One of the most glorious truths is the real hope that God offers his people. It's a real, substantial hope of a future on a renewed earth, with renewed bodies, free of suffering, with God himself living among us.
Where might we look in the Bible to see this renewed-earth future promised?
One of the most glorious truths is the real hope that God offers his people. It's a real, substantial hope of a future on a renewed earth, with renewed bodies, free of suffering, with God himself living among us.
Where might we look in the Bible to see this renewed-earth future promised?
One of the most glorious truths is the real hope that God offers his people. It's a real, substantial hope of a future on a renewed earth, with renewed bodies, free of suffering, with God himself living among us.
But many Christians are brought up to believe that when we die we "go to heaven".
Sometimes, the language of "heaven" is a short-hand for this earth-bound future that God promises. But other times, people picture something far more ethereal, and the language is "heaven" is actually quite unhelpful - it sells us short.
A few weeks ago (Trinity Sunday as it happened - this was the lectionary gospel reading this year), I preached on John 16:12-15. That passage includes this sentence concerning the Spirit:
"But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth."
The question is, who is "you"? Who, exactly, does the Sprit promise to lead into all truth?
In a couple of week's time, the Lectionary gospel reading will be Luke 7:11-17:
Soon afterwards, Jesus went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went along with him. As he approached the town gate, a dead person was being carried out – the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a large crowd from the town was with her. When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, ‘Don’t cry.’
Psalm 33:3 says this:
Sing to him a new song; play skilfully, and shout for joy.
Note the three ingredients here of how we are instructed to sing to God.
My friend Steve Jeffery posted a short post on his minister's blog.
So short, it's hard to know which bit to quote.
And yet so wonderful, so true, and so necessary to be chewed over, that I think I'll just quote all of it.
I hope Steve doesn't mind - especially if I link to the original post where I got it from
John, in his Gospel, loves the motifs of light and dark. Nicodemus came to Jesus at night. When Judas slipped out of the last supper to betray Jesus, it was night.
John's account of the empty tomb records Mary Magdalene going to the tomb "while it was still dark".
This worries a few people, but it need not.
The worry is that Mark records 3 women going to the tomb "just after sunrise". He seems to want to highlight the fact that it was day time, so they could see where they were going and what they were witnessing.
I owe to my friend John Goulding the following observation:
In Jonah 4, God provided a plant to shield Jonah from the heat. The verb "to provide" is a key-word in Jonah - it's
