Sermons, Articles, and Other Things

One could say that this chapter contains one of the most difficult passages to interpret (measuring the temple and the two witnesses) and one of the most straightforward to understand (the day of judgement). Having said that about ourselves and our grasp of things does not have to mean that it was hard for the original readers to grasp what the two witnesses and the measuring of the temple signified. In the section about the witnesses, John refers to two cities. One is called the holy city, but this is not a reference to the earthly Jerusalem. Instead, Jerusalem along with Sodom and Egypt belongs to the unholy city. Frequently in Revelation, the contrast between God’s people and others is illustrated through the idea of two opposing cities. There is God’s city and there is the enemy city. Of course, what makes a place a city is its inhabitants. Without inhabitants, a city does not exist. It may be worth noting that in this chapter we have the final reference to the cross of Je...

Life with Jesus must have been full of surprises for his followers. I suspect the disciples were anticipating a surprising experience on this occasion, although the one they went through was probably not the one they had anticipated. What would have been the surprise they imagined? They knew they were going over the lake to Gentile areas, as we can see from verse 28. Perhaps they imagined Jesus doing incredible works there and bringing in lots of new followers to the Jewish faith. Jesus had something else in mind for them. At a more mundane level, they might have expected a smooth sail. After all, it was very calm when they set out. The description of the storm indicates that it was not expected. So in God’s providence the disciples did not get what they would have expected and did get what was unexpected. And I suspect Matthew is saying, ‘Welcome to the unexpected life of discipleship that the followers of Jesus have!’ Yet we must observe that Jesus did not abandon them when ...

It is the case in the Bible that whenever God’s people found themselves in a situation of difficulty the answer was usually connected to Jesus. This is true in both the Old and New Testaments. Obviously in the Old Testament he appeared in ways that were different from how he appeared when he became a man and lived on earth. But that should not be too surprising for us because we know, as Christians, that Jesus looks different today than he did when he was on earth because today he is glorified. For individuals I will mentions first two occasions in the Old Testament when a sight of the Son of God brought real help to people. The first is the well-known incident recorded in Isaiah 6. Isaiah was probably disturbed that the king had died. What he needed was a vision of a greater King and he tells us in that chapter that he saw the Lord of hosts. When we turn to John 12:41 we discover that the divine person Isaiah saw was Jesus before he became a man. Because Isaiah had this encoun...

We might be prone to assume that Matthew is being a bit sporadic here as he details three individuals whom Jesus helped as well as a large number of cases of whom no details are given. But he is not being sporadic. Instead he wants his readers to realise that Jesus is the promised Messiah and then come to a decision about Jesus for themselves, and in order to bring this about he refers to two individuals whom Jesus did not help. So there is a contrast here between people as well as a challenge to us about what we think of Jesus. So far in this section of his Gospel, Matthew has mentioned a leper and a Gentile proselyte. Now he mentions a woman who is suffering from an illness. While such descriptions may not make us sit up and wonder, they would have been like bombshells to many of his first readers. He shows that Jesus is willing to help the outcasts and those on the outside in one way or another. Being a woman was bad enough, but to be a sick woman was worse! Jesus and Pet...