Sermons, Articles, and Other Things

The Bible frequently joins together incidents that we might imagine should not be joined together. To whom should Jesus speak about heaven? Should he speak only to the dedicated and the ones who are expressing their devotion by acts of earnest obedience? Is it wise to connect together failure and the hope of heaven? Whatever we might think, Jesus connects them here, although the connection is blurred a bit by the chapter division. Chapter 13 ends with a failing disciple and chapter 14 begins with Jesus talking about heaven to his disciples. The curiosity of Peter It is not clear if the incident involving Peter was an interruption in the flow of the teaching that Jesus was giving to his disciples as he prepared them for his imminent departure. Peter had been listening to the words of Jesus and I suppose we could ask this question, ‘Which of the topics that Jesus was speaking about would Peter refer to?’ Would he ask about what Jesus meant when he said that he would be glorified? ...

‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God’  (Matthew 5:9) Why do we need peacemakers? The answer is that nations are in conflict. Why should the disciples of Jesus function as peacemakers? Because there are situations in which spiritual conflict is occurring. What are those situations? The obvious one is the conflict between God and sinners. We might not regard the participants as being in conflict, but when we think about some of the descriptions we realise that they are.  The Background Yet we know that it is possible in a situation of conflict for one side to want peace. Usually, it is the weaker of the two. In the situation of the war between God and humans, it is the stronger who wants peace with his opponents. God, against whom sinners had rebelled, wanted to be at peace with them. We know how he did this – he sent his Son into the world in order to deal with the causes of the conflict.  When did this conflict begin? The answe...

How do we describe Easter Sunday? What place does it have in the outworking of the kingdom of God? What does it contribute to our hope of the future? What relevance does it have for us living in Inverness two thousand years later? Jerusalem on Easter Sunday According to the biblical calendar, devout Jews were now in day 2 of the feast of unleavened bread. It commenced on the day after the Passover and lasted for a week and special services took place each day. The whole city would be engaged in religious activities, and they would be doing so with no idea of what had taken place in the garden of Joseph of Arimathea. They had no concept of anything unusual happening on Easter Sunday. Well, apart from the high priests and their cronies because they had to cope with the information from the guards at the tomb that an angel had appeared, an appearance that caused them to collapse, and when they came round, the body of Jesus had gone. Maybe they imagined that the angel had taken ...

Judas had left the room and his departure seems to have made it suitable for Jesus to instruct his disciples about important aspects of the immediate future. For example, it is not hard for us to see how it would have been unsuitable to talk about loving one another in the presence of Judas because he would have no interest in such an outlook or activity.   Jesus spoke briefly about several topics in the upper room and we can see what they are if we look down the remainder of chapter 13 and the totality of chapter 14. What are they? Here is a list: 1.       His glorification (13:31-32) 2.       Brotherly love (13:33-35) 3.       Peter’s denial (13:36-38) 4.       The Father’s House (14:1-3) 5.       Approaching the Father (14:4-14) 6.       The help of the Spirit (14:15-17) 7.       Commun...