21–27 January 2018. Mark 11:1–19 (click to read). In Jesus’s day, many Jews looked forward to a messiah who would come to free Israel from the Roman Empire. They dreamt of a kingly messiah who would ride into Jerusalem as a new ruler, someone who would defeat the Roman enemy and chase the foreign soldiers […]
14–20 January 2018. Mark 7:24–37 (click to read). We often divide people up into those who are our friends and those who aren’t; we then treat both groups very differently. When our friends need something we are happy to help. But when others want something from us we turn away, pretend not to hear, or […]
7–13 January 2018. Mark 4:1–20 (click to read). In Mark 4 we find one of Jesus’s great parables. In this story, a farmer takes handfuls of seeds and scatters them all around him. But the seeds fall onto four different types of ground, with each producing very different results. Some seeds fall on a hard […]
31 December 2017 – 6 January 2018. Isaiah 64 (click to read). When Isaiah looked at the world around him, he wasn’t happy. On all sides, there were disasters, suffering, and evil. Empires were going to war, the strong ruled, the weak were oppressed, and even the Israelites – who were supposed to be good, and […]
24–30 December 2017. Our Lord Jesus, So many times you have come to our hearts and found no place to stay. Forgive us our overcrowded lives, our busyness and our distractions, and our preoccupation with ourselves. Come again now, Lord. And even though our minds are a jumble of voices and our hearts are […]
17–23 December 2017. Isaiah 57 (click to read). In Isaiah 57 we find another example of God’s fierce criticism of Israel and all the evil they had been doing. Straightaway in verse 3 we get a sense of how deeply hurt God is by Israel’s behaviour, as he accuses them of being “witches’ children”, and […]
10–16 December 2017. Isaiah 48 (click to read). Reading through the book of Isaiah, we’ve gotten used to hearing lots of prophecies of judgement against the countries surrounding Israel. But that doesn’t mean that Israel itself was innocent and holy. Quite the opposite. Many of Isaiah’s harshest words were saved for Israel, because the Israelites […]
3–9 December 2017. Isaiah 41 (click to read). When the ancient Israelites looked at the world, they had a lot of reasons to be afraid. The Babylonians were always attacking and fighting for power, and there was little that tiny Israel could do. The strong and powerful did what they wanted, and there was simply […]
26 November – 2 December 2017. Isaiah 34 (click to read). During the history of the church, some people have looked at all the problems and disasters going on in the world, at all the pain and suffering, and have thought that God must have left us. “Maybe God was here when he created this […]
19–25 November 2017. Isaiah 27 (click to read). One of the hardest things in life is to let go of the people we love and watch them leave us. Children grow up, and then leave home to go study far away. Families separate to search for work in different cities. Friends leave us as their […]