Sermons, Articles, and Other Things

If I were to say that I had found the key that provides access to a wide range of spiritual blessings, I and sure that you would be interested. John gives such a key – brotherly love. He makes clear that such love is a defining distinction of the people of God, which separates them from all other communities. It is very sobering to note how he describes all others – according to John, they are all children of the devil. This description does not mean that Satan fathered those people; instead it means that he has a very strong influence over them, that they so imitate his preferences that they can be identified as his children. We can easily tell who the children of the devil are in this sense – they do not live according to God’s law. Perhaps we would then expect John to say that Christians are people who keep God's law, which would be a true description. Yet John, under the guidance of the Spirit of God chooses to focus on the particular aspect of brotherly love as one of the cen...

Gideon had met the Lord of heaven, the Angel of the Lord, in a marvellous manner as he worked at the harvest secretly for fear of the Midianite invaders. We are not told if Gideon wondered how long God would take to get him involved in the role he had planned for him as the deliverer of his people. Nor are we told if he thought about which areas of life God would want him to deal with first. So Gideon may have been surprised at what happened to him. The time (v. 25) We can see in verse 29 that the Lord commanded him to get involved right away. Perhaps Gideon had gone to bed expecting a good night’s rest. Instead he discovered that God was speaking to him. We are not told how God did this; perhaps it was through a dream. Yet since he had met the Lord earlier that day, Gideon would know what he sounded like, and he had no doubt now that the Lord was speaking to him. This, of course, raises the question for us as to when we should begin serving the Lord openly. Perhaps like Gideon ...

In this section, which runs from 2:29–3:10, John gives to his Christian readers several incentives for living a righteous life, including the prospect of appearing at the judgement seat of Christ (avoid being ashamed) and the responsibilities connected to membership of God’s family (live like the Elder Brother). These can be described as positive incentives. In addition, however, he also provides other incentives, and these can be classified as warnings about powerful enemies, identified here as sin and Satan. In this sermon we will focus on the devil as the powerful enemy of God’s people. As in all battles and wars, it is essential for Christian soldiers to know their enemy and his tactics and aims. John begins his comments on the devil by stating that there is a clear-cut distinction between those who follow God’s way and those who follow the devil’s way. The mark of the followers of God is righteous living and the mark of the devil’s followers is sinful living. Both groups imitat...

As we look at the list of attitudes that Paul mentions in this passage we can make several comments. First, we need to remind ourselves that before a person can have these attitudes he must possess divine enablement and in order to have it he has to be converted. Without this change of heart, he cannot begin to live the Christian life. Second, we can see that the list is comprehensive in that it contains features that will be expressed in all kinds of ways. For example, there are attitudes towards those inside the church and those outside the church, so we could say that the list contains details that will affect our worship and our witness. Third, inevitably the list looks very challenging. Nevertheless we need to remind ourselves that Paul here is describing normal Christianity. He is not presenting a target that is out of reach, even although it will never be done to perfection. So we should look at them and say, ‘This is what God wants me to do.’ We could regard the various it...