Over 40% of the OT is in the form of narrative. In common with all narratives, OT narrative has characters and plots. The most important character is God himself. The plot may be read at three different levels.
1. The Top Level. This is the whole universal plan of God for his creation. Key aspects of this are the creation itself, the fall, the issue of sin, the need for redemption, and the work of Christ.…
The following set of unusual facts was emailed to me a while ago. I don’t know the original source, but whoever it was – thankyou.…
Text: Nehemiah 2:11-20
Let me tell you about two men of God. The first has spent much of his life as a semi-skilled labourer in the family business. He’s not highly educated, and is used to working long hours out of doors in sometimes wild weather. After a rocky start as a follower of Jesus, he has become a leader in the Christian church, and a fearless preacher of the gospel. But the church is under persecution. …
(Also found in Mt 19 and Mark 10)
Jesus said and did many wonderful things. But here, surely, he got it completely wrong.
Here’s what should have happened:
“Good Teacher,” he blurts out, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
Jesus replies, “I can see that you are a very sincere, earnest, and courteous young man.…
After the making of Zeffirelli’s film, Jesus of Nazareth, the actor Robert Powell, who took the part of Jesus, talked about filming the Sermon on the Mount. ‘There were several thousand extras, shafts of the setting sun over the hill. I saw these thousands of upturned faces. I thought I’ll pitch it to them, so I raised my voice and, across the valley, I could hear it coming back and so could everybody else. And it just had a very eerie effect.…
“Works? Works? A man get to heaven by works? I would as soon think of climbing to the moon on a rope of sand!” (George Whitefield)
It is a true saying, that believers should not act for life, but from life. They must act as those that are not procuring life by their works, but as such who have already received and derived life from Christ, and act from the power and virtue received from him. …
According to C.H. Spurgeon, Thomas Watson ‘was one of the most concise, racy, illustrative, and suggestive’ of the Puritans. ‘There is a happy union of sound doctrine, heart-searching experience and practical wisdom throughout all his works, and his Body of Divinity is, beyond all the rest, useful to the student and the minister.’ What follows is a precis of what Watson has to say on glorifying God:-
Everything has an end, or purpose; man’s chief end is to glorify God, 1 Cor 10:31. …
It’s illuminating to note that the same kinds of figures of speech that occur in everyday speech and general literature are also to be found in Scripture. Examples:-
Are rather few: their place is often taken by substantives.
‘Holy Spirit of promise’ = ‘Promised Holy Spirit.’ (Eph 1:13)
Acts 7:2; 1 Thess 1:3.…
It is the person who most knows himself liable to fall that will be most ready to overlook any offences from his fellow men. (Alexander Auld)
The Christian is like the ripening corn; the riper he grows, the more lowly he bends his head. (Thomas Guthrie)
‘The truly humble Christian does not inquire into his neighbour’s faults; he takes no pleasure in judging them; he is occupied wholly with his own.’ (Athanasius)
Richard Sibbes ‘was most eminent for that grace which is most worth, yet costs the least to keep it, viz.…
The Holy Spirit is symbolised in the New Testament by:-
1. Fire, Lk 3:16; Acts 2:3; 1 Thess 5:19. Warms, energises, purifies, illuminates, consumes, spreads.
2. Wind, Jn 3:8; Acts 2:2. Empowers, refreshes, independent, invisible.
3. Oil, Lk 4:18. Consecrates, comforts, heals.
4. Water, Jn 7:38. Cleansing, reviving, satisfying, fertilising, freeness, abundance.…
