Acts: a gospel without love?

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How many times have you heard a fellow Christian say that evangelism is telling people that ‘God loves them’, or that it is ‘sharing the love of Jesus’ with them?

And what’s wrong with such an approach?  Does not the Bible itself declare that ‘God is love?’  Isn’t John’s Gospel rightly described as ‘The Gospel of Love’?  And are not the words and works of Jesus himself overflowing with love?

But here’s an obstinate fact: the Book of Acts, which documents the spread of the gospel from Jerusalem and Judea to Samaria and onwards the boundaries of the then-known world, doesn’t mention ‘love’ from beginning to end. …

Jesus and gender diversity

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Mt 19:12 – “There are some eunuchs who were that way from birth, and some who were made eunuchs by others, and some who became eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who is able to accept this should accept it.”

How, if at all, does Jesus’ teaching inform modern debates about gender diversity?

Justin Tanis writes:

‘Clearly Jesus knows that some people are born outside the binary gender system and people whose lives lead them beyond it.

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Psa 42:7 – ‘Deep calls to deep’

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Psa 42:7 (NIV) – Deep calls to deep
in the roar of your waterfalls;
all your waves and breakers
have swept over me.

By dwelling on small snippets of Scripture, and paying insufficient attention to context, the textual preacher is sometimes prone to see things in the text that are not really there.

C.H. Spurgeon, in a sermon on ‘Deep calleth unto deep’ begins by noting – perfectly reasonably – that

‘everything around the psalmist was like an ocean tossed with tempest; his outlook was unmingled trouble; his sorrows like Job’s messengers followed on one another’s heels; his griefs came wave upon wave.’

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A model for personal evangelism, Jn 7-42

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Bruce Milne (Bible Speaks Today commentary on John) identifies the following features of Jesus evangelistic method:-

1.  His relevance. The whole conversation is couched in terms which the woman could understand. Even when Jesus attempts to take her beyond present experience by talking about eternal life, his teaching is shaped by her experience (so, living water), and she is given handles from her experience to help her grasp it.

2.  His humanity and naturalness.…

How Jesus witnessed, Jn 4:7-42

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1. He turned an everyday situation to good effect, v7. Jesus might have let this opportunity slip, for he was tired, it was midday, she was a Samaritan, a woman, and sinful.

2. He established a point of contact, v7. Jesus was thirsty, and made a natural request. Friendship is two-way: we need to learn to take as well as to give.

3. He aroused her interest. Attention is aroused at the beginning (because of the unusualness of the situation) and throughout.…

Piper: five purposes of suffering

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So often, we cry out, ‘Why?’ in the face of suffering.

John Piper writes:

‘We seldom know the micro reasons for our sufferings, but the Bible does give us faith-sustaining macro reasons.’

These include:

1. Repentance: Suffering is a call for us to turn from earthly attractions to heavenly treasures:

Luke 13:3–4 — “No, I tell you! But unless you repent, you will all perish as well! Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower in Siloam fell on them, do you think they were worse offenders than all the others who live in Jerusalem?”

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English Puritanism and the Jews

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A precis of chapter 3 of Lewis, D. (2021) A Short History of Christian Zionism.  IVP Academic.

The hopes of the early church for Christ’s imminent return were tempered by Augustine, who held a less optimistic view of what the church could achieve in this present age.

The English Puritans found new hope in the apocalyptic writings of the Bible – especially Daniel and the Revelation.

The Puritans believed that God had a plan not only for individuals, but for nations. …

Mt 24:21; Rev 7:14 – ‘The great tribulation’

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Mt 24:21 — “For then there will be great suffering unlike anything that has happened from the beginning of the world until now, or ever will happen.”

Rev 7:13 ‘Then one of the elders asked me, “These dressed in long white robes—who are they and where have they come from?” 7:14 So I said to him, “My lord, you know the answer.” Then he said to me, “These are the ones who have come out of the great tribulation.…

Mt 6:1-6, 16-21 – ‘You hypocrite!’ – sermon notes (v2)

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Notes of a sermon preached at Holy Trinity Norwich on Ash Wednesday, 2026.

Text: Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Everybody has an outside and an inside; a public exterior and a private interior.  On the outside are all the things that other people can see and hear.  On the inside is that collection of thoughts, feelings, motives, and attitudes that we call ‘the heart’.

But how well do our outward appearance and our inner reality match up?  We have a name for the person who is one thing in public and another in private: we call him or her a hypocrite.…

1 Kings 12 – Divided kingdom (sermon notes)

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Text: 1 Kings 12

The year is 940 BC.  Two strangers meet on the road just outside Jerusalem.

One is named Jeroboam.  He is from the northern tribe of Ephraim, and has been down in Jerusalem supervising a building project for king Solomon.

The other man is Ahijah, a prophet.  Ahijah is wearing a band new robe.  Solemnly, he takes off his robe, and tears it into pieces, twelve in all.  “King Solomon has forsaken me, and has set up places of worship of for many foreign gods. …