So this is now Peter’s second letter to his friends in Roman Asia, and it is clear from how he started that he is really quite worried about them. He seems to be writing in a hurry: he did not waste much time with his greetings, he just got right down to business… What is […]
Is This Friendship? One bright spring day the leader of the Republic strode confidently across the square. He was on his way to the Senate where he would give a speech prior to his departure, for he was leading the armies east to engage the enemies on the eastern front. He had already proven himself […]
The story of Daniel actually begins about 100 years before he was born. 100 years before the beginning of Daniel, the world was busy being conquered by the Assyrians, a warrior nation from what is now northern Iraq and northern Syria. They conquered northern Israel, and carried all the northern tribes away — never to […]
Okay: so far in the Book of Exodus, a man named Moses has led a large group of people out of the darkness and chaos and violence of Egypt to a mountain on the far side of the eastern wilderness. And when the people arrived at that mountain, Moses spoke God’s words to them: “Do […]
From the very first time God spoke to Abram, he promised him a land, the land of Canaan. Abram stepped out in faith, and last week his faith was rewarded beyond his wildest dreams: he actually conquered the land of Canaan. He held all the power, all the wealth, and all the people. God’s promise […]
Welcome to Part 3 of Exodus! If you go to our website, you’ll see that we gave Part 1 of Exodus the title “Paradise Lost”, because it told the story of how the twelve sons of Israel moved to Egypt to escape from a famine — along with all 70 of their family members — […]
Last week we discovered that the Book of Exodus was written to be read as a direct sequel to the Book of Genesis, picking up exactly where Genesis left off: with the family of Israel moving to Egypt to escape from a famine. But then, as we continued reading, we discovered that hundreds of years […]
Moses started the book of Genesis with a description of how God set up the universe as a temple where he could meet his creation. That was Chapter 1, and for Moses that was Book 1 — or, in modern terms, we would call it a prologue, an introduction to the rest of Genesis. Now […]
Okay. So where are we in the story of the Exodus? The people of Israel, who were slaves in Egypt just two months before this, are now standing at the foot of a mountain on the far side of the wilderness, a mountain burning with fire, black with stormclouds. And God himself is speaking to […]
Early in Genesis, the corrupt Cities of Man — the cities of Cain — had become so powerful and so violent that the earth itself was in danger of being consumed. And so, Moses tells us, the Lord saw what was going on and saved the world by destroying Cain’s civilization with a flood, saving […]
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth — that is, he created all the raw materials he was going to need for the project he had in mind. And the Book of Genesis goes on to describe how the Spirit of God was hovering over those unformed, unorganised raw materials, getting them […]
In his first letter to the Christians of Roman Asia, Peter told his friends that Jesus has crushed the devil’s head and bound him with chains so that he can no longer enter into God’s throne room. He can no longer enter God’s temple and attack or accuse God’s children. Peter told his friends in […]
In the beginning, God created a garden that was really a temple, a connecting point between earth and heaven. And he created Adam and Eve to work as a priesthood within that garden-temple, to help lead the rest of creation from the wilderness outside into worship of the Creator. But, we are told, a serpent […]
Every first Saturday of the month we get together at someone’s place for a BBQ or games or a movie. It’s simple. It’s casual. It falls together at the last minute. To join the Simple Saturday whatsapp group, contact Ps. Ian @ 012 364 7749.
