Text: Psalm 65
‘Your God is too small’ By presenting God in his true stature, this psalm encourages us to expect great things from God, and to attempt great things for God.
May have been composed for the Feast of Tabernacles.
God is front of stage, and centre. God is praised as the great welcomer, peacemaker, and giver.
God hears our prayers, v2. Whatever else God may be, if he were deaf to our cries, where would we be? …
What does your face say to the preacher? Tony Payne reports that according to a ‘mate’ of his, people wear one of four expressions on their faces during the sermon:-
It is a commonplace with preachers to point out that as Christians we have two addresses, two places of residence. This dual citizenship is expressed frequently, and in varied ways, throughout Scripture.
In writing to the Corinthians, for example, the apostle Paul greets ‘the church or God in Corinth…those sanctified in Christ Jesus’ (1 Cor 1:1). They are ‘in Corinth’, and they are at the same time ‘in Christ’. The same apostle writes to ‘all the saints in Christ Jesus at Philippi’ (Phil 1:1), and later in that same letter makes it clear where our primary home is: ‘our citizenship is in heaven’ (Phil 3:20).…
How can we preach Christ from the Old Testament? Sydney Greidanus outlines seven ways:-
1. Redemptive-historical progression—seeing the message of the passage in the context of redemptive history from beginning to end, especially following the progression of redemptive history as it moves forward from the text’s historical setting to Jesus’ First and/or Second Coming. [Example: Gen 3 and the ‘Fall’, finding its remedy in the saving work of Christ]
2. Promise-fulfillment—showing that the promise of a coming Messiah was fulfilled in Jesus’ First Coming or will be fulfilled in his Second Coming. …
After his resurrection, Jesus declared that ‘all authority is heaven and on earth’ had been given to him (Mt 28:18). As Christians, then, we confess that ‘Jesus Christ is Lord’ (Phil 2:9-11).
How does Christ exercise his authority in the church today? Four possible answers have been given:-
What one thing would you most like to be remembered for after you die?
According to a recent poll conducted by Avalon Funeral Plans, the most important trait is not our sophistication, good looks, intelligence, parenting skills, or even kindness, but trustworthiness. That was the response given by 60% of the 2,000 British people who were asked.
Most people, it seems, want their funeral to be a celebration with lots of laughter, and would like guests to wear colourful clothing rather than the traditional black attire.…
According to Luke 8:2, Mary Magdalene had been a severely demonised woman whom Jesus had healed.
David Instone-Brewer notes that Mary would have been a former social outcast, feared and despised by the rest of the community. She occupies a uniquely privileged place in the NT, however, since she is the only person to have witnessed Jesus’ crucifixion, burial, and resurrection (Mt 27:61, 65; 28:1).
Later traditions developed around Mary:-
The Gospel of Thomas (about AD 100) includes her among the disciples. …
We read that Daniel and his three friends were educated in, among other things, ‘the language of the Babylonians’ (Daniel 1:4).
There is great pressure on us today to avoid the language of the kingdom of God and to adopt instead the language of our culture. John Lennox observes that ‘the wave of relativism now swamping Western thinking has increased the pressure to drop certain words from our languages and replace them with others that drive forward the secularist agenda of deconstructing the very nature of human beings and the society we live in.’…
In the Jewish society of Jesus’ day, it was almost unthinkable that a man would remain unmarried beyond the age of 20 or so. After all, the very first commandment of the Torah is to ‘go and multiply’). Few indeed are the recorded instances of unmarried men. There was a studious rabbi by the name of Simeon ben Azzi. And even he probably had been married, but had become a widower.
Girls were usually married by the age of twelve, and men by the age of twenty.…
So, finally, to the ninth and last chapter of Peter Enns’ book.
The need for certainty (according to Enns) fosters a number of unholy and unhealthy traits, such as: the ‘vigilant monitoring of who’s in and who’s out’, preoccupation with debating and defending the faith, over-valuing of logical arguments, and unquestioning conformity to intellectual authorities.
Such a faith does not promote trust either in God or others. It provokes, rather, by fear and anxiety. Trust does not grow in an atmosphere of dogmatic certainty. …
