Weekly Article (Page 40)

Suffering is one of the great dilemmas of life, challenging many people’s faith, extinguishing it on others. Yet for some it stimulates faith and draws out worship. Listen to Job, perhaps the epitome of suffering in the OT, who yet in faith and worship cried, “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21)

Today is Father’s Day and so I want to give a message from God’s Word that is in defence of children and family but also of women, wives and mothers; but in particular of what it means to be truly a man, indeed a king among men. So today we turn to the opening section of this final chapter of Proverbs, a chapter more familiar to Christians for what it teaches about a…

In a sermon preached on 20th October , 1889 C H Spurgeon commented on the parable of the mustard seed: It was one single seed, and that seed a very small one; so very, very small that the Jews were accustomed to say, “As small as mustard seed.”

The Scribes rightly believed that there in an organised kingdom of evil. They clearly held that Satan (Beelzebub) could control the activity of demons so as to order them to move out. This is a belief that Jesus was quick to set His seal to by comparing the host of wicked angels under Satan to an organised house. The devil and his forces are real, exercise a real…

In entering Mark’s Gospel we need to remember that we are entering into 1st Century Galilee. We need to see Jesus’ deeds and hear His words first of all within that context. This is especially true in the passage we turn to today in Mark 2:13-17. Here Jesus comes into purposeful controversy and dispute with the religious leaders to establish the point of His mission. But…

Mark 2:1-3:6 forms a unit showing the expanding opposition to Jesus from the religious leaders – and it all begins with the deepest human need: forgiveness. In 2:2 we read that Jesus was preaching “the word” to a crowd gathered in a house – -that is the good news of the gospel (1:14-15), that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, for the forgiveness of sin.

“If You are willing, You can make me clean” (Mark 1:40) In our passage from Mark this morning we see Jesus continuing to be involved in people’s lives and see yet again His compassion for those in great need. But in this case it is with a man whose condition we have little connection with – leprosy (though sadly it is apparently on the rise in some aboriginal…

A special mother’s day creed for your consideration.

J A Alexander writes concerning the practice of Jesus in Mark 1:35 that it is ‘the most compelling proof of the necessity of prayer to our spiritual life.’ Did we, do we need such proof? Isn’t very reality of our spiritual life enough to encourage us to seek the face of the Lord in prayer, to know how much we need to spend time communing with our God?

Been to the Doctors lately? What was going through your mind – apart from the having to wait (perhaps at what seems far too long to get in, that is), or what it is going to cost you?