Bible

I often tell people that we need to listen to the gospel writers whenever we read the gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke or John are teaching us something by recording the things they do. We need to let them do that. The words Jesus spoke within the gospels were spoken to other characters in the narrative, not to us directly. Our job is not to apply those words to us, but to ask what the gospel writer is wishing to communicate by recording those words in the setting they occur in.

I often tell people that we need to listen to the gospel writers whenever we read the gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke or John are teaching us something by recording the things they do. We need to let them do that. The words Jesus spoke within the gospels were spoken to other characters in the narrative, not to us directly. Our job is not to apply those words to us, but to ask what the gospel writer is wishing to communicate by recording those words in the setting they occur in.

A little while back, the Church of England's weekday lectionary spent some time in Hebrews 7 and Genesis 14. So it was, that I found myself trying to explain as simply as possible why the hard-to-pronounce character of Melchizedek is such good news to have in the Bible.

It turns out you shouldn't believe everything you read on the internet. Or at least, if the internet gives you some information, use a bit of common sense to check you've been given an answer that feels right, rather than just taking things uncritically and at face value.

I wanted to know how far it was from Jerusalem to the Mediterranean.

So I asked Google:

You what? 1000 miles?

4 times a year, the three main congregations across our two churches meet together for a combined service. They're great times, with a full building, hearty singing, and the chance for fellowship across congregations who don't often get to worship all together.

We've finished a run through Paul's letter to the Philippians. With its themes of partnership in the gospel, grace, suffering, and God's life-transforming power, it gave us some good times as we gather all together.

It's customary to refer to Revelation chapters 2 and 3 as the "Letters to the Seven Churches".

As I've studied, and we've preached, our way through these chapters, I'm not convinced that's the best heading to give them.

In fact, the whole of Revelation is a single letter. It's an epistle, like Philippians is. We get that from verse 4 that begins:

“John, to the seven churches in the province of Asia: Grace and peace …”

The whole of Revelation is a letter. It was written to seven churches in Asia Minor.

I've heard Revelation 3:20 used many times in an evangelistic talk: Jesus stands at the door of your life and knocks — will you let him in? Here's the verse:

Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.

Sometimes I hear it said that Old Testament ethics can be summed up in the command to fear God, and New Testament ethics can be summed up in the command to love God.

Related, it is sometimes observed that the Old Testament summary of the law is ten sentences that prohibit ("Thou shalt not" - those making this point usually do so quoting the old fashioned way of putting that), whereas the New Testament command is two sentences that are about love ("Love the Lord your God with all …; love your neighbour as yourself".)

As I've been studying the individual messages to the 7 churches (Revelation 2-3), I've been very struck by the way Jesus addresses both each church collectively, and also the individuals within it.

Take the message to Ephesus (Revelation 2:1-7) as an example.

"Mum, why did that man say that Jesus was a potato?" So asked the three-year old girl.

Did I say that? Well, not exactly. But it was something like this:

We were looking, a few weeks back, at John 12:23-33 during our all-age service. Jesus has been approached by some Greeks (who were not Jews) who asked his disciples if they could have the chance to meet Jesus, too. Here's what Jesus said in reply: