Ephesians 6:4: The Priestly Duties of Parenting
Recently Kevin DeYoung in a blog article called ‘The World is Catechizing Us Whether we Realize It or Not,’ commenting on his recent experience of watching the Olympics he writes, ‘You couldn’t watch two weeks of the Olympics—or at times, even two minutes—without being catechized in the inviolable truths of the sexual revolution. Earlier in the summer, I watched parts of the Euro, and you would have thought the whole event was a commercial for rainbow flags.’ His point is right, we are being catechized whether we like it or know it or not. He issues this pertinent warning:...
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Luke 13:31-35: Jesus Laments Over Jerusalem
One of the things that has always set Christianity apart is the fact that it calls us to love our enemies. Over and over again we have models in scripture of those who had a deep concern and compassion towards the undeserving and who prayed for them. Think of Abraham praying for Sodom and Gomorrah, think of Moses praying that God would not forsake a sinful Israel after she had worshipped the golden calf. Think of Jeremiah the weeping prophet who wept as Jerusalem was to be handed over to Babylon for judgement. But none of these can compare...
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Luke 9:10-17: Jesus Feeds the 5,000
There are only 2 miracles of Christ that are recorded in all four gospels, the resurrection of Christ from the dead, and the feeding of the 5000. Jesus did many more miracles than the gospels record, but few had such an impact as the feeding of the 5,000. There was another less well remembered feeding of the 4,000 as well, Mark 8:1-9. Here is what John tells us happened after Jesus fed the 5,000, 6:14-15, ‘When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, “This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!”...
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Luke 7:11-17: The Lord of Life
Have you ever heard of the irresistible force paradox? Have you heard the phrase ‘the unstoppable force meets the immovable object?’ Maybe you have heard it in the context of sport where two powerful rugby teams are going to compete. Technically it is an impossibility for an unstoppable force to move an unmovable object, or vice versa because then the object would by definition no longer be immovable, or the force unstoppable. Nevertheless, ‘the unstoppable force meets the immovable object’ is a way in which several commentators have described the next section we are looking at. In this section...
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Jonah 4:1-11: Jonah’s anger
Jonah is one of several books in the Bible that would not be accepted to be made a Hollywood movie; the main reason being that there is no happy ending. When Jonah comes to an end we are left with an unresolved issue, does Jonah learn his lesson? The book ends with God portraying His compassion to the Assyrians, but Jonah still in the depths of his self-pity and depression. Just as 2 Samuel ends with the purchasing of the Temple site, not the death of David; and Acts ends with the Gospel having reached Rome not the death...
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