The apostle Paul cared so much for the truth of the gospel and for those who had received it that he was at pains to demonstrate both the integrity of his ministry and the sincerity of his love for the believers. The long list of hardships and trials that he patiently and lovingly endured was convincing evidence that the suspicions and criticisms that they had held against him and which caused their hearts to be closed and restricted towards Paul were groundless. Having reassured them that his heart is open wide towards them he strongly warns them against spiritual compromise […]

Sharing in the sufferings of Christ richly qualifies us to comfort others with the comfort that we have experienced from God. Paul, no stranger to suffering, puts this principle into practice a number of times in this letter, in which he shares more of his struggles and afflictions than in any other letter, demonstrating again and again that God’s power is perfected in weakness. In verses 8-11 Paul specifically illustrates this ministry of encouraging others in their trials as he shares the strong ‘comfort’ that he received from God: ‘Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But […]

In Galatians 5:25-6:10 Paul gives us a snapshot of how walking by the Spirit is worked out in the cut and thrust of everyday life and relationships. It is worked out in how we respond to someone who is caught in sin, bearing the burden of seeking to restore them whilst at the same time recognizing that we ourselves are nothing, apart from the grace of God. Life in the Spirit is not a matter of looking down on others in order to pump ourselves up. Comparing ourselves with others is a clever way of opting out of personal responsibility.  […]

We have seen that Christian freedom is to be jealously guarded – not only from every form of self-justification based on law observance (whether Jewish law or a law of our own making) but also protected from the idea that we can now live how we like as though sin no longer mattered. How then does a sincere believer deal with the ongoing battle with wrong desires that often arise in his heart and mind? It is clear that coming to know the freedom of Christ does not automatically deliver us from our sense of powerlessness in the face of […]

Details to come…

Details to come…

It is so easy to take for granted this remarkable fact that God has come to make His home with us. To abide in God and for God to abide in us is no small matter.  It is an awesome thing to believe that the holy God of all creation is pleased to live in us and for us to live in Him. Neither presumption nor an easy familiarity sits well with the biblical revelation of the Holy One of Israel who came to dwell in the midst of His people. Where the gift of His presence, particularly in the […]

Having answered and silenced those who were trying, by their questions, to trap Him, Jesus puts a question to them – ‘How can the Messiah be David’s son when in Psalm 110 he calls him Lord?’ This is not about petty theological point scoring but rather a pivotal prophetic witness to the fact that the Jews had a false idea of messiah. The ‘Christ’ was much more than the son of David – he was and is the divine Lord – the Son of God. It is as the Lord of the Temple (Malachi 3) that He publicly exposes the hypocrisy […]

It would seem that the apostle Paul is consumed by the desire to know Christ – nothing else matters but to live in Christ’s resurrection power and share in His sufferings; to even be like him in his death and ultimately, to share in the glory of His resurrection. This may seem far beyond any spiritual desire that we may have and we may be tempted to opt for something far less. With refreshing honesty Paul freely acknowledges that he did not consider that he had yet taken hold of all this and so wants to encourage us to stay […]

The apostle Paul traces the journey of Christ from the glory of heaven through the humiliation of the cross to becoming the worthy Lord of all humanity. In exhorting believers to consider others better than themselves and to place the need of others before their own, Paul takes us into the very heart of the Son of God who would not grasp at what was rightly His but instead humbled Himself, taking the very nature of a servant and ultimately dying on a Roman cross. We have been redeemed to have this very mind of Christ in us and reflect […]