Sermons, Articles, and Other Things

It is interesting that the book of Revelation begins with considering the church from an earthly point of view (the seven churches) and closes with a description that looks like a heavenly point of view. The best way to try and understand what is being said is to work through the description and work out what each aspect means. John is given an expanded description of the church which was briefly given to him by the angel 1n 21:2. There he was told that the church was both a bride and a city, a reminder that she has a loving relationship with Jesus and is also a dwelling place with structures. John has a similar experience to that of the prophet Ezekiel when he was taken to a high mountain to see what God was doing with his people (Ezek. 40:2). We will see the need for a very high mountain for John when we are told the size of the divine city – one would need a special viewpoint from which to see it. The dimensions here make those seen by Ezekiel seem small. The first detail...

In this middle section of the Gospel we begin to see the development of opposition to Jesus as the initial period of popularity begins to wane as he engages in his public ministry. The opposition will come mainly from the scribes and Pharisees as they attempt to reverse the influence of Jesus over people. As we can see from verse 1, Jesus continued to travel around preaching while his disciples were away on their mission (mentioned in the previous chapter). Matthew mentions three incidents that occurred. One was the request from John the Baptist, the second was the denunciation of the places Jesus visited, and the third was the promise of rest to the weary. We could say that Jesus deals with three spiritual problems: loss of assurance, failure to believe and don’t listen to false teachers. We will focus on the first two in this sermon. The problem of John the Baptist It was common in the past to assume with regard to this incident that John did not have doubts, but was only p...

Different answers could be given to that question depending on the situation. The circumstances in Colosse were that false teachers were minimising the role of Jesus in the work of salvation. In that situation, the response of a believer was to recognise the greatness of the salvation that Jesus has provided for his people. This is what Paul exhorts them to do throughout the letter. In the passage we will consider, he provides several features to include in the description of a believer. 1. A Christian has experienced spiritual resurrection Paul here is describing the great change that every person who believes in Jesus experiences. Before they believed in him they were spiritually dead. The reason for such a state is that they were estranged from God because each of them had a sinful nature. They did not involve God in their lives because they did not think about him, did not love him and did not serve him. This describes everyone in a natural state, even although we are very d...

Many people are frightened by what they imagine is over the horizon. The future is unknown, and they prefer the confusion of an uncertain present to thinking about the world that is to come. Yet God in his love and mercy sent to John a message about the future that was conveyed to him by his Saviour, Jesus. It is beneficial to imagine how joyful Jesus would have been as he revealed to his servant some of the things that would shortly come to pass. The phrase ‘a new heaven and a new earth’ indicates that God is about to do something new. It was used previously in Isaiah 65:17ff to describe the restoration of Israel after the Babylonian captivity. Calvin argued that it was fulfilled in the reign of Christ that commenced with his first coming and which lasts to his second coming. According to Calvin, ‘ By these metaphors God promises a remarkable change of affairs; as if God had said that he has both the inclination and the power not only to restore his Church, but to restore it in suc...

​ In this chapter, Matthew describes the initial preaching tour that the apostles of Jesus engaged in. Much of the details were limited to that tour, such as the clothes they could take with them , and the places to where they could go within the land of Israel . It was obviously a stage in the process of eleven of them becoming leading persons in the church of Christ.   Surprises in the list of names   How would you describe the disciples? Peter was impulsive, Andrew was quiet, James was fiery (a son of thunder) as was John; Philip was slow to understand (as John 14:9 suggests); Bartholomew was contemplative (sitting under a fig tree in John 1); Thomas was sceptical; Matthew was diligent in keeping records; Simon the Zealot was nationalistic; Judas was deceitful. Nothing is said about the other James or Thaddeus. Yet they were the ones that Jesus chose as apostles.    The obvious surprise in the list of names is that Jesus chose any of them to serv...