce, with men sending their wives away simply because they stopped feeling affection towards them. The people were perplexed and distressed that God appeared to have withheld blessing from them, not accepting their worship. God explains that their disobedience in regard to his standards for marriage is a part of the reason for this.
Another accusation follows quickly: the people have continually questioned God’s justice and doubted his ability to make just decisions. They have accused God of letting evil people get away with everything.
In chapter 3 God announces the coming of a messenger to prepare the way before him. The arrival of the messenger will be followed by the sudden coming of the Lord to his temple. In Old Testament history, the completions of the tabernacle and the first temple had both been followed immediately by the dramatic, visible presence and glory of the Lord filling the worship place. This hadn’t happened after the completion of the second temple but God promises that he will arrive suddenly, fulfilling the people’s desire for his presence in their midst. But God warns that this will not be a day of delight for all. As in the book of Amos, God tells his people that the coming of the Day of the Lord will bring judgement. The people of Judah had assumed that they were immune from judgement by nature of their identity as God’s people but God makes it clear that they will still be judged according to their faithfulness to him. Judah will be refined and purified through judgement.
God then accuses the people of stealing from him by not bringing him the proper tithe of their offerings. Similar to the situation with the animal sacrifices, the people were keeping back more than they should have done, causing offence to God. This charge is leveled against the whole nation, not just the priests. God challenges the people to test him, declaring that if they would only bring the whole tithe to him, he would bless them abundantly in return. The behaviour of the people in regard to their offerings demonstrates their lack of trust in God’s gracious provision. In chapter 3 verse 14 the people sum up their spiritual destitution by declaring that it is futile to serve God.
However, God takes note of a small remnant of faithful people who continue to worship him properly with a right heart. He carefully records their names to ensure that they are preserved.
The book ends in chapter 4 with the promise of the coming Day of the Lord, when evil will be judged and destroyed and those who have been faithful to God will be restored and healed. Malachi says:
“But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall.” (Malachi 4:2 ESV)
The final words of the book declare that Elijah the prophet will come before the Day of the Lord. And there the Old Testament ends. So what happens next?
After Malachi put down his pen, there followed 400 years of prophetic silence. Seismic events occurred in the political and social landscape of the Middle East and Europe, and empires came and went. Then one day, an obedient priest called Zechariah had an extraordinary encounter with an angel of God whilst serving in the temple in Jerusalem. The angel announced the coming birth of Zechariah’s son, who was to be called John. After John’s miraculous birth to his previously infertile older mother, Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied over his newborn son. His song is recorded in Luke chapter 1. Strikingly, in verses 76-79 he says:
“And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” (Luke 1:76-79 ESV)
~
At last the promised sunrise of salvation was coming! When John the Baptist started his prophetic ministry, many Jews wondered whether he might be Elijah, returned to earth again, as Malachi had prophesied. John declared that he was not Elijah.
However, John was the fulfilment of Malachi’s prophecy about the coming messenger who would prepare the way for the Lord. Jesus himself identifies John as the promised Elijah. In Matt 11:11-15 he says:
Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force. For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John, and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. (Matthew 11:11-15 ESV)
In fact, this is just what the angel had promised Zechariah about his future son:
And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.” (Luke 1:16-17)
~
Shortly after John’s birth, Jesus was born to Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem. The new parents took their little baby to the temple in Jerusalem to present him to God, as the law required for a first-born son. Mary and Joseph were quite surprised to be greeted by Simeon, a devout man who was waiting for the promised Messiah. Simeon was filled with the Holy Spirit and declared:
“Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.” (Luke 2:29-32)
~
The Lord had suddenly come to his temple, in the rather unexpected guise of a human baby. Simeon knew that this was the fulfilment of God’s promise.
No-one anticipated how Jesus would bring about that salvation. Even his own disciples didn’t understand it despite Jesus explicitly telling them that he would be killed and then raised from the dead and that he had to die for the sins of the world.
The forgiveness of our sins no longer depends on us offering sacrifices of animals to God. Praise God that we can have forgiveness of our sins through our identification with Jesus’ sacrifice of himself on the cross!
But now we are called to be living sacrifices (Romans 12:1)! Our whole lives are now meant to be lived as an act of sacrifice and worship to God. Perhaps Malachi’s words about half-hearted, inadequate offerings need to stir us today! If our attitude to our service to God and our giving of resources is focused on what we can get away with keeping, rather than what we delight to give, Malachi challenges us to consider how we are honouring God.
I really hope you’ve enjoyed this series. I’ve learned so much by reading and studying these fascinating books of prophecy and I’ve come to appreciate them in a whole new way. I pray that you’ve been encouraged to read them with me.
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6 days ago
6 days ago
Part 4 - Hebrews 2:3
Escaping salvation
Already the writer is warning his readers. This is a recurrent feature of this book. The warnings against turning away from faith having once started to follow Jesus are stronger in this book than any other in the New Testament. They cause considerable difficulty for those whose basic theology is strongly Calvinistic. Those people say: once saved always saved, which this book seems to contradict. We have to take scripture as more significant than any systematic theology so we need to heed what the writer says.
This first warning comes so early in the book it might be thought hard to justify. It raises the question: why do we come to faith? Many people in our culture, and perhaps yours too, come to faith and start to attend church because something has gone wrong in their lives or they feel a gap in the way they live. Those are not good reasons for starting to believe because they are ‘I’ centred. They come from the needs and the thinking of the individual. The true reasons we should come to faith are because of who Jesus was, and is, his death and resurrection. That is what the writer has emphasised in those first few verses of chapter one.
The reality is that most people do not come to faith for that good reason. What is hugely important is that they should then receive teaching that convinces them of the way it actually was. If they know that the Lord had the main guiding hand in what happened, that it was his initiative that brought them to faith in the first place, that the gift of the Hoy Spirit was his doing, then they are unlikely to try to leave faith because it is convenient for them. It may well be that if they are taught to do so they will be able to look back and realise that the Lord had for many years and in a quiet and non-aggressive way been leading them towards faith. Few people take the leap of faith when it is first placed before them. Most need many a nudge and suggestion before they get there. Our God is a gracious and kind God who deals tenderly with his people.
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7 days ago
7 days ago
Part 3 - Hebrews 1:8, 9
Jesus on his throne
a sceptre of justice will be the sceptre of your kingdom.
You love righteousness and hate wickedness;
therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions
by anointing you with the oil of joy.”
Hebrews 1:8-9
These verses are one of the many places where the very first words of this book are demonstrated. The writer started by saying God spoke through the prophets. In the second part of this first chapter he uses that fact to explain how Jesus was greater than the angels with some 7 quotations from the Old Testament. This is one of the most striking. It is drawn from Psalm 45: 6, 7. The ancient writer of the psalm will have thought he was writing a psalm of praise for a new king, possibly Solomon. It is a thoroughly secular piece, probably written to order, and greatly exaggerating the likely attributes of any earthly king and queen. It is hard to see what those reading it after the complete collapse of the Davidic dynasty after the exile can possibly have made of it.
But the writer to Hebrews can see its meaning centuries later. He can even use the rather curious reference to God in the first line of that quotation that makes little sense in the original. The gross exaggerations of the original make perfect sense applied to the perfect man, Jesus.
Attention is not often drawn to the quite amazing way in which things said centuries earlier referring to all sorts of situations and people suddenly come to life in the person and work of Jesus. Counting only those places where the NIV indents the lines there are 28 references back to the Old Testament in this book of Hebrews alone, most of them before the history of chapter 11. Our wonderful God, knowing what would happen, organised it so that his servants said things relating to their own circumstances that would be of use to other servants writing about his glorious Son.
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7 days ago
7 days ago
Psalm 140
For the choir director: A psalm of David.
1 O Lord, rescue me from evil people.
Protect me from those who are violent,
2 those who plot evil in their hearts
and stir up trouble all day long.
3 Their tongues sting like a snake;
the venom of a viper drips from their lips.
Interlude
4 O Lord, keep me out of the hands of the wicked.
Protect me from those who are violent, for they are plotting against me.
5 The proud have set a trap to catch me;
they have stretched out a net;
they have placed traps all along the way.
Interlude
6 I said to the Lord, "You are my God!"
Listen, O Lord, to my cries for mercy!
7 O Sovereign Lord, the strong one who rescued me,
you protected me on the day of battle.
8 Lord, do not let evil people have their way.
Do not let their evil schemes succeed,
or they will become proud.
Interlude
9 Let my enemies be destroyed
by the very evil they have planned for me.
10 Let burning coals fall down on their heads.
Let them be thrown into the fire or into watery pits from which they can't escape.
11 Don't let liars prosper here in our land.
Cause great disasters to fall on the violent.
12 But I know the Lord will help those they persecute;
he will give justice to the poor.
13 Surely righteous people are praising your name;
the godly will live in your presence.
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Tuesday Sep 02, 2025
Tuesday Sep 02, 2025
Part 2 - Hebrews 1:1-3
The real history of Jesus
In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.
In just these three verses the writer sets out the full story of Jesus. He did not begin in Mary’s womb. He had been around for all the ages since the beginning of this world of ours-and even before that. Jesus was God, part of the Trinity, so he had to have existed before he was born a baby in Bethlehem. In his magnificent opening verses John says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Our writer here says in 1:2. “he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe.” Paul, in Colossians 1:16, 17 manages to surpass that when he says:
“For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”
It is very difficult to work out how it all worked. Jesus was, at that stage, not human. He was in heaven, working for the creation and establishment of the universe and, in particular, this world. In the Old Testament there are several ways in which aspects of God, parts of his essential identity, are referred to. He is Word, Wisdom and Spirit. John says Jesus was the Word (John 1:1). Matthew strongly hints that he was Wisdom in his 11:19, “ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is proved right by her deeds.” He was an integral part of the Spirit as Luke 4:18 says, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me”. In Proverbs 8: 30 it is said of Wisdom that at the creation that she was ‘at his side’.
From all these glories Jesus descended that he might provide ‘purification for sins’, a very shorthand way of talking about all he did on this world of ours living as both God and man at the same time. The writer could have spoken of his ministry, his death and his resurrection but he chooses just those three words, ‘purification for sins’, to stand for those the greatest moments, probably just 3 years of them, of all time. Only then did he ascend to heaven and sit down at the right hand of God on high. From then on there was, and is, a man in heaven.
His role there is to ‘hold all things together’ (Colossians 1:17), to look after his people, to direct their prayers, particularly when they run out of ability to pray. There he waits the Father’s signal that it is time for him to return to earth and set up the New Heavens and the New Earth that we are promised. I wonder whether he is impatient for that day to come or whether he rests calmly in the confidence of his Father God.