Luke 19:36–39 Palm Sunday was a day full of surprises. Many people had hoped that Jesus might be the one who would kick the hated Romans out of the land. It would have suited them well if he had turned up on an impressive war horse and led a rebe...
Psalm 33:1–2 Many of the psalms surrounding this one are full of descriptions of the psalmist’s pains and problems. He talks often about his enemies and those who are out to kill him. He tells us about his health problems and his times of depress...
Psalm 32:1 King David is very reflective in this psalm. Some commentators suggest that he wrote it some years after his disastrous adultery with Bathsheba. That agonising episode led to the murder of Bathsheba’s husband and caused untold grief. W...
Psalm 31:14–15 We have seen David recount his problems in many psalms, but in this psalm the procession of problems is particularly depressing. Tears blurred his eyes and his body and soul were withering away. He felt as if he was dying from grie...
Psalm 30:11–12 In David’s Psalms we meet him as he was surrounded by enemies, cheated by his friends and family, staring death in the face and feeling so ill he longed to die. But it was David’s experience that these glum times did not have the f...
Psalm 29:3–4 David repeatedly refers to the voice of the Lord in this psalm. On seven occasions he talks of the way in which God speaks powerfully through creation. He graphically describes the way in which God’s power and majesty are displayed i...
Psalm 27:14 As I commented previously, life involves a lot of waiting. Some of it is life-changing and at other times waiting is just part of living in an uncertain world. We may be waiting to find the right job or life partner, or waiting for so...
Psalm 27:4 In about the year 1050 BC King David established Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. One of the first things he did was to take the Ark of the Covenant to the city. God had given specific instructions to Moses for the construction of t...
Psalm 27:2–3 David’s confidence in God is incredibly inspiring. But it didn’t just happen. It was the result of his experience of living for God. He had been threatened with death by King Saul time and again, and through these experiences he had...
James 5:19–20 Churches are not made up of perfect people. Far from it! This surprises some, who assume that Christians live lives of near perfection. For such people there is great consternation when the organist goes off with the youth leader, o...
James 5:16 Some years ago I contracted whooping cough. To be honest I thought that it was something only children got so was amazed when my GP told me that I had caught it. From time to time over a number of weeks I struggled to breathe. The wors...
James 5:16 How are you? I wonder how you normally respond to that question. Probably, like most of us, you smile sweetly and summarise your life with the one word “Fine”. It’s a good word and if it’s true that’s wonderful. But, if we’re honest, i...
James 5:14–15 Jesus was both a healer and a teacher. He ministered to the whole range of people’s needs – body, mind and spirit. When Jesus left this earth he commissioned the Church to carry on with that ministry. Here in James we see what that...
James 5:13 I remember as a teenager hearing a well-known preacher telling the story of a young woman who had told him that she often didn’t feel like praying. His response was that prayer is not a glandular condition! Prayer is something that we...
James 5:12 James isn’t talking here about bad language but about the very common practice at the time of trying to strengthen a statement by taking an oath. Jews made a distinction between oaths made in the name of God, which could never be broke...
