The biblical pictures of marriage reflect our struggle to live our way into the vulnerable intimacy and relational fruitfulness that God wants for us and with us.
Christ’s gratuitous forgiveness and acceptance always manage to scandalise us, but it is our willingness to embrace them that saves us.
The saints of God are engaged in a war between conflicting empires battling for control of the world, but Jesus has radically transformed our understanding of how we fight.
God delights to welcome everyone, and is not interested in who is better or worse, but we imagine God to be an elitist who mirrors our tendency to pick and choose and only accept the best.
Reading scripture with God’s people keeps us honest as we seek to interpret and live by God’s law written on our hearts.
When God calls us to invest in the places we live, it is a call to active agents of positive change, not compliant patriots.
There are plenty of reasons to despair of the future, but Jeremiah and Jesus show us a pathway of hope that overcomes despair.
Facing an epidemic of depression and despair, Jesus calls us to follow on a tear-stained path of prophetic faithfulness.
The threat of extreme climate change can only be averted with a major spiritual transformation, and Jesus shows the way.
Faithfulness to God means sticking to the ways in which Jesus has led us, but we are constantly tempted to idolise his name while avoiding his ways.
Lived faith is the way to life in God, but it passes through a baptism of fire.
A sermon on Hosea 11:1-11, Luke:13-21, Col 3:1-11 by John Fowler 4 August 2019 The Colossians reading – which I am going to focus on tonight – goes like this – Nathan’s paraphrasing: “If you are fair dinkum when you say you have been raised to new life with Christ, then commit yourself to the things that belong to such a life.…
Luke 11:1-13 South Yarra Baptist Church 28thJuly 2019 A little boy was saying his prayers with his mother at bedtime. “Dear Lord, please bless Mummy and Daddy, and DEAR GOD, PLEASE GIVE ME A NEW BICYCLE!!” Said his mother, a little taken aback, “Darling, God’s not deaf.” The little boy replied, “I know, Mum, but Grandma’s in the lounge…
It’s all about Women Some of you may be wondering how I got to preach on this story of Martha and Mary. I have to say from the start it is not a story that I would choose to preach on. It is a story that I have always struggled with – knowing that I am sure that Jesus would have said…
I want to look today at the story Jesus told in today’s gospel reading. It’s a story set on the road between Jerusalem and Jericho, and apart from the usual interpretations we bring to it, it is for me a story about chance encounters and being open to what happens. I’d like to start by…
The lectionary reading I’ve decided to focus on today is the reading from 2 Kings 5:1-14. I’ll be honest I chose this passage because of its unfamiliarity. Because of its strangeness. In undergrad I studied anthropology, the study of cultures, be it subcultures within our own culture or cultures more foreign. There’s a saying in anthropology that describes much of what the…
The instinct to call down fire on those we perceive as God’s enemies is a “fruit of the flesh” that must be supplanted by the fruits of love.
The God revealed to us in Jesus and experienced through the Holy Spirit is so dynamic and multi-facetted that we may find it hard to believe that we are always dealing with the one God.
The new humanity formed in the death and resurrection of Jesus speaks a language of love and compassion that transcends linguistic and cultural differences and celebrates unity in diversity.
Whenever we are invested in the status quo, we are at risk of being caught up in seeing the liberation that Jesus brings as a threat to be opposed.