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.…
Onesimus, a slave, had run away from Philemon. He had met Paul in Rome, and there become a believer. Paul sent him back to Colossae with a letter, asking the master to forgive the slave, and to receive him back.
What was Paul’s motivation? Clearly, he had come to love Onesimus as a Christian brother. Clearly, too, he believed that all people are equal in the sight of God. (Gal 3:28) ‘There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.’…
[This was the first of a pair of sermons preached on this wonderful little letter of Paul. The aim was to summarise the letter, while encouraging the listener to get into the feelings and experiences of the individuals involved. The main applications came in the second sermon.]
THE MESSAGE OF PHILEMON
I want to take you back in time to a day in the year AD 61. It is early evening, and Philemon and his wife Apphia are looking out from the veranda of their home in Colossae.…
Here we have some of the very last words spoken or written by the apostle Paul. They were probably recorded just weeks, perhaps even days, before his martyrdom (he is believed to have been beheaded on the Ostian Way, near Rome).
The prospect of death, of course, concentrates the mind wonderfully. And there can be no doubt about what Paul is concentrating on in our passage tonight. It is all about faithfulness to ‘the word’, v2.…
We have reached the half-way stage in our exploration of this letter of Paul to the Ephesians. And as we pass from the first into the second half of this great epistle, we immediately notice a change of scenery. There is a shift from
And yet the two halves of this letter are inseparably connected.…
