When the people of Israel escaped from slavery in Egypt, God led them eastward, deep into the deserts of Arabia. And as they travelled, they were wondering, “Who is this God?” and, “Is he going to take care of us?” Moses has been answering those questions by telling the people about the first three Days […]
In our worship today we have re-enacted an ancient story, the story of God and his relationship with the city and the people of Jerusalem. The story began with our Call to Worship, where God, speaking to the city, talks about Jerusalem as if it were an unwanted baby girl, thrown out on the garbage […]
Well, I feel I must begin today with an apology. At the end of last week’s chapter, I said the next part of John’s vision would be the final judgement. The reason I said this is because the end of Chapter 19 was clearly the end of the famous “Battle of Armageddon”. And according to […]
Welcome back to our Bible Overview Series: Through the Bible in Six Sermons. Six sermons? Did he say only six sermons? But the bible is so big, so complicated! Can ah? Can! Yes the bible is big and complicated. But it is also highly organized as a story. Actually, six repeating story cycles, each one […]
Last week we talked about death a lot, and how ancient people considered it a terrible curse to die a violent death and then have your body discarded and eaten by animals. They believed that if a person’s body was lost and scattered, it condemned the spirit to a restless afterlife. So Jewish burial customs […]
After the ancient people of Israel escaped from their slavery in Egypt, God led them to a mountain in the Arabian desert, a mountain called Sinai. And there, at the foot of Mount Sinai, he told them this: “You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings […]
Many years before this, the sons of Jacob took their little brother Joseph, stripped him of his robes of honour, and dropped him into a hole in the ground. Then they sat down to lunch, ignoring his cries for mercy. But while they were eating, a caravan of camels passed by on the highway. This […]
A special creature is scraped together out of the dust of a wilderness planet and receives the image of God. Meanwhile, in the mountains of the east, a valley fills with life and begins to spill over into the wastelands below… God commissions the man to act as Prime Minister and Priest of the garden-temple, […]
It is hard for us to grasp just how devastating the destruction of Jerusalem’s temple was for the ancient Jewish people. When Babylon’s armies came and carried the people away into captivity in the far east, beyond the Euphrates river, they did not just lose their homes and their freedom, really they lost any hope […]
When we left Noah and his family last week, the floodgates of heaven had just burst open, the waters of the flood were beginning to rise — but God had shut the door of the ark. And then, Moses tell us, [17] for forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the […]
Bong-bongggg… Last week, on “Echoes of a Far-Off Country”: King Xerxes: “Esther, what do you want? Even up to half my kingdom, I will give it to you!” Queen Esther: “What do I want…hmmm, what do I want? My Lord King, what I want is for you to save my life and the lives of […]
So this week we are going to start with a question: what is “conversion”? What does it mean to “convert” from another faith — or no faith — to Christianity? Is this something that happens physically, visibly, on the outside of a person, when they officially stop being a Muslim or a Buddhist or an […]
Bong-bongggg… Last week, on “Echoes of a Far-Off Country”: Mordecai: “Help us, Esther binti Mordecai, you’re our only hope! Haman is going to use his power as Prime Minister to destroy the entire Jewish nation if you do not beg King Xerxes for mercy!” Esther: “Ummmm, you do know how crazy and unpredictable my husband […]
Two months after the people of Israel escaped from slavery in Egypt, they came to a mountain in Arabia, a mountain called Sinai. There God met them. He married them. And then he gave them plans for a special structure, a tabernacle, which was a tent designed to serve as a temple. And as the […]
