Sermons, Articles, and Other Things

Why does Jesus call himself ‘the good shepherd’? In that claim, there is a definite article, an adjective and a noun. The definite article points to uniqueness, one of a kind. It also points to superiority. By using the article, Jesus separates himself from all other spiritual shepherds. There had not been nor will there ever be a shepherd like Jesus. The adjective ‘good’ points to character. We know that the word ‘good’ has degrees in its meaning. Often, when someone asks how we are, we reply, ‘I am good.’ What we mean is that we are good as far as we know. If someone was to be pernickety and say to us, ‘Are you perfectly good?’, we would have to adjust our self-description. But if a pernickety person asked Jesus if he meant that he was totally good, he would reply yes. Jesus once questioned a ruler as to why he called Jesus ‘good’, saying that only God is good. Does Jesus mean here that he is the divine shepherd as well as being the divinely-provided shepherd. I suspect he is. That i...

In this chapter of Romans, as we have so far considered it, Paul has given three responses about how Jesus delivers his people while they have an awareness of their sinfulness. First, the Holy Spirit enables them to love God’s law – they fulfil the righteous requirement of the law, which is to love God and neighbour. Second, Christians should reflect on the radical difference that exists between them and other people – they are in the Spirit and not in the flesh. Third, believers should by the power of the Spirit engage in mortification of sin throughout life, putting to death that which will not die completely while they are in this life. Now the apostle mentions further activities of the Spirit that they experience, and some of them are hard to explain because often the actions of God are beyond us. We can approach them by noting that the Spirit is called the Spirit of adoption, that there is a connection to the eternal inheritance, and that his intercession is one of groaning. The ...

Paul and Barnabas did not appreciate the response of the people in Lystra to the miracles performed before them. The Lystrians concluded that two of their gods had come to visit them and therefore they wanted to celebrate their arrival. The apostles responded by reminding them of what the true God had done for them, even although they had not known about him. As they did so, they mentioned how the Lord had sent them harvests of fruitful seasons. He had done this to witness to himself. Of course, Paul is not only speaking about harvests when he refers to the Lord’s bounty in creation, but he would have included harvests within the scope of the divine kindness. According to Luke in his introduction to the Book of Acts, Jesus arranged this set of circumstances as part of the process of evangelism in the area by Paul and Barnabas as they took the gospel to a pagan community. The people there had no concept of the gospel and were in the grip of idolatry. They had deduced that the gods had s...

We could say that in the garden of Eden there were two gardens. There was the garden that Adam was living in and there was the garden that was living in Adam. We can say of the eternal state of God’s people that there will again be two gardens – they will be in Paradise and Paradise will also be in them. Today, we don’t live in a garden, but if we are Christians there should be a garden in us. What is that garden? Our souls should be like a garden. Before we believed in Jesus, our souls were like a piece of ground full of horrible weeds. At our conversion, the heavenly Gardener changed the ground of our souls, giving it life and planting the seeds of beautiful graces. However, he did not eradicate all the weeds, although he did reduce their power. He wants each of us, through the power of the indwelling Spirit, to continue weakening these weeds and watering the graces. As time goes by, there should be more signs of grace and fewer weeds in our garden. Paul’s solution Paul in Romans 7 s...