Sermons, Articles, and Other Things

Paul has been describing the greatness of the salvation that the Ephesians had experienced. He reminds them that they had been saved by grace. What does he mean by that use of the word ‘grace’? Of course, he could mean divine grace in general, but I suspect he is saying that they have been saved by God’s gracious power which was the way he fulfilled his great plan of salvation. They had not contributed anything to their salvation.  The tense that Paul uses with regard to salvation here is the past tense – it is a perfect participle, and if we recall from English classes the perfect tense describes a past event with ongoing consequences. We know that salvation can have three tenses: past when we were rescued from the penalty of sin, present when are delivered from the power of sin, and future when we will be delivered from the presence of sin. We cannot have the middle aspect without the other two, but if we have the first aspect we will experience the other two. Salvation from...

In this set of verses Paul describes some activities of the Holy Spirit in the lives of God’s people. He says that they are led by the Spirit, that they live by the Spirit, that they walk with the Spirit, and that they show the fruit of the Spirit. Clearly, he is indicating to the Galatians that a failure to realise what the work of the Spirit involved lay at the root of their spiritual problems. He had mentioned this earlier in the letter when he asked them that having begun in the Spirit, did they now expect to continue in the flesh? Here he lists various activities of the flesh and shows that they are contrary to the aims of the Spirit. The conflict In these verses Paul describes a conflict between the desires of the flesh and the desires of the Spirit. The aim of both the flesh and the Spirit is to prevent people doing what they want to do. In a person led by the Spirit, the flesh works to stop that person doing what he wants to do; in a person led by the flesh, ...

When we say that God is omniscient, we mean that he knows everything. But what do we mean when we say that he knows everything? For example, does he know things from afar or does he know things because he is near, or both? We can know things in both ways. Or does he know some things because he brought them about and other things because he guesses correctly? After all, we can have both of those means as sources of our knowledge. Or does it mean that he has the capacity to know everything, but does not bother to consider some things? We know less than we can know and we don’t bother with many aspects of knowledge. The problem with all those suggestions is that we are comparing God to ourselves whereas what we should be doing is realising that God is very different from us, indeed infinitely different. He knows things that we can never know, even if we combine all human knowledge together. So what does God know? Here are some features of his knowledge. God knows G...

When we read a biographical dictionary, we will go through summaries of the lives of notable individuals. We know that as we read them there was much more to each person that is contained in the summaries. Yet the summaries can be valuable in letting readers know what the persons in the dictionary were like. In this set of verses, Paul summarises the past, present and future aspects of salvation that describes the experience of every believer. There is much more to each believer than the summary contains. Yet it is an accurate summary that is sufficient for us to be able to assess every believer’s experience of divine grace. It is likely that Paul is continuing with his stress on divine power that he mentions at the end of the previous chapter and which he wanted each believer to appreciate. If that is the case, then we can see a parallel with what happened to Jesus and what happens to his people – death, resurrection and exaltation. The display of divine power in the resurre...

There are two ways of considering the price of freedom: first, there is the price that was paid to purchase it and, second, there is the price that must be paid for maintaining it. This is true in political freedom and national freedom, and it is also true in spiritual freedom. Jesus and freedom Jesus said on one occasion, ‘If the Son sets you free, then you will be free indeed’ (John 8:31-38). In that passage he tells Jews who had believed in him about the path of freedom. Their adoption of his instruction would indicate whether they were genuine believers. The development of their debate indicated that they were not the real thing.  He makes clear that the path of freedom and the price of freedom is abiding in his Word and practicing it. A failure to obey his word means inevitably a loss of spiritual freedom. Jesus said that before he went to the cross, but he knew that what he would do on the cross would become the basis of freedom for his people. He also prov...

What is your view of the Christian life? How would you answer someone who asked you about living for Jesus? Would you give a general answer that any Christian would give? What if the person asked you about your Christian life? What would you say if he asked you if you find it fulfilling and meaningful? Would you be honest with the person? What kind of life does the Bible indicate should be our experience? Here are some verses with biblical answers: John 6:37-38: ‘On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive.’ That sounds like a life of satisfaction within and refreshment for others. This is an amazing and beautiful promise of Jesus to all of his disciples. Matthew 11:28-30: ‘Come to me, all who labor and are heavy lad...