By Not Known The Ark of the Covenant has had a great run in the popular imagination thanks to an apparently endless series of movies. The reality is rather more plain. The Ark was a wooden box with corner rings to insert carrying poles. It was only 1.2 metres by O.762 by O.762 – smaller…

By Not Known The auspicious date is upon us and the Beijing Olympics will soon begin. We can only imagine the flurry of last-minute preparations as organisers, venue staff, coaches, athletes and a myriad of associated workers rushing to have everything ready. An Olympic medal is quite a prize. But for every winner there will…

By Not Known Some have no life focus and drift without aim. Others have poor focus and are easily distracted. Some have a well-defined focus, but it is in the wrong place. Luke 9 shows a clear sense of focus. This starts with Jesus. He had twice spoken of the divine necessity of his death…

By Not Known Last week, we examined the question, “Who do you say that I am?” This week, we have the account of the demonstration of Jesus’ identity. Adding on to the three disciples (witnesses) were three “heavenly witnesses”, Moses, Elijah and the voice of God from heaven authenticating Jesus’ heavenly identity. Again, the disciples…

By Not Known When Alan Nelson was a boy, his dad taught him an important lesson one day as they stood in a soybean field. “What’s that?” his dad asked, pointing to a tall green plant. Alan looked at him sheepishly and responded, “You know what that is. It’s a cornstalk.“ “No, it’s a weed,”…

By Not Known The kingdom of God was central to the words and deeds of Jesus. The kingdom of God relates to God’s saving rule through his appointed king, Jesus. Through Jesus, God defeats our enemy of sin and death and brings us under his lordship or rule. Jesus’ preaching announced the coming of God’s…

By Not Known Parents of adult children can easily identify with Jesus’ parable of the father and his two sons (Luke 15:11-32). We may know, or can imagine, the pain of the father. The family business was threatened as the son wanted to cash up and ship out. The filial bonds were torn as he…

By Not Known We think of a fool as a person of limited intellect or knowledge. The Bible defines a fool as someone who knows about God but who denies that knowledge deep inside. Thus: the fool has said in his heart ‘There is no God’ (Ps 14: 1). We saw a fool last Sunday.…

By Not Known Small is sometimes beautiful. A newborn child, a tiny diamond or a one-line poem all show us beauty in a miniature. Small is not always best. It’s like that with the Christian message. For various reasons, people sometimes strip the gospel of important elements. This is the ‘gospel minus‘, just as others…

By Not Known Philip was elected to help serve food from the church kitchen (Acts 6: 1- 6). In our terms, that makes him a deacon. He sets us an important example in seizing the day for God (Acts 8: 26- 40) One day Philip found himself on the road south west from Jerusalem to…