Every so often I record a short ‘thought’ for the Tendring Talking Times. My previous thought is available here. There is a huge amount of division in society at the moment. The biggest culprit is of course Brexit – friends have fallen out with each other over this one. I Continue Reading
jesus
Preaching and communication: Lessons from the Sermon on the Mount
Over the last few weeks I’ve been spending a bit of time in Matthew 5 preparing for various sermons. As well as being struck by how rich the Sermon on the Mount is – you could easily do a sermon series on the Beatitudes, for example – I’ve been struck Continue Reading
Bigotry and legalism in our culture
Three years ago, I lamented the use of the word “bigot” especially in the context of same-sex marriage. In the last week or so, I’ve read a couple of other things which have really said what I wanted to say much better. Firstly, Brendan O’Neill writes about “The New Bigots” Continue Reading
The Road to Emmaus: thoughts on seeing Jesus
“How do I see Jesus?” Not a question people ask very often, but nonetheless it has a lot of answers. Do I see Jesus by trying to be a good person? Do I see Jesus by praying a lot? Do I see Jesus by looking deep inside myself to try to Continue Reading
"Knowing me, knowing me…": on knowing ourselves
Aristotle once said, “knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom”. What do you think about that? Do you agree, disagree? Let’s park that there, I’ll come back to it in just a moment. At church yesterday I preached a sermon about Jesus’ famous words from John 8:12: “I am Continue Reading
Water into wine: what’s going on?!
Yesterday at church the theme was ‘Jesus turns water into wine’, from John 2:1-11. It’s a well-known story – if you’ve ever been to a wedding in an Anglican church, for example, you will have heard it mentioned in the introduction – but the story is nonetheless quite puzzling. To be honest Continue Reading
Jesus vs the Bible
“You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God” – Matthew 22:29 I’ve come across a lot of people recently who seem to pit Jesus against the Bible. It seems like this is a growing trend. People say things like, “Jesus is the Continue Reading
The Story of the Jews
One of the things which interests me about modern-day Judaism is how different it is from my understanding of the Hebrew Scriptures (i.e. the Jewish Bible or the Christian Old Testament). Given that Christians and Jews have so much shared Scripture (most of the Bible – 75% or thereabouts – Continue Reading
Sermon: Resurrection [1 Corinthians 15:12-28]
As I mentioned a while back, I was preaching a few weeks ago at Christ Church Cockfosters. We were going through a series on the Nicene Creed, and my particular line was “On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures”, i.e. Jesus’ resurrection. I didn’t really cover Continue Reading
John 19: Jesus’ Trial and Crucifixion
As alert readers will no doubt be aware, I have been studying John recently (you can read my previous blog posts on the subject here and here). I promised in my last post that I would blog about John 19, and I thought this would be as good a time Continue Reading