Sermons, Articles, and Other Things

The context of this parable indicates that Jesus had a focus on prayer at this time. Immediately before the description of this parable, Jesus told the story of the widow who pestered an unjust judge, and says that her behaviour is a precise illustration of how to pray. Jesus says some more things about prayer in this parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. Some similarities about prayer We might imagine that there would not have been many similarities between a Pharisee and a tax collector. But here are some examples. First, both men in the parable wanted to pray to God. So the mere fact of wanting to pray may not say very much to an onlooker. In this situation, both seemed to be men of prayer. We should not be surprised by that. Every religion involves prayers of some kind. All we need to do is think about the wide range of prayer that is offered in various ways day by day. Second, both men addressed God and both of them acknowledged that the Lord was the source of what they n...

Isaiah during his ministry gave many promises to God’s people. One of them was that they would see the King in his beauty (Isa. 33:17). Isaiah’s prophecy begins with a reference to four kings, but he does not say very much about them in his book except to mention times of difficulty some of them had. Instead, throughout his very long book he continually describes the various features of a coming King with a supernatural birth who would suffer severely but then reign sovereignly and endlessly. Of course we know that the Messiah is Jesus and in his book Isaiah describes the sufferings of the Messiah and the glory that would follow, sufferings on behalf of others and glory for the benefit of others. But the comfort for the people was that they would see him. This theme is not limited to Isaiah. It is also found in the Book of Psalms. We can think of the way Psalm 22 describes his suffering and his glory, or the way Psalm 72 highlights his global reign and all the benefits that would be fo...

Chapter divisions can cause problems when reading a verse like verse 1. Who are the ‘they’ who ought always to pray and not lose heart? The parable itself does not say. The answer is the disciples, but we must go back to verse 22 of the previous chapter to find that out. Moreover, when we go back to that verse, we discover the context for this parable about prayer. As we know, we should always understand something according to its context, and the context of the parable is teaching by Jesus about aspects of his second coming. His main point about the second coming in this passage is that it will be sudden. Life will be going on as normal – feasting, marrying, trading, and building – and suddenly, the second coming will happen. But that is not the only thing that he says. In verse 22, he tells the disciples that ‘The days are coming when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it.’ What is a day of the Son of Man? The Son of Man is a royal title an...

In this chapter we are in the last week of Jesus’ life, and this incident occurred while he was staying at Bethany. We know that he went to Bethany on every evening apart from the last evening when he went to the garden of Gethsemane, and there he was arrested. This incident in Bethany, according to the Gospel of John, took place on the day before Palm Sunday, which means that it took place on the Saturday, which was the Sabbath Day. This was the last Sabbath that Jesus would enjoy before his death. No doubt, he would have been to the synagogue and now he was in the home of his friends. But here we have an example of how to keep the Sabbath, of having fellowship with the Lord and his people. John tells us it was the home where Martha, Mary and Lazarus stayed. But Mark tells us the home belonged to Simon the leper, who was probably their father. Mark does not say if Simon was there on this occasion. If he was still a leper, he would not have been there, and if he was there, it means tha...

Jesus and his disciples had taken some time out for a break. Mark in his account mentions that Jesus was staying in a house in Sidon, but we are not informed as to how he located it. In any case, during their stay, they would have gone out and on one of those occasions this incident took place. Matthew obviously was there so he is an eyewitness of what occurred. Providence Sometimes, a location gets a visit from an important person and some people may want to see the VIP out of curiosity. They may be royalty or politicians or someone very good at sport. Occasionally an expert in a particular field goes somewhere and anyone there affected by the problem he was good at solving would hope to meet him. Jesus was skilled in dealing with the problem that this woman’s daughter was afflicted with, so it is not surprising that she would want his help. Yet there was the problem of the men who were with him. They did not give the impression that she would be welcome to draw near to Jesus. But she...

It is reported that Spurgeon once said that even as there is a road from every village in England to London, so there is a road from every verse in the Bible to Jesus. Some roads may be easier to find in order to travel on them, but what matters is going in the right direction. What roads can we find in this passage? I would suggest that there at least four. Another way of considering this idea is to remind ourselves that we have spiritual antennae that can pick up sounds of the presence of Jesus in his Word, hints and reminders that prompt us to ask what they have to do with him. Such pointers are in this chapter, and there may be more than the four we will consider. Worship As we read Genesis 4, we can see that an issue is the worship of God. This reminds us that worship was initiated by God and practised by Adam and his family. The account does not describe the first occasion of worship by them. Cain and Abel are now adults, and Cain is already married. In his dialogue with God afte...

This title is mentioned five times in the Gospel of John and on each occasion it is a reference to the apostle John. Also, on each occasion, it is how John described himself; he is not citing what someone else said about him; even Jesus had not called him by this title. Of course, he used the description decades after the described incidents took place. What does John mean by this expression? Did he mean that only he could be described in this way? Or are we in danger of taking the phrase to mean ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved to be with more than anyone else during the three or so years in which John enjoyed the nearness of Jesus’? Or do we take it to mean the fact that on one recorded occasion John lay on the breast of Jesus, but we wonder if that was always the posture, a special privilege given only to John? Or is John only a sample of how Jesus responded to others, and continues to respond to others? His chosen identity John is commonly known as the apostle of love because of the ...