4:1-25 When things are broken – your TV, your car, your heart – it is not good. But sometimes broken is beautiful. In this passage we find a broken body and a broken flask. They speak of Jesus’ devotion to us, and the devotion he calls us to in response.
Mark 13:1-37 Imagine if, as with Covid and terrorism, we also had five spiritual threat levels for Christians in the UK. Where would you put the current threat level? How big a spiritual threat is there to believers? What action should we be taking? Jesus tells us in this final block of teaching before his death.
Mark 12:18-44 Business guru, Jim Collins, said that ‘good is the enemy of the great’. That is true not just in business but in spirituality. True Christianity is not just about living a good life and seeing Jesus as a good teacher. It’s much more than, as this passage reveals.
God’s design for sex, relationships, and marriage combats the ways in which the world says we are lacking
Song of Solomon 1:1–4 God’s design for sex and relationships and marriage is fundamentally positive. Our longings however are not, they are broken, we need God’s redeeming love.
3 John Loving Christ should lead to a desire to share with others our joyful relationship with him, but also to support and send those who are called to do it cross-culturally. Chris Howles, our speaker, is one of the Barge’s mission partners, serving in Uganda.
Mark 11:27-12:17 Today in the West, the individual is king. And in particular, ‘the inner psychological life of the individual is sovereign’, as one writer has put it. How I feel is king. But such a view puts us on a collision course with reality – and with Jesus. There are givens to which we must conform, and Jesus is one of them. He has God’s authority.
Mark 11:1-25 Sweet and sour is a popular dish on the Chinese takeaway menu, and it’s one that we find on God’s menu too. God is a God of salvation, but also of judgement. Jesus is a gentle donkey-riding King who has come to save, but also an angry fig-tree cursing, table-turning King who has come to judge.
Mark 10:32-52 Is light a particle or a wave? Answer: both. It’s both-and, not either-or. Is Jesus’ sacrifice a unique ransom for us, or is it an example for us to follow? It’s both-and. True Christianity holds tightly to both, and this passage will help us do just that.
Everybody loves a fairytale ending, a happily ever after, and yet that is not how Nehemiah ends. Nehemiah has been away and returns to see the drift of God’s people away from him, it ends the book on a bitter note, which helps us to see just how great our need is for Christ.