Sermons, Articles, and Other Things

Do you have a favourite chapter in the Bible? Some people would say Psalm 23 or Isaiah 53 is their choice. Others might opt for John 10 with its focus on Jesus as the Good Shepherd or on 1 Corinthians 13, the passage that describes the nature of love. Still others might mention the Sermon on the Mount and its practical emphasis on Christian living, while yet others might mention a passage like Philippians 2 and what Paul says there about the humiliation and exaltation of Jesus. No doubt, most Christians would say that have many favourite passages.   Why I like the chapter I like Romans 16 because of several reasons, although I would not say that it is the most important passage in the Bible. Yet it teaches valuable lessons when we run our eye over its contents. What are the reasons that I often think about it? One is that the letter shows that the gospel had reached the capital city of the Roman empire very quickly, taking not more than a couple of decades to get there, which i...

It is not entirely clear who the writer is speaking about in these verses we are considering. Given that previously he mentioned the faith in action of Abel, Enoch, Noah and Abraham, we might think he is referring back to them. The problem with that suggestion is that the writer says that those he is referring to all died in faith, and Enoch did not die, but was taken to heaven without dying. So some suggest that the author has in mind the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob rather than the older names in his list. Since it is not possible to be certain, I think we should take his words as speaking generally of all those ancient believers and refer his words to them all apart from Enoch.   Necessity of faith As noted, the writer mentions how, of the names so far in his list of those who died, they all died in faith (apart from Enoch). They died in a range of circumstances. Abel was fairly young when he was murdered by his brother Cain, Noah’s was nine hundred and fifty when he died...

It is good when siblings serve the Lord together. Have you ever wondered about Tryphaena and Tryphosa whom Paul sends greetings to in Romans 16:12 and describes them as working hard for the Lord there? I wonder what they did for Jesus. The meanings of their names are similar, each meaning delicate. Some speculate that they were twin sisters and not physically strong from birth, hence their names. The Bible does not tell us how they were converted, but it does tell us that they worked hard for Jesus. Martha and Mary served Jesus as well. It looks from Luke’s account as if it was Martha’s house and that Mary was living there. We know from John’s Gospel that two men also lived in the house. One was their brother Lazarus, and the other was a man called Simon the leper who obviously had been cured of his disease, perhaps by Jesus. Simon could have been the father or an uncle of the other three or he could have been the husband of Martha or just some other relative. The Bible scholar A. T. R...

Repentance has something unique about it. It is a spiritual grace that comes from Jesus in heaven to his people on earth, but which he does not give to his people in heaven. Yet for those travelling there from earth, the journey began with repentance, and repentance will mark every stage of their spiritual journey. This ongoing repentance is not only about their sins, but also over the things that they did well to an extent. Repentance therefore is a friend for life, a gift suitable for use as often as possible.   Start The prophet Zechariah announced that the day would come in Jerusalem when repentance would take place: ‘I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn’ (Zech. 12:10).   Some expositors reckon that it is a prophecy of t...