Genesis 1:2 describes what the earth was like after God’s initial creative work. “Without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep”. That sounds terrifying, doesn’t it? The Hebrew of the first section is very poetic; “without form and void” in Hebrew is “bohu and tohu”. The earth was a dark …
The church is not an event run by professionals who do all the ministry while everyone else receives it. No, the Biblical model of church has everyone involved in service. We see this clearly in Ephesians 4. Ephesians 4:11-16 set up a pattern of how the church is supposed to operate. And it is so …
Have you found yourself constantly complaining about everything? Only seeing the negative, and always being angry? Those of us who know Jesus have so many reasons to see the world in a more positive light! We have so much now, and such hope for the future. My third book is being published this month through …
Christians are people who love and honour Jesus. We think that Jesus is the greatest gift and most important person ever. Jesus taught people to love God and one another; so why then are people so offended by us speaking about Jesus? Galatians 6 can help us understand this. In v12, Paul returns to the …
It is Reformation Day this week! (It happens to coincide with a large cultural festival marked by pumpkins, skeletons and ghosts, which is far less encouraging). Reformation Day is when we remember the time on October 31, 1517, when the German monk Martin Luther made his complaints about the state of the Roman Catholic Church …
There are some parts of the Bible that are so familiar that we skip through them and don’t notice what we should. I have found myself doing that too often; it is easy to assume you’ve seen all there is to see in a certain passage. Yet as I have started preaching through Genesis, I …
Christians are to be fully devoted to God, with changed minds and new ways of living in this world. This does not only influence how we live in our workplaces and our families; it also influences how we think about church. We see this in Romans 12:4-8: 4 For as in one body we have …
Christians are those who are living sacrifices, giving our lives to the service of God. We are to be different from the world around us, as we read in Romans 12:2-3: 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what …
The gospel is far more than information that we understand, it has all kinds of practical implications. Paul explores this in Romans 12, which teaches that it is logical and reasonable to devote our whole lives as sacrifices to God. He then goes on to explain what this looks like in practice in v2: Do …
Romans 12:1 encourages us to be living sacrifices (expanded upon in the previous blog post here). That’s not all this verse teaches; let’s look at it again: I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual …