Monthly Archives: January 2009

Preaching

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Preaching the sermon to the congregation is a very serious responsibility for those who are called to this role. With this in mind I have found a couple of interesting items on other websites which might help those who are called to preach.

Steve Mathewson has written a piece entitled A Mandate For Application in which he mentions that during sermon preparation the following two questions should be addressed:

1) What is the one thing I want my audience to know?

2) What do I want them to do about it?

Adrian Warnock has written a posting called Ten Conclusions About Preaching in which he lists some important conclusions he has come to concerning preaching.

Lee Eclov speaks here about Preaching That Magnifies God

Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem

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With the recent events in Gaza and the widespread suffering that has occurred it is important that Christians pray for this part of the world.  This is an article that I wrote about four years ago that still is very relevant.

In Psalm 122 David instructs us to: Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: “May those who love you be secure. May there be peace within your walls and security within your citadels.”

Christians over the years have held differing views on the nation of Israel. Some believe that the returning of the Jews back to the Middle East and the nation of Israel reforming is part of God’s plans for the end times. Others say that the Church has replaced Israel in fulfilling God’s purposes.

Whichever of the two views one may hold it is important to pray for the people who live in this troubled land. But how do we pray? What is God’s will for the Middle East?

In his first letter to Timothy, Paul says: “I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone – for kings and all those in authority….”

So the first thing we can do is to pray for the leaders of Israel and its neighbouring countries. We may or may not like the various leaders in that part of the world, but God has allowed them to rise to these positions. In the Old Testament God used kings who did not know him to fulfill his purposes. Therefore, it is important to pray for them that they will govern wisely and make Godly and just decisions.

The second way that we can pray is to follow David’s plea and “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.”

Humanly speaking getting peace in Jerusalem is impossible. However, we are instructed to pray for this. One of the advantages of praying this pray is that we can put aside some of our political and religious bias and pray for the inhabitants of that great city.

I have found it helpful to pray for the different religious and nationality groupings in Jerusalem: Israelites, Arabs, Palestinians, Armenians, Christians, Jews and Muslims. And we need to keep in mind that God loves all those in Jerusalem and his Son died for all of them. That includes the ones whose views and policies we do not support!

A Matter of Faith

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On Sunday 11th January 2009 Channel 4 screened the first episode of an eight part series looking at Christianity. The Radio Times described it as follows:

“Eight public figures, eight different perspectives on Christianity. A major new series explores the religion’s often controversial past – and where it might be heading.”

A Matter of Faith will be covering the following:

Week 1 Howard Jacobson on “Jesus the Jew”

Week 2 Michael Portillo on “Christianity and the Roman Empire”

Week 3 Dr Robert Beckford on “Christianity in Britain”

Week 4 Rageh Omaar on “Christianity and the Crusades”

Week 5 Ann Widecombe on “The Reformation”

Week 6 Kwame Kwei-Armah on “Christianity in Africa”

Week 7 Professor Colin Blakemore on”Science and Christianity”

Week 8 Cherie Booth QC on “Christianity now and in the future”

I saw a couple of previews of the first one and my original intention was not to watch it as it reminded me of some programmes I have previously seen on TV that try to undermine traditional Christian teaching and the Scriptures. However I had a change of heart and decided I’ll give the series a try!