“If only we’d known how that holiday would turn out,” muttered the Jones family as they returned wet and muddy from a week of camping in North Wales.
“If only we’d known how that marriage would turn out,” reflected Jenny and Brian as they signed their divorce papers.
“If only we’d known how that evening would turn out,” lamented the family of a young man who was shot in the back after asking some bar customers to stop smoking.…
Imagine what it must have been like to have been a Christian in the days of the apostles!
It would have been a great, wouldn’t it? To experience the Holy Spirit coming with Pentecostal power. To hear the apostles preach and to witness their miracles. To see 3,000 people turn to Christ in a single day. They were heady days indeed, as the Christian message spread like wildfire, beginning in Jerusalem, and then Judea and Samaria, and onwards to the ends of the earth.…
Micah – historical and geographical background
Let me read you the following quotation. “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”
That’s from Richard Dawkins, shortly after he swallowed a dictionary.
But is God of the Old Testament really like that?…
We are eavesdropping on a meal-time conversation. However, this is no ordinary meal, and no ordinary conversation. These are the parting counsels of a man who knows that he is about to die, to his friends who are feeling bereft and bewildered.
Jesus has just been speaking of joy and of love. But suddenly, the skies cloud over. The key changes from major to minor. In an instant, the topic switches from love to hate.
I recently heard a true story about a bishop and a dentist. The dentist had just finished fitting the bishop out with a complete set of new teeth. As soon as the dentist had finished, the bishop went over to a mirror. And as looked at himself and inspected his mouthful of fine teeth, he said, “Jesus Christ.” And then again: “Jesus Christ.” The dentist was rather appalled when he heard such profane language coming from a man of the cloth.…
Note: this short message was delivered in two parts during the course of an all-age service. The service was held on Palm Sunday, but the Anglican lectionary set this passage, covering the trial and crucifixion of Jesus, and I was anxious to try to do something worthwhile with it within the time (2 x 6 minutes) available to me.
Text: Matthew 27:11-25; 33-54
1.
This is, of course, the most famous trial in history. And it’s obvious who is on trial here.…
Of all the different kinds of pain that men and women have to suffer, few can be more agonising than the pain of rejection. For a wife to hear her husband of 20 years say, “I can’t stand the sight of you; you no longer have a place in my life”; for an employee to be told by her boss, “Your knowledge and skills are surplus to our requirements; you no longer have a place in this organisation; you are redundant”; for a student to be notified by his university, “You have failed your examination, you no longer have a place on this course”; all are deeply wounding.…
These are the notes of a short talk given at an informal breakfast ‘event’.
The other day, someone I work with was waiting for a bus to take her to work. The bus came on time, but sailed straight past her. So much for that journey. She was abandoned.
A couple of months ago, my wife & I were expecting to attend the wedding of the daughter of one of her friends. The Wednesday before the wedding day, her fiancee called the whole thing off.…
The story of Abraham is the story of a promise. Back in Genesis 12, the Lord had called him from his home in Ur with the promise that he would make of his descendents a great nation, and that all peoples on earth would blessed through him and his descendents.
There’s just one problem: Abraham has no descendents. He and his wife Sarah are both elderly, and she has been childless all her life. But in our passage this morning, the promise is repeated in Sarah’s hearing.…
“If only we’d known how that holiday would turn out,” muttered the Jones family as they returned yesterday wet and muddy from a week of camping in the West Midlands.
“If only we’d known how that marriage would turn out,” reflected Jenny and Brian as they signed their divorce papers.
“If only we’d known how that evening would turn out,” lamented the family of James Oyebola, who was shot in the back after asking some bar customers to stop smoking.…
