Deuteronomy 33:26-29 These words uttered by Moses are a final blessing to the Israelites before they crossed the Jordan into the Promised Land without him. They declare praise to God for who He is, what He has done and what he will do for his people in the future. Moses asks Who is Like you? and answers with the response …
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Exodus 6:5-8 As God speaks with Moses he again reminds him of why He has asked him to go to Pharaoh and request that the Israelites should be set free. “I have heard their groaning and I have remembered My covenant.” God had promised to Abraham to make him the father of a great nation and that He would be …
Leviticus 25:38-42 One of the commands of the Jubilee was that none of the people of God should be owned as slaves and that in the year of Jubilee they should be freed. Slavery was something this nation was all too familiar with, having spent years in Egypt working for the Pharaohs. God had liberated them from this slavery and …
One of the grand themes of the bible is God bringing about liberation. Starting with the Exodus, where God delivers His people from slavery to the New Testament where Jesus proclaims He has come to set the oppressed free, the bible is a collection of stories of how God has brought about the opportunity of freedom for us all. In …
Hebrews 4:9-11 The writer of Hebrews offers us another glimpse of what the Sabbath is about and of what it offers us a glimpse of. The author of the book tells us of those who have entered God’s rest and stopped their work as God did on the seventh day of creation. This rest is the freedom we have in …
Mark 2:23-28 Jesus had many disagreements with the Pharisees throughout his ministry. As his disciples picked grains and ate them, the law-makers jumped in with accusations of not keeping the Sabbath by doing work. Jesus responds to their accusations by telling them that the Sabbath was made for humans and not humans for the Sabbath. The Pharisees delighted in creating …
I have asked myself this question many times. From my time in Nottingham when I heard sermons preached on being pioneers and not pilgrims to more recent years where the idea of pioneer ministry has become more prominent. What does it mean to be a pioneer? What does it look like? Where can you do it? Lots and lots of questions. So …
Isaiah 56:1-8 Christians have often drawn lines in the sand to define who is in and who is out. The Bible has been used in many of these instances to back up these claims of those God loves. In Deuteronomy 23:1 eunuchs are excluded from the assembly of the Lord but here in Isaiah they are welcomed in. There are …
Exodus 20:8-11 The Ten Commandments set out the principles in which the people of God would flourish and become moulded into the holy nation they had been called to be. The fourth commandment instructs the people to remember the Sabbath and to keep it holy. The Sabbath is the pinnacle of the week; a chance to recharge from what has …
Genesis 2:1-3 Did God get tired? It’s a valid question when reading about the last day of Creation. If God needed to rest, was it because he was tired? We can probably answer with confidence that, “No, God was not tired.” So why did he do no work on the seventh day? Well, another translation for the Hebrew word Shavat, …
Genesis 1:1-5 There was evening and there was morning… You may have never considered these words but they remind us of something important. For most of us we start the day with morning and we end it with evening but these words are the other way round in Genesis. Evening then morning, darkness then light. The Jewish Sabbath has always …
Leviticus 25:1-7 The Jubilee came as the pinnacle of a much longer Sabbath cycle. Every seven years the land would be given rest and, after this cycle had taken place seven times, the Jubilee would take place. God’s decree was that the land would rest and that no seed would be planted, no field ploughed and no harvest gathered. The …
The Sabbath is the last piece of creation. Having made all that is, God stopped creating on the seventh day, blessed it and made it holy. Libraries worth of books have been written about this day and some times, in all the arguments, something of its importance is lost. It doesn’t matter if it is a Saturday or Sunday, the …
2 Corinthians 5:20–6:10 Paul’s plea to the church in Corinth is that it takes hold of the reality the people find themselves in. The good news has been proclaimed to them and they are encouraged to take hold of the grace offered and be reconciled with God. As we are reconciled to God, we also need to seek reconciliation with …
Isaiah 58:1-13 In the opening books of the Hebrew Bible laws, rules and rituals are set out to help the people in their daily worship. By the time Isaiah spoke these words, those rituals had become a stumbling block as the people began to fast without meaning and sacrifice because they felt they had to, not because they wanted to. …
Joel 2:1-2 + 12-17 The prophet Joel’s words to the people of Judah deal mainly with a call to repentance and a coming back to God’s way. Often at times of preparation and repentance we do our business as individuals keeping it isolated and private. But Joel’s message was for the people; a community of people gathered together to seek …
Matthew 6:1-8 + 16-18 Jews in Jesus’ day held three practices as ‘givens’ for their spiritual life. As Jesus preaches the Sermon on the Mount we can see that He assumes all the hearers are doing these three things; Giving, Praying and Fasting. These three disciplines have been a part of the life of the church since the beginning and …
Luke 4:16-21 Jesus’ reading of Isaiah’s word in his local synagogue announced His mission to the world. He told the listeners that day that the words He had read had now been fulfilled by Him. It is important for us to hear the words of this proclamation in their fullness. It is good news, freedom, healing and justice but we …
Exodus 33:12-23 Moses and God had a relationship unlike many in the Old Testament. They conversed many times since their meeting at the burning bush as God commanded Moses to lead the Israelites to the Promised Land. In this instance Moses asks to first see God’s ways and then his Glory. Both of these God denies but instead He tells …