Christian Life

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.

... That was the question I was asked by a member of our church one Wednesday morning, during our midweek Communion service.

We had just had readings on the great Christian hope - that one day, Jesus will return to this earth and renew it. It will be freed from its bondage to decay, all pain and suffering will go, and we'll live with Christ on earth together. Our ultimate hope is not in heaven, but on earth - life as it was meant to be.

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.

It's Advent.

It's widely acknowledged that there are some TV shows that are timeless, and deserve to be watched at Christmas time. The film It's a Wonderful Life, various editions of Dickens' Christmas Carol, Raymond Briggs' The Snowman, and so on.

It is less widely appreciated that there is TV that deserves to be watched each Advent.

With a hat-tip to Ian and Peter (you know who you are), here is my suggestion

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

Stand up, stand up for Jesus, the strife will not be long;
This day the noise of battle, the next the victor’s song.
To him that overcometh a crown of life shall be;
He with the King of Glory shall reign eternally.

(Apparently, Stand up, stand up for Jesus was originally written not as a hymn, but as the conclusion in a sermon on Ephesians 6:14)

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).