Mark’s apocalyptic moments
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Matthew 27:46/Mark 15:34 – ‘Why have you forsaken me?’
Mark 15:34 ‘At the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” – which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”‘
Matthew 27:46 (NET) — 46 At about three o’clock Jesus shouted with a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Six hours after he was nailed to his cross, the dying Jesus shouted out these awesome words.…
The moral matrix
In his book The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion (2012) Jonathan Hardt examines how we think about what is right and wrong has changed in recent decades.
He has devised the following matrix
| 1 | care | harm |
| 2 | liberty | oppression |
| 3 | fairness | cheating |
| 4 | loyalty | betrayal |
| 5 | authority | subversion |
| 6 | sanctity | degradation |
Liberal secular thinking give priority to the first three sets of items, whereas conservative religious believers put greater stress on the last three.…
Silence speaks
William Barclay (Daily Study Bible on Mark 15:5) writes:-
There is a time when silence is more eloquent than words, for silence can say things that words can never say.
(i) There is the silence of wondering admiration. It is a compliment for any performance or oration to be greeted with thunderous applause, but it is a still greater compliment for it to be greeted with a hushed silence which knows that applause would be out of place.…
Lk 5:1-11 – Fishers of men – sermon notes
Luke 5:1-11
Do you remember the day you became a follower of Jesus Christ?
Simon Peter would never forget this day.
1. Hearing the word of Christ
Jesus preaching by the lake – pushed back by the crowds – gets into boat, continues teaching.
Lk 4:43 – “I must preach the good news…to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.”
The word of Christ is ‘the word of God’, v1. Jn 7:16 – “My teaching is not my own. …
The gospel according to Galatians
Fitzmyer has identified six characteristic aspects of Paul’s gospel:-
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it is an apocalyptic revelation, the unveiling of good news previously unknown in the same way it has now been manifested. The whole argument of Galatians is in essence an unpacking of the confessional statement with which Paul opened the book: Christ “gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age” (Gal 1:4). The revelation “through” Paul is an integral part of the rescue mission of Christ himself.
Descriptions of hell
Hell is described as
a place where the fire never goes out, Mk 9:43
a place where ‘their worm does not die’, Mk 9:48
a place of darkness, Mt 8:12; 22:13; 25:30; 2 Pet 2:17; Jude 14
a lake of fire, Rev 19:20; 20:10,14,15; 21:8
a place where we may be ‘beaten with blows’, Lk 12:47
a place of ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth’, Mt 8:12; 13:42; 22:13; 24:51; 25:30
a place in which people are ‘shut out from the presence of the Lord’, 2 Thess 1:9
‘Even when we affirm that this language is metaphorical, and the suffering concerned is accordingly essentially mental and spiritual rather than physical, the presence of some profound degree of conscious anguish is inescapable.…
Why expository preaching?
‘Expository Preaching,’ writes Peter Adam, ‘is the preaching of the message of a book of the Bible, usually verse by verse, paragraph by paragraph, chapter by chapter, by explanation and application of it to the congregation.’
Here are fifteen argument in favour of expository preaching:-
- It explains and applies the Bible as it was actually written – not as a collection of quotations, useful texts, inspiring ideas or isolated stories, but as a sequence of sentences, paragraphs, and book.
Expository, yet merely moralistic?
Peter Adam points out that it is quite possible for a preacher to use the expository method and yet still remain stubbornly moralistic.
Thus (and I’m slightly paraphrasing here):-
- Genesis 1 – the importance of creativity
- Genesis 2 – caring for the environment
- Genesis 3 – none of us is perfect
- Genesis 4 – we must learn how to forgive
We need, says Adam, a Biblical theology as well as an expository method if we are to free our preaching from the dangers of mere moralism.…
Jesus: inclusive or exclusive?
‘Diversity’ and ‘inclusion’ are today’s great buzz-words.
Jesus, it is claimed, accepted everyone ‘just as they are’, and so should we.
But, actually, it’s not quite as simple as that.
Certainly, Jesus preached (and practised) inclusion. His invitation was astonishingly wide: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). “All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away” (John 6:37). …