Bible

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.

God doesn't just need to patch us up, he gives us new birth and makes us brand new creatures.

Mounce (paid link) quotes Chrysostom's fifth homily whilst commenting on Titus 3:5. Titus 3:5 says this:

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 מָנָה (manah). The worm that ate the manah / the provided plant was a תּוֹלָע (tola`). That's not a common word in the Old Testament (39x). 27 of those are in the book of Exodus, where the usual meaning is (by metonymy) the purple die made from a particular type of worm. But one is Exodus 16:20.

This week, I'm wrestling with the book of Ecclesiastes, in preparation for preaching on chapter 12 this coming Sunday.

Jesus said: “Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” (Luke 18:17)

There's much debate as to exactly what that means. Jesus couldn't mean that adults have to be like children in every sense, as we could never be short enough. (Well, most of us couldn't — you know who you are.)  In what sense “like a child”?

I had a really interesting conversation this last week on the subject of what proportions of sermons here should be on which parts of Scripture. (I said that I try to aim at 1/3 each of Old Testament, Gospel, and rest of New Testament - after using some weeks for the occasional topical series).

Yesterday, I had two very interesting conversations after church services, which set off the following thoughts. (What follows is not something I said to either person, although it might have been helpful if I had done).

Red Letters

Many English Bibles print the words of Jesus in red.

Oh, the pain of leaving things out.

I'm preaching on 1 Kings 11-12 on Sunday. As is always the case with preaching, the aim is to help people to hear what that part of Scripture is saying to us today. And in order to be clear, you have to be ruthless. So often, there are all kinds of really interesting things you've learnt and discovered in the text, and they have to go on the proverbial cutting-room floor.