Sermons, Articles, and Other Things

The Christian life can be described as having great spiritual privileges and experiencing great spiritual encounters. One of those privileges is the presence of the Holy Spirit in the life of believers. There is a sense in which this chapter from the Book of Romans is all about this privilege, although we also need to know many other Bible passages in order to get a good grasp of the big picture of the Christian life. The focus 0f Paul in these verses is the Christian and the mind, or how each believer should think. On many occasions the Bible stresses our minds. For example, there is the well-known verse in Colossians 3:2, ‘ Set your  mind s on things that are above, not on things that are on earth .’ Another well-known reference is Philippians 2:5, which says, ‘Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.’ In the Old Testament, people in Israel were divided into two groups, the wise and the foolish, and neither description is concerned only with a person’s ...

John now comes to the third major division of his Gospel, and this third section is concerned with the death and resurrection of Jesus. After the prologue in chapter one, John had used a large section of his letter to explain several signs and other incidents that revealed who Jesus was. Then he had used chapters 13-17 to detail the teaching of Jesus and his prayer on that final evening. Now John moves into his third section. Of course, we should remind ourselves why John wrote his Gospel. He wrote it in order that the disciples of Jesus would have faith in him. So we should be looking for reasons from this passage that will strengthen our faith in Jesus, and praying that it would take place. Jesus mission proceeds (18:1-3) John tells us that Jesus led his disciples across the brook Kidron on their way to the Garden of Gethsemane. Perhaps he wants his readers to recall the experience of David, who centuries earlier had crossed the Kidron with a few disciples because he had been be...

How should we read this story? Is the man an example of every kind of person who needs Jesus? I don’t think he is because the majority of people do not find themselves in the state that this man was in. I don’t think we are meant to read this passage and try to find out how we are similar to this man. Instead we are to look at Jesus and be amazed by what he did for this man. There are features of this story that seem alien to our experience of Christianity because its presence in our society has protected us from gross expressions of evil. But the decline of Christianity will give opportunities for such evil displays to happen and we need to know what Jesus can do about them when they appear. The location Mark says that Jesus and the disciples crossed to the region of the Gerasenes. Matthew, in his account, is more specific and says that the incident occurred near to a place called Gadara. No one is entirely sure where the exact place was, except that it was near the town (peopl...

Paul has used a large section of this letter to explain the relationship that each Christian has to the law of God. He has had to do so because it is possible for a person to have had more than one connection to it and here he again refers to it in more than one way. Now he wants his readers to consider the Christian life, what it means to be a person who is being sanctified, and this he does in Romans 8. As he does so, he tells his Christian readers that they must realise several important details or doctrines. It is doctrines that give us the framework that enables us to understand the Christian life. Without a good grasp of them we will be unable to explain or discuss what happens to those who are Christians. So what does he want them to understand? Remember how they became right with God First, Paul wants his readers to think about the fact that if they are spiritually united to Jesus they are no longer under divine condemnation. They became united practically to Jesus when th...