3–9 January 2016. Genesis 5–6 (click to read). This month we start reading Genesis, the first book of the Bible. Genesis wonderfully weaves together different ancient stories in order to tell us something about how the ancient Jews understood the world’s beginnings. Chapters 5 and 6 are especially mysterious, beginning with a list of the […]
27 December 2015 – 2 January 2016. Isaiah 63 (click to read). This week in the church calendar we remember the Day of the Innocents, the day when King Herod killed all the baby boys in Bethlehem in his attempt to kill the baby Jesus. This is a big emotional change now after all the […]
20–26 December 2015. Isaiah 56 (click to read). Christmas is almost here! We stand right at the edge of Christ’s coming, the arrival of our great King! Right now, today, his kingdom is breaking into this world! So what should we do? The prophet tells us: “Protect justice, do what is right”, hold onto God because […]
13–19 December 2015. Isaiah 49 (click to read). With Christmas quickly rushing towards us, with Christ on his way, today we have another great prophecy which points us to the coming Divine Servant, our wonderful Messiah. We’re used to seeing these messages spoken to Israel. But here the prophet’s words aren’t directed at the children […]
6–12 December 2015. Isaiah 42 (click to read). As we get closer to Christmas, we can feel the excitement building as we wait for the arrival of Jesus. Especially children find it so hard to wait! They jump up and down with excitement, wanting to know how many days are left till Christmas. How long […]
29 November – 5 December 2015. Isaiah 35 (click to read). Sometimes when my sons come home after a long day, they stumble through the front door, lie on the floor, and let out a big sigh of relief: they are finally home! Home is a place of peace and safety, a place to rest from […]
22–28 November 2015. Isaiah 28 (click to read). History teachers tell us that “one thing we learn from history is that people don’t learn anything from history!” In history’s stories we see so many mistakes and failures. But instead of learning from those mistakes, we just do them all over again. Maybe the prophet had […]
15–21 November 2015. Isaiah 21 (click to read). In the ancient world, many different empires took turns defeating and controlling the surrounding lands and peoples. Whether it was Egypt or Assyria or Babylon or other great empires, each new one seemed worse than the last, oppressing the people, robbing countries of their wealth, and leaving […]
8–14 November 2015. Isaiah 14 (click to read). In 1888 a French newspaper mistakenly reported that Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, had died. The newspaper happily announced that “the merchant of death”, the person “who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before” was finally dead. Nobel was horrified […]
1–7 November 2015. Isaiah 7 (click to read). Chapter 7 starts a new and complicated section in the Book of Isaiah, one full of political details about different empires and kings and their battles against each other. During that time, the place we think of as “Israel” was actually divided into two kingdoms: Judah in […]