Notes of a sermon preached at St Andrew’s Eaton, Norwich, on Sunday 2nd November 20025.
A link to the video can be found at the bottom of this page.
Scripture passage; Matthew 5:33-37
Especially v37 – ‘Let your “Yes” be “Yes.”
Context
At the beginning of this section of the Sermon on the Mount, we have:-
An affirmation: v17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.”…
Psalm 82:6 (NET) — I thought, ‘You are gods; all of you are sons of the Most High.’
John 10:34 ‘Jesus answered, “Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, you are gods’? 10:35 If those people to whom the word of God came were called ‘gods’ (and the scripture cannot be broken), 10:36 do you say about the one whom the Father set apart and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?’…
What follows is largely a precis of ‘A Fresh Look at the Gospel of John’, in Transforming Ministry (Central Readers’ Council) by Paul Burnham. This itself is based on his book ‘The Eagle Returns: A Fresh Look at the Gospel of John‘.
There is a significant gap between the academic study of the Gospel of John and its use by most Christians.
It is important that we can believe that the Gospel records real events.…
In considering whether it is ever OK to tell a lie, we should distinguished between a general principle and a legitimate exception.
Peter was enunciating a general principle when he wrote:
…1 Peter 2:13–15 — Be subject to every human institution for the Lord’s sake, whether to a king as supreme 14 or to governors as those he commissions to punish wrongdoers and praise those who do good. 15 For God wants you to silence the ignorance of foolish people by doing good.
Is forgiveness unilateral? Must we – can we, even – forgive those who refuse to repent?
Our gut reaction – especially in a day when ‘unconditional love’ is such a popular notion – is probably that it is, we must, and we can (forgive the unrepentant, that is).
But God doesn’t do that. If we we imagine that we can be reconclied with God, regardless of repentance, then we have landed ourselves right in the middle of the heresy of universalism.…
Thinking about our Lord’s teaching on truthfulness in Matthew 5:33-37, I was led to this article, by Paul Carter.
What follows is a summary:
1. What Does Not Constitute A Lie?
(a) A simple mistake
Some people are better ‘historians’ than others. They recall, with a high degree of precision, names, dates and times. Others of us are not so gifted in the area. We might get a detail wrong, and be corrected by someone with a more reliable memory (our wives, perhaps?).…
Psa 122:6a – Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!
This psalm, and especially this particular expression, is a favourite of Christian Zionists, who urge all Christians simply to obey the command, and pray for the city, so troubled and divided to this very day. Indeed, it is sometimes implied that if Christians do not do this, then they are living, in a rather fundamental way, out of God’s will and purpose. Citing this verse, Kenneth Hagee claims that ‘the scriptural principle of prosperity is tied to blessing Israel and the city of Jerusalem.’ …
An honest man’s the noblest work of God. Alexander Pope.
One’s mere word should be as trustworthy as a signed agreement attested by legal witnesses.
Curtis Vaughan
If faith does not make a man honest, it is not an honest faith
C. H. Spurgeon
Honesty is a question of right and wrong, not a matter of policy.
Anon.
Truth is always strong, no matter how weak it looks, and falsehood is always weak, no matter how strong it looks.…
I have observed that a Christian denomination (no less than an individual Christian, or a local congregation) can drift away from the central truths of our faith without actually denying any one of those truths.
D.A. Carson puts it like this:
‘I have heard a Mennonite leader assess his own movement in this way. One generation of Mennonites cherished the gospel and believed that the entailment of the gospel lay in certain social and political commitments.…
17:34 “I tell you, in that night there will be two people in one bed; one will be taken and the other left. 17:35 There will be two women grinding grain together; one will be taken and the other left.”
Is one ‘taken’ in judgment, or in salvation?
Interpreters hold a range of opinions.
(a) Some are not sure
Perrin: ‘whether in judgment or salvation is not clear’.
Some others do venture an opinion, but tentatively.…
