Christian Life

If I'm right, the so-called "story of the widow's mite" (Mark 12:41-44) is one of the most abused passages in the New Testament.

We must read this story in its context.

As you read the 4 gospels, there are a number of pressure points: Will Jesus and his disciples be faithful to how God says the world should be saved? Or will they turn from God's way of doing things?

These all seem to happen in threes.

I've never noticed this before. Sometimes, you notice something in the Bible, it's then so obvious that you wonder why you didn't see it there before. That's a good sign that it's on the right track - it's noticing what's there, rather than reading in things that are not there. It also means it's highly likely that lots of other people have seen it before, and that I'm just playing catch-up - so there are no claims to originality here.

The opening of the book of Samuel anchors the book firmly in its context, as a book following on from Judges.

I'm not sure what to conclude from this data, but I've just looked through the 4 gospels to identify the occasions on which Jesus was offered wine to drink, in one form or another.

It seems that he was offered wine 4 times. He refused it the first time, we're not told what happened on the second and third times, but he drank it the fourth time. On the first occasion, the wine was mixed with gall (an analgesic); on the other three times it was soured wine (wine vinegar).

Anyway:

Did you know that Leviticus 20:21 was partly responsible for starting the protestant reformation in England.

In Acts chapter 13, Paul meets a magician on Cyprus.

I wonder if, as you read that, you found yourself thinking this was familiar. Ah yes, there was another magician in Acts chapter 8. There, Simon the Magician met with Philip, and then with Peter. Here Bar-Jesus or Elymas met with Paul.

There are differences between them. Most notably, Simon was (superficially, at least) converted; Elymas was not.

Nevertheless, this is one of those passages in Acts that gives the reader a sense of deja-vu.

Two very important things happen in Exodus chapter 24. Both are designed to encourage the people of Israel that God is serious about having them as his people.

Exodus chapter 19 is a very important chapter.

Many of us know well the story of the Passover, the Exodus and the crossing of the Red Sea.

Exodus 19 tells us where this was heading - the ultimate plan. God says, in verse 4, "I brought you to myself". God brought them out of Egypt, so that they could gather around God's presence at Mount Sinai.

This morning, at our 8 am service, we had two readings. They weren't picked because they belonged together. We had Exodus 14 because we've resting the whole Bible as a church and this is where we've got to in the Old Testament. We had Matthew 8 because this is the BCP gospel reading for the 4th Sunday after Epiphany.

Yet they shed some very interesting light on each other.

Many Christians struggle with the conquest of Canaan in the Old Testament. We don't get there until the book of Joshua, but to the modern mind it can seem like barbaric genocide. The people of Israel were told to conquer the land of Canaan, which was already occupied.