Sermons, Articles, and Other Things

What do we think about when we think of a city? What comes to our mind when we think of London, for example? Buckingham Palace, Houses of Parliament, the Underground? But thinking that way reveals a problem of perception because surely the first aspect of a city that should come to mind are the residents because without them there is not a city, merely a collection of buildings. What comes to mind when we think of the church, the city of God? Denominations, historical events, statistics of numerical strength or weakness, programmes. But thinking that way reveals a problem of perception because surely the first aspect of a city that should come to mind are the residents because without them there is not a community. The church is about the people who belong to it and their relationship with God. What comes to mind when we think of the city of Jerusalem, or maybe we should ask, what would have come to the mind of Nehemiah at the time recorded in this passage of his book? A wall rebuilt, ...

We are familiar with the saying ‘cometh the hour, cometh the man.’ There are several examples of that happening in the Bible. Sometimes, the person is then referred to many times because every person that does a great deal for God has to start somewhere. At other times, he is not referred to again, which may not mean that he did not do anything again that was important for the cause of Christ. This is the only occasion when Joseph is mentioned, although each Gospel account records what he did. John adds that Nicodemus was with Joseph, but the other Gospels don’t include that detail. Yet the action that Joseph did is obviously a very important one. Who was Joseph? The way that Luke describes Joseph could indicate that he had died by the time Luke wrote his Gospel, which would not be surprising given that about thirty years may have passed since the death of Jesus. Joseph was from Arimathea, although we don’t know if he still lived there because he did have a house in Jerusalem in which ...

It is obvious that whenever a covenant is signed, it must involve people and it must include specific terms about which they are agreed. This is the case whether the covenant is between people or between people and God. In this chapter of Nehemiah, the author mentions both details. He lists the names of those who signed it in verses 1-21 and he then provides the details of the terms that they agreed to live by in the future as the people of God. Why did they do this? In the previous chapter of the book of Nehemiah an account is given of the prayer of confession made by the Jews as they realised their sins against their God. That confession had been made freely and fully. They realised that their current state of spiritual poverty had been brought about as a consequence of their own disobedience. That prayer could be described as their turning from sin. Yet when a person turns away from something, they must turn to something. If all they were going to do was stop certain behaviours, the...

Jesus has been on the cross since 9am. Luke has told us about two matters that have happened before noon: the prayer by Jesus for the soldiers who had crucified him and the assurance he then gave to the penitent criminal about his place in Paradise later that day. Now Luke moves on to describe what happened in the afternoon of this unique and amazing day. There are some details in other Gospels that Luke does not mention. Regarding the seven sayings on the cross, Luke does not mention numbers three, four, five and six, but he does mention the seventh (as well as the prayer for the soldiers and the promise to the criminal). He does not include (1) the arrangement of care that Jesus made for his mother through his disciple John, (2) the cry about Jesus being forsaken by God, (3) the cry that Jesus was thirsty, and (4) the cry that Jesus had completed the work he was engaged in doing. Although he does not mention them, he does include several important details for his readers to consider....

Having focussed on the greatness of God as they gathered in Jerusalem on the twenty-fourth day of the month in order to make a covenant with him, the people who had returned to the land of Judah then proceeded to look back through the history of their nation right to its beginning at the time of Abraham about fifteen centuries before. As they do so, they mention several periods from their national history, and with regard to each period they say something about the Lord and his actions as well as their forefathers and their actions. So first, we can consider briefly what they said about God as well as what was said about the Israelites, and then we can mention some lessons for ourselves. God and Abraham (vv. 7-8) Abraham was selected by God and brought out of his pagan background in order for the Lord to make a covenant with him. God is described as sovereign in his plan and gracious in his choice of Abraham; moreover, he is said to be the searcher of Abraham’s heart as well as the One...

At the beginning, two humans met with God in a garden and there they would have fellowship together in the cool of the day. Sadly, that fellowship was ended by the rebellion of Adam and Eve against God. They would have another type of fellowship after the Lord had revealed to them his grace about a coming deliverer. But how he would deliver rebels remained the question and the answer had not yet been fully revealed. And it did not seem likely that it would be revealed on the day that Jesus was crucified. Indeed, it looked as if he was a failure in his attempts to provide a recovery. There he was with two rebels, crucified and waiting to die. And then during a conversation he speaks in a manner that connects with the garden that had gone but which in another sense was still there, and in speaking about it tells one of the rebels that he would be in Paradise with him later that day, almost in the cool of the day, we could say. God and rebels together in the garden illustrated by that con...

It is likely that in Israel today hundreds, if not thousands, of people made their way to one of the optional sites for Calvary in order to experience the place. For some, it would have been a lifetime ambition to be there; for others, it would have been one more tourist site to visit in the Holy Land. It is certainly moving to visit them. Many of them would depend on their guides for information about various features connected to the sites. But we don’t have to go to Israel to go to Calvary. We can go there without leaving the building. Yet we always need a guide, and we should always go in the right frame of mind. The Guide is the Holy Spirit.  It is a place for reverence because God is there, for reflection on what took place there when Jesus died, and for refreshment for our souls, and usually the three responses are simultaneous. We need the Holy Spirt, the heavenly Guide, to explain to us the significance of Calvary. Luke mentions four details in verse 34 about what happened...