It is springtime by the Sea of Galilee. Great numbers have come enthusiastically to hear Jesus preach, but what will be their response? The seed was being faithfully sown, but what will the harvest bring? We can picture Jesus sitting in the prow of a boat, pointing, perhaps, to a field where a sower is scattering corn seed onto the ground. Look: some of it is falling onto the pathway, and you can already see the birds coming along behind and pecking it up off the hard ground.…

Readings: Genesis 17:1-8; 2 Samuel 7:8-16; Hebrews 1:1-9

Your’re sitting in an evangelistic meeting, and a bloke at the front keeps banging on about the Bible, saying, “The Bible teaches this, the Bible teaches that…”  And you’re thinking, “I’m not sure there is such a thing a ‘the Bible’ that teaches anything consistently at all.  Moses says this, Isaiah says that, Paul says something else, and Peter something different again, but I can’t see that it adds up to any coherent message.”…

It seems to me that the message of Jonah lends itself rather well to dramatisation.  Here’s an attempt to do that, using three voices.

JONAH: Friends, I want to speak to you about wickedness in the world today. I’m sure that you will agree with me that there are lots of extremely wicked and cruel people around. The world is full of cheats, and tyrants, and murderers, and liars. I think that God should punish these wicked people.…

The church at Corinth was founded by St Paul some 20 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It was a dynamic but deeply dysfunctional church. There was doctrinal errors, with some even denying the resurrection of the body. There were serious moral lapses, including incest. There were divisions, with groups lining up with Paul, others with Peter, still others with Apollos.

Moreover, some had mounted vicious attacks on Paul’s character. ‘He’s fickle’ (keeps changing his mind about his travel plans), ‘he’s exploitative’ (says he doesn’t want any financial support but then pockets the collection), ‘he’s unspiritual’ (lacks mystical experiences and doesn’t do miracles), ‘he’s cowardly’ (a lion in his letters, but a lamb face-to-face).…