Sermons, Articles, and Other Things

As we know, there are different ways of telling a story. This reality happens in news reports, in obituaries, in eyewitness accounts, in family discussions. The same occurs regarding the stories of Jesus in the Gospels. Each Gospel refers to what took place in Gethsemane, but they don’t report the same details. For example, John does not make any reference to Jesus’ distress and his agonising prayers. All he says is that Jesus and his disciples went to Gethsemane and that Judas appeared with soldiers to arrest him. Luke is possibly different from the other three accounts in that he was not an eyewitness of what occurred. Matthew and John were present. We may wonder about Mark, but it is regarded as likely that he is the unnamed man described in Mark 14:51-52 (in any case, it is generally accepted that Peter helped him compose his Gospel). Luke also does not say that Jesus prayed three times, nor does he say that Jesus separated Peter, James and John from the other disciples. This does

It was inevitable that those who resisted the recovery of the city of Jerusalem would reveal their opposition to Nehemiah and his helpers. This chapter describes some of their attempts and how Nehemiah resisted them. If the enemy was going to resist, so was Nehemiah. From one point of view, this chapter is about resistance and who would resist the longest. Nehemiah did resist longer than his opponents, but what was it that made him such a resister? Hopefully we will identify an answer to that question.   The account of the process involves three stages, so we can consider what happened in each before pointing out a couple of lessons. Stage one (vv. 1-6) The first attempt to stop Nehemiah was led by two prominent individuals – Sanballat and Tobiah the Ammonite. Those men were rulers of two neighbouring provinces. Sanballat was the governor of Samaria and Tobiah was the governor of Ammon. They were mentioned earlier in the book as being very annoyed because someone had come to Jerusalem

Annual harvests may not be something that we often think about in our global village with its range of supermarkets providing products from all parts of the world for us to enjoy. Yet it is good for us to think about them because they are often referred to in the Bible. In this sermon we can consider ways in which the Bible speaks about harvests. Promise The first aspect that I would mention is that regular harvests are a promise made by God to a handful of people. After the flood, God made a covenant with Noah and those with him. This covenant is a bit different from other covenants that God made after the Fall in that it is a covenant with the human race and not a covenant limited to his people. Before he made the actual covenant, we are told that God ‘said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. While the earth remains, see

As we know, Peter was a devoted disciple of Jesus. There are numerous examples of his dedication, and we can consider briefly three of them as an introduction in order to see the strength of his devotion. First, Peter was eager to participate in events with Jesus, even to the extent of walking on the water with him. Clearly, on that occasion, Peter was willing to move out of what we would regard as sensible comfort zones once Jesus had invited him to walk on the stormy sea. In some way, he must have regarded the authority of Jesus as enabling him to do what Jesus asked, even if no-one else in the boat would want to do so. Second, Peter was eager to confess who he thought Jesus was, even when others had their own different estimations of Jesus. At Caesarea Philippi, he had confessed that Jesus was the Christ and the Son of God, an insightful confession that was commended by Jesus as having been given to Peter by the Heavenly Father. Yet Peter almost immediately showed his impetuosity an

People may tend to skip over lists of names in the Bible. Yet we know that there are quite a lot of them throughout the Scriptures, so skipping over them could mean ignoring many verses and passages in the Word of God. The lists can give guidance about spiritual matters or hints about how things occurred in church life in biblical times, such as the list in Romans 16. Perhaps we might meet in heaven the men and women whose names are listed in this chapter as well as the unnamed persons. Some of the lists in the Bible have intriguing surprises such as Jabez and his prayer for prosperity in a list of names found in Chronicles, or the significance of the four women found in the genealogy of Jesus, or what did Paul mean when he said about Priscilla and Aquila that all the churches of the Gentiles gave thanks for them? So with that in mind, we can ask, ‘What can be said about the list of names in this chapter of Nehemiah?’ First, we will consider some details from the chapter, and I have en

The first Lord’s Supper was a surprise for the disciples because they had been expecting to celebrate the annual Passover with all its connections to their faith in God and their experience of his power as a people. Although they probably did not realise it at the time, they had been the witnesses of a strategic change in the Lord’s methods of dealing with his people, of the replacement of a central practice for the membership of the kingdom of God. Yet that change was not the only surprise that had happened to them on that evening. Another unusual event was the presence of a betrayer in the group, which caused great consternation among the rest. Although Jesus identified that the betrayer was Judas, the other disciples could not make sense of what was occurring. He had been an important member of the group and they had not seen any obvious sign before then that he would betray their Master. There were three other features of the occasion that Luke wants to mention in his record of the

The day had arrived that Nehemiah had prayed about. He was engaged in serving his earthly sovereign, but he also was determined to serve his heavenly King. It looks as if he had not been engaged in recent weeks in the service of his earthly master, so perhaps the emperor had been away from his capital. If so, he was now back, and normal service resumed in the palace. Except Nehemiah did not feel normal. Instead his inner sadness showed in his face to such an extent that the emperor noticed it. Fear can be good In addition to feeling sad, Nehemiah was now also afraid because it was a great offence to be sad in the presence of the Persian emperor. It is surprising how the Lord opens doors at times. In fact, it can seem that providence is shutting the door rather than opening it, but often the two go together. David Livingstone believed he was called to serve God in China and prepared for going there. Then the door was shut by the committee of the missionary society he intended to work fo