Recall that Jesus has just finished a controversy with the theologians of Jerusalem over the meaning of ritual purification. He differed with them utterly over the meaning of the word unclean. This sets the stage for His great kindness shown here to the Syrophonecian woman. “And from thence he arose, and went into the borders …
Preaching, Not Preening
“If we love them, our objective will not be to impress them with our learning but to help them with theirs . . .J.C. Ryle, formerly Bishop of Liverpool, has asserted that one of the secrets of the evangelistic revival in eighteenth century England was that its leaders preached simply. ‘To attain this’ he wrote,’they …
Spiritual Excrement
NB: For some mysterious reason, I cannot find the notes I had for the second half of Mark 6. Oh, well. On to chapter 7. In this next passage, we find that the Lord Jesus Christ rejects man-made piety in the strongest possible terms, and in a way calculated to offend the devout. “Then came …
The Preacher As Father
“But St. Paul did not hesitate to call himself the ‘father’ of the Corinthians, the Galatians and the Thessalonians, as well as of certain individuals, and there is no doubt that a father’s qualities, particularly of gentleness and love, which the Apostle mentions, are indispensable to the preacher as portrayed in the New Testament . …
And A Slippery One
“Every preacher knows the insidious temptation to vainglory to which the pulpit exposes him. We stand there in a prominent position, lifted above the congregation, the focus of their gaze and the object of their attention. It is a perilous position indeed” (John Stott, The Preacher’s Portrait, p.77).
Living in the Will of God
INTRODUCTION: What Christian does not want to live in the will of God? What an admirable aspiration, and what a difficult thing to figure out. Many Christians have needlessly tied themselves up in knots over this issue. THE TEXTS: “Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such …
Kings Who Devour and Kings Who Feed
The incident of feeding the multitudes is recorded in all four Gospels, and is clearly considered by the witnesses of Christ’s ministry to be very important. And as we consider the meaning God has written for us here it is crucial for us to note the context. “And he said unto them, Come ye yourselves …
Therefore We Have Spoken
“Our task is not to lecture about Jesus with philosophical detachment. We have become personally involved in Him. His revelation and redemption have changed our lives. Our eyes have been opened to see Him, and our ears unstopped to hear Him, as our Saviour and our Lord. We are witnesses; so we must bear witness” …
The Death of John Baptist
When Jesus comes to His own hometown, He is rejected by the people there. After this, He sends out His disciples to preach on His behalf, but before they return we hear a parenthetical explanation of the death of John the Baptist. “And he went out from thence, and came into his own country; and …
Double Witness
“This brings us at last to the fifth aspect of Christian witness, which concerns the preacher . . . We may summarize the biblical view of Christian witness by saying that it is borne before the world by the Father to the Son through the Spirit and the Church . . . This double witness …