Micah 5 How did Israel understand its Messiah? That’s a question Jesus himself asks in Mark chapter 12. Jesus directs his hearers to Psalm 110 and asks the question: 35 How say the scribes that Christ is the son of David? 36For David himself said by the Holy Ghost, “The LORD said to my Lord, […]
Psalm 126 From slavery to freedom, from the wilderness to ‘the land of milk and honey’, from darkness to light, from the cross to the resurrection – the Christian life is an experience of redemption. The LORD is always defined as One who “brings up” His people – from Egypt to Canaan, from exile to […]
Genesis 1:1-5; John 1:1-5 Right now the whole world is considering beginnings. But usually they’re the beginnings that we will make. “New year, new you” and all that. What about the beginning that God has made? Let’s think about that for a minute. Wind back the clock to the time before people and planets and protons, what […]
What makes for a happy ending? Let me suggest four factors: The good guys win. The bad guys get their just deserts. There’s a wedding. And you finish on a song. There’s something immensely uplifting about a story that wraps up with this kind of victory. But the bible claims that history is headed towards […]
What is the book of Revelation? Christian psychedelia? Religio-political prognostication? End-of-the-world prophecy? In chapter 1 we see that it’s a letter from John based on visions of Christ. “I, John, who also am your brother, and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called […]
It’s universally popular. You can find it cross-stitched on Granny’s mantle-piece and emblazoned on a rock star’s T-shirt. It tumbles from the lips of bible-thumping fundamentalists and soft-spoken gurus. But what does it mean? Let’s consider four points… Because God is love, there is relationship, radiance, room and response. Relationship 1 John 4:8 says “God […]
Imagine two scenarios. Scenario 1: We are on a ship. It springs a leak and starts to sink. While we’re fleeing to the life-rafts, you manage to grab a bag. Unbeknownst to the rest of us, your bag contains a bottle of water and some canned meat – tuna, spam, etc. We all huddle together […]
Earlier this year I was strolling along a Mauritian beach with my wife. We bought tropical fruit from a roadside vendor, went for a swim and then lay down on a deckchair sipping a cold beer. I said to Emma “This is the life.” When have you said that phrase? “This is the life”? You […]
What do you buy the man who has it all? Advertisers pose that question this time of year. And usually they answer: some kind of razor. But here’s the one occasion where the question is not hyperbole. Jesus really is the Owner and Inheritor of the universe. As Colossians 1 puts it: “By [Christ] were […]
The wise men and the shepherds tend to get mixed up in our recollections of Christmas. But actually they couldn’t be more different. The shepherds were poor Jews. The wise men were rich foreigners. For the shepherds, the birth of Christ was a ‘bolt from the blue’ as they went about their ordinary business. For […]
