Who were the opponents in 1 John?
I've just taken delivery of the commentary on 1-3 John by Colin Kruse, published in the Pillar series by IVP.
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New Testament
The importance of obedience in the Christian life
Smalley, commenting on 1 John 2:3, is very helpful on the place of obedience in the Christian life.
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Structure of Matthew 6
Does the Lord's Prayer give the structure of Matthew chapter 6?
The Lord's Prayer contains
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Praying to the Triune God
I'm enjoying thinking about the Lord's prayer and the slightly wider context of Matthew 6:7-15 ready for this coming Sunday's services.
In the Lord's prayer we are told who we address (our Father in heaven), then three petitions for matters related to God (his name, his kingdom and his will) and then three petitions related to our own needs.
A clean break from the church and the world
John Stott speaks with his characteristic clarity as he speaks on Matthew 6:1-18:
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Not to be served but to serve
I'd noticed that yesterday and today I was getting a lot of search engine originated hits on this website to a previous sermon I preached on Mark 10:35-45.
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Forgive us our sins
In Matthew 18:21-35, Jesus told a parable to illustrate the principle that we should forgive others. The perspective we need is how much God has forgiven us.
So how big is God's gift of forgiveness to us, then?
The man who was forgiven by the king in verse 24 was in debt to the tune of 10,000 talents.
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Access into the presence of God
This Sunday, at Kemsing and Woodlands, we begin a 4-week series looking a single paragraph of the epistle to the Hebrews. We're going to be looking at Hebrews 10:19-25.
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Who strikes the Shepherd?
In our Christianity Explored group last week, we were discussing Jesus' predictions of Peter's denials, and of his own suffering, death and resurrection, as a prelude to a very good session on Jesus' resurrection.
One of the members of the group asked a question about a detail that I had never noticed before in Mark's text:
Good Friday: A Sight. A Cry
Back in February, we looked at the story of the baptism of Jesus in Matthew's gospel. ("We", as in "Kemsing Church").
We noted that we don't need to work out how to understand what went on there. God himself explains it for us. He does so with a sight (heaven opens and a dove alights on Jesus) and a cry ("this is my beloved son"). So the baptism shows us Jesus as the Son that God the Father loves, the one on whom the Spirit rests to achieve God's purposes on earth.
As we reach Matthew 27:45-50, we are at the end of Jesus' public ministry. Here again, we have a sight and a cry.
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