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.
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.
Mark 10:1-31 Perhaps we think of a disciple as a follower, but in the first place to be a disciple is to be a learner with Jesus as our Teacher. He is the Teacher sent from heaven. If Jesus is not my Teacher, then I am not his disciple.
Mark 9:30-50 What does true discipleship look like? What’s the difference between someone who just says they’re a Christian and a true disciple of Jesus? That is what Jesus starts to unpack in this section as he heads to Jerusalem.
Mark 9:1-29 ‘If you’re lucky, you’ll be shot. If you’re unlucky, you’ll be sent to a political prison camp’. To follow Christ in North Korea, you need to be convinced it’s worth it eternally. But even in our much easier context, there is a cost to true discipleship, and so we need to be convinced too. We need proof of future life. And that is what the Transfiguration is all about.
Mark 8:31-38 The cross is a symbol of barbaric oppression, torture, execution. Isn’t it time for the church to have a rebrand and to change its logo to something more…
Mark 8:10-30 Imagine a global pandemic not of a virus but of blindness – and everyone went blind. That, the Bible tells us, is the true state of humanity. We are spiritually blind; groping around in the dark. The good news is that Jesus can give us sight – but he’s the only one who can.
