Sermons, Articles, and Other Things

It is clear from John’s letter that different responses were being made to sin among his readers, with some of them advocating heretical notions connected to some of the cultural ideas of the time, one of them being the notion that actions of the physical body did not matter. Therefore some had claimed to have stopped sinning and said that they had no sin to confess. Such people, says John, were deceiving themselves. Others seemed to have forgotten that sin affects believers in three directions: upwards, because we lose communion with God; outwards, because it can lead to estrangement from other believers; and inwards, because we react in various ways to our sin such as embarrassment for falling into it, or a determination not to repeat the particular sin based on assumed personal ability. Confession of sin should be accompanied by such an awareness of the effects of sin. It looks as if John’s readers had forgotten to ask the most important question of all, which is, what does Jesus in...

In what ways does the Bible describe a Christian? Sometimes, it uses one word such as believer or disciple. At other times, it uses a longer sentence such as when Paul listed in Galatians the features found in the fruit of the Spirit. And on other occasions, it uses a paragraph. When that happens, the description may be made up of relevant doctrines such as Paul does in Ephesians 1:3-14 where he lists several doctrines such as adoption into God’s family, redemption through Christ’s death, and having the Holy Spirit as a gift from God. Or a passage or paragraph may have a list of instructions to be obeyed by his people as in the Ten Commandments. Another example of a list is the Beatitudes in which Jesus mentions eight character traits, each of them having a connected divinely-given privilege. What is poor in spirit? The phrase ‘poor in spirit’ occurs once in the Bible, although it has strong connections to how the concept of poor is used in the Old Testament. A person like this is not ...

In the previous verses David has given two picture examples of how his Shepherd will ensure that he will not lack spiritual provision. His descriptions of a calm day and a difficult day describe the kinds of day a believer will experience as the flock of God is led to glory by the good Shepherd. In both kinds of day the common factor is that the Shepherd is present with provisions for his sheep, whether the provision is given beside the still waters or somewhere on the journey through the valley of the shadow of death. And he closes the psalm by saying that the experiences of those two days tell him how he can view all the days that he will yet live on this earth. It is astonishing claim to make, but Christians by experience prove that it is true. Divine goodness and mercy does follow them all the days of their lives. It is not too much to say that each day is an opportunity to focus on three things: (1) what goodness and mercy came my way yesterday? (2) what goodness and mercy am I ex...

We have no idea of how dark the world was when Jesus sent his apostles with his gospel into it. This can be explained in numerous ways. It was full of idolatry that gave them no comfort in life and in death. It was full of cruelty and barbarism and the insights of the great philosophers did not bring about a society marked by concern for others. There were no believers functioning as salt in those decadent societies. As Paul says elsewhere, people everywhere lived without God and without hope. An author called David Macintyre wrote that the world did not see real joy until Christian communities were formed in them, with the members enjoying the kind of joy that Peter describes as unspeakable and full of glory. Their lives were so different that others wondered about them.   The coming of the gospel It is a common question to ask, ‘When did the gospel first come to a country?’ That is an interesting question about our own locality. Was the gospel here before Columba and the Celtic C...

David now refers to a difficult situation for a sheep, which was walking through a valley called ‘the shadow of death’.  Often, this statement is linked to the passing of a believer from earth to heaven, and while there is nothing wrong with that suggestion it is likely a mistake to limit the application to that stage in a believer’s life. That suggestion does not appear to be what David is describing in the psalm. Maybe after we reflect on what the verses mean, we will say that the final day in a believer’s experience may involve this place of shadows, but that it is also the case that his final day may be described in verses 2 and 3. We noted that in verses 2 and 3 David seems to describe a day in the life of a sheep, with the Shepherd leading through green pastures where soul recovery is found in order to continue in the paths of righteousness; in verses 4 and 5, he seems to describe another day in the life of a sheep, but one that is very different. The day in verses 2 and 3 wa...

The imagery of running is often used in the Bible to depict aspects of the Christian life. Sometimes, the imagery is taken from everyday life and at other times, as here, it is taken from athletic events or games that were common throughout the Roman Empire. The unknown author of Hebrews obviously thought that it was a picture that his readers needed to hear and use as they lived in their complicated and, at times, perilous situations. The illustration We can see at least four details from a sports event that are used by the author. First, there are those that he refers to as a ‘cloud of witnesses’. The word ‘cloud’ indicates that there were many witnesses. Some of the witnesses are mentioned in Hebrews 11, and as the author indicates he could have mentioned many more. It was the practice at these games for runners who had finished their race to go to a stand or separated area and cheer on those who were still running. Their presence indicated that they witnessed to the fact that the r...