Sermons, Articles, and Other Things

Fill my heart with joy when their grain and new wine abound (Psalm 4:8) What comes into our mind at harvest time? Should there be a difference between how we think and how those who don’t believe in God think? After all, they may not even connect God with the harvest. They will have a kind of joy, but it is not the joy that we should have. So we can think briefly about why we should have joy and what kind of joy we should have. First, we should have joy because harvest is a reminder that God is the creator. He is the one who has arranged the seasons of the year. Indeed, celebrating the harvest was a prominent feature of the worship in Israel, with the feasts of first fruits and tabernacles connected to the harvest. Second, we should have joy because harvests are a sign that God does not deal with us in the way our sins deserve. After the judgement of the flood, the Lord indicated by a promise that the seasons, including the harvests, would not cease while the earth lasts (...

It is obvious that this doxology by Paul marks a break in this letter. So far, Paul has been focussing on various doctrines; now he comes to focus on practical issues, although we should not imagine that he does not included doctrines in the second half of his letter. Paul’s method here is a reminder that it is appropriate to have a statement of praise at any time. What is a doxology Many people confuse a doxology with a benediction. At a basic level, a doxology is something we say to God and a benediction is something that is said to us by a divine spokesperson. A doxology is a set of words that describes one or more of the divine attributes and it can be said to the three persons of the Trinity or to one of the three Persons. Who is addressed here? The divine Person who is praised here by Paul is God the Father. Yet the other two persons are also mentioned. The Holy Spirit is ‘the power at work within us’ and Jesus is mentioned as bringing glory to the Fath...

When it comes to thinking about specific apostles, we need to recognise that each will be included whenever a general reference is made to the twelve apostles in the Gospels and the Book of Acts. So one could include those references when trying to gain an overall view of one apostle. On the other hand, it could be the case that God wants us to observe particular events in the life of an individual when he is named. Thomas is mentioned in the list of apostles given in the Synoptic Gospels. Often he is referred to as doubting Thomas, but that way of speaking about him is unfair because there is only one instance of him doubting something about Jesus. We are told that his nickname was Didymus, which means twin, but we have no idea who his twin was. Although we are not told when Thomas met Jesus, he had decided at some stage to become a follower of Jesus. This is the most important detail of a Bible character to notice, because nothing of spiritual value can be said about a person unti...

Romans 8 has always been regarded as a precious chapter of the Bible. Reading through it has been compared to a walk through the Alps, with the reader ascending mountain after mountain and being given a majestic view of the spiritual life from a wide variety of viewpoints. And we are invited to stand on such a spiritual peak and consider how believers are more than conquerors. The apostle Paul has mentioned a set of issues that will not prevent believers from having spiritual victory. He makes this pronouncement even although appearances suggest otherwise. After all, if someone is put to death for believing in Jesus, it would look as if that person had been defeated. If someone had succumbed to a fiery interrogation, it would like he or she had been defeated. In addition, Paul affirms that this total experience of victory will be the experience of every Christian. He does not suggest that it is only believers who march confidently along the road to heaven who will participate ...

The Bible tells us lots of information, mainly about God. Yet what the Bible tells us about God increases as we read further into it. If we start with Genesis 1, we might think that God is only one divine person, but as we read along we start to get hints that there is more to say about him. It never suggests that there is more than one God, but it does say that there is a plurality of persons. In the New Testament, we find that there are three divine persons – the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. A detail that is mentioned by the Bible about the Trinity is that they are always in harmony. Moreover, we are told that they are always together, but not in the sense that we are together. Although we are together in this room, we are separate from one another, each occupying our own space, and it is impossible for us to do anything else. The divine persons, however, indwell one another. While we cannot say fully what this means, we can deduce from this relationship that each of them...

The increase of hotel chains and other forms of accommodation are a feature of the twenty-first century and they show no signs of decreasing. Simultaneously, there is an increase in restaurants, ranging from fast food to fine dining. Moreover, the rigidity of time management, even at a personal level, has compelled individuals to focus on their agenda for the day. You may wonder where I am going with this, but it is obvious that they affect aspects of Christian living that Paul and the other biblical authors highlighted as important. One of those aspects is hospitality and I would like us to think about it briefly. Jesus and hospitality Perhaps the first thought that comes to mind is that he and his family were not shown any hospitality when he was born. This fact is often mentioned, but we could ask ourselves, ‘What would I have done had I been living in Bethlehem at that time?’ It is a challenging question because we know what should have happened. The challenge is...

Sometimes we wonder what life is all about. Perhaps we feel small and helpless in it all. Maybe we feel marginalised and unimportant in comparison with others. When we respond like that, we have forgotten the glory of the church of Christ and have failed to remind ourselves of the amazing actions revealed through the grace of God. Paul explains in these verses some of the outlook that believers should have, beginning with himself as a special servant of Christ. The role Paul mentions that he became a servant of God through receiving divine grace which came to him in a powerful manner. He means that the Holy Spirit equipped him for this specific role and gave to him sufficient power to serve God in every situation. So although he was in prison at that moment of writing his letter he still received grace and his difficult circumstances did not prevent him from fulfilling his calling. At the same time, the knowledge of his divine calling compelled Paul to be humble. No doubt, h...