2–8 July 2017. Psalm 4 (click to read). Most of us like to think that we don’t care what other people say about us. But that’s rarely true. When people speak badly about us, when they lie or gossip about us, we do care and it really hurts. Often evil words hurt us much more […]
25 June – 1 July 2017. 1 Corinthians 14:26–40 (click to read). One of the most dangerous and serious sins is pride. We know that Jesus teaches us to be humble, but the pride that hides deep down in our human nature always pushes back against Jesus’s command. We like to be the best, to […]
18–24 June 2017. 1 Corinthians 10:16–33 (click to read). Sometimes we may think that the Jews really have things easy. They have 613 laws that clearly tell them how to live: 248 laws telling what they should do, and 365 laws telling them what not to do. But life for us Christians is different. Because […]
11–17 June 2017. 1 Corinthians 5 (click to read). 1 Corinthians 5 is a difficult text where we see Paul’s old pharisee background coming through in his thinking, and where many of his arguments seem to go against the things Jesus taught us. Maybe that’s not a surprise given how frustrated and angry Paul is […]
4–10 June 2017. Joshua 23 (click to read). One day a drug dealer held a party for his closest friends. While they ate and drank and celebrated together in his beautiful home, the drug dealer stood up to give a speech. Looking around at his large home, his expensive cars, and all the riches surrounding […]
28 May – 3 June 2017. Joshua 14 (click to read). One of the great lessons that Jesus teaches us is to be humble, and to place the needs of other people before our own. After all, in a world where so many people fall into the trap of selfishness and only think of themselves, […]
21–27 May 2017. Joshua 5 (click to read). One of the interesting things about looking at old photographs is seeing how much things have changed. But in the past it wasn’t just people’s clothes and homes that were different, their lives were very different too. Without today’s computers, medicine, and even electricity people really had […]
14–20 May 2017. Acts 28:1–16 (click to read). The people on Malta must have looked at Paul with a mixture of compassion and shock. Paul’s ship had just gone through a terrible storm, and then struck a reef and was destroyed. The travelers all miraculously made it to shore, but then just as the danger […]
7–13 May 2017. Acts 22:22–23:11 (click to read). The story of Paul’s arrest and trial in Jerusalem looks very familiar. That’s because many of the things Paul goes through were the same things that Christ faced in his own trial. There is the angry and violent crowd, and the charge of blasphemy. There’s the Roman […]
30 April – 6 May 2017. Acts 19:23–41 (click to read). If the second half of Acts was its own book of the Bible, we could probably call it “Paul’s Mission Disasters”! All through his mission journeys Paul runs into so many problems. He is attacked by crowds, opposed by Jews and magicians, gets bitten […]