Making Sense of the Bible
"I love to bring the Bible alive for people! I love to get to know the people who wrote it, and the people who are written about. It's brilliant when we catch a glimpse of maybe how it was for them, how God worked in their lives. I am fascinated by these people as real people, who had struggles and arguments, ordinary people who lived extraordinary lives because the Spirit of God inspired them and called them ... because they met Jesus.
I invite you into some of their stories ... "
- Silvia Purdie
I invite you into some of their stories ... "
- Silvia Purdie
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Who wrote the Old Testament??
I'm keen for our church folk to keep learning more about the Bible, including authorship and history. This little 2-page article touches on ancient language, writing and the importance of accuracy in the Jewish tradition. While the New Testament covers about 50 years, the Old Testament covers over 1500 years. But can we have any confidence that what we read about in the Old Testament actually happened? Surely over so many hundreds of years, so many different authors, copied and re-copied countless times … surely any actual history has been well worn away by time? |
A verse from Leviticus, written in ‘Paleo-Hebrew’ script which dates from the time of King David, one of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
www.deadseascrolls.org.il |
The Basic Plot of the Old Testament
2,000 years in 15 minutes!
Ever wanted to get a grasp on the whole of the Old Testament, put the books in rough chronological order and communicate the Big Events that shook and shaped Israel??
An interactive dramatic telling of the big story.
2,000 years in 15 minutes!
Ever wanted to get a grasp on the whole of the Old Testament, put the books in rough chronological order and communicate the Big Events that shook and shaped Israel??
An interactive dramatic telling of the big story.
The Hinge between the Old Testament and the New
Matthew 22:34-46
Two little stories today, from Matthew 22
I am suggesting today that these few verses form the hinge between the Old Testament and the New, between Judaism and Christianity. They express in the simplest of ways both the continuity and the discontinuity between Jesus and the Old Testament.
Two questions, two answers and a big challenge
Matthew 22:34-46
Two little stories today, from Matthew 22
I am suggesting today that these few verses form the hinge between the Old Testament and the New, between Judaism and Christianity. They express in the simplest of ways both the continuity and the discontinuity between Jesus and the Old Testament.
Two questions, two answers and a big challenge
LUKE, an Introduction
A brief introduction to the Gospel of Luke: who was Luke? What was he passionate about?
Luke himself never met Jesus. He was not en eye witness to any of the events described in his Gospel. He grew up far away to the north, in a town called Antioch in Syria (now Turkey). Luke wasn’t even a Jew and had never been to Israel until he travelled there with Paul. So how can we be confident that his book is ‘true’?
A brief introduction to the Gospel of Luke: who was Luke? What was he passionate about?
Luke himself never met Jesus. He was not en eye witness to any of the events described in his Gospel. He grew up far away to the north, in a town called Antioch in Syria (now Turkey). Luke wasn’t even a Jew and had never been to Israel until he travelled there with Paul. So how can we be confident that his book is ‘true’?
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The Fall of Jericho
With a powerpoint of photos of Jericho's fallen wall There is a disconnect between the history as described in the Old Testament, and the history as described by archaeologists. There is a disconnect between our understanding of God as a loving Father, and prince of peace, and how God is described in the book of Joshua as demanding the slaughter of thousands of innocent people. There is a disconnect between our hopes for Israel today, how important we know it to be in world politics and how important we believe it is for peace treaties to be made and upheld, and the politics of the book of Joshua which calls for exclusive ownership of the land on the basis of armed conquest and divine promise. How do we live with this? How do we as Christians address these deeply rooted points of tension? |
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Proverbs
An interactive sermon on Proverbs chapter 19
Who wrote the book of Proverbs?
Actually that’s an unfair question, because it seems that different parts of the book were written by different people at different times. The oldest date right back to King Solomon. It is a collection of writings, which in themselves are collections of wise sayings – so it’s a collection of collections.
What is the wisdom of Proverbs? Proverbs are two lines that comment on each other. It becomes wisdom when we balance a straight-forward idea with a complementary idea … a shift in perspective. It’s the tension between the first line and the 2nd line that invites us to think. And this teaches us to think, teaches us to test out ideas, think about how they apply to different situations. So the book of Proverbs is both a set of teachings ABOUT wisdom and at the same time it is a tool for teaching us HOW to become wise.
Includes some modern day proverbs such as ...
The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing ..
if you can fake that, you've got it made.
– Groucho Marx
An interactive sermon on Proverbs chapter 19
Who wrote the book of Proverbs?
Actually that’s an unfair question, because it seems that different parts of the book were written by different people at different times. The oldest date right back to King Solomon. It is a collection of writings, which in themselves are collections of wise sayings – so it’s a collection of collections.
What is the wisdom of Proverbs? Proverbs are two lines that comment on each other. It becomes wisdom when we balance a straight-forward idea with a complementary idea … a shift in perspective. It’s the tension between the first line and the 2nd line that invites us to think. And this teaches us to think, teaches us to test out ideas, think about how they apply to different situations. So the book of Proverbs is both a set of teachings ABOUT wisdom and at the same time it is a tool for teaching us HOW to become wise.
Includes some modern day proverbs such as ...
The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing ..
if you can fake that, you've got it made.
– Groucho Marx
Introducing ... the hidden woman, Peter's wife
You have probably never heard of her, but the apostle Peter had a wife, who travelled with him, and surely must have been an important leader in the early church in her own right. And yet her name is never mentioned in the New Testament ... or is it??!!
This sermon tracks her life from a lake-side fishing village to the heart of the Roman Empire - and her story forms an overview of the whole of the New Testament from Jesus in Capernaum to the astonishing growth of the early church across the known world.
You have probably never heard of her, but the apostle Peter had a wife, who travelled with him, and surely must have been an important leader in the early church in her own right. And yet her name is never mentioned in the New Testament ... or is it??!!
This sermon tracks her life from a lake-side fishing village to the heart of the Roman Empire - and her story forms an overview of the whole of the New Testament from Jesus in Capernaum to the astonishing growth of the early church across the known world.
Jesus walked on water
John 6:16-21
How do we make sense of this story, this most bizarre of Bible stories? Did Jesus really walk out into a lake in the middle of a storm in the middle of the night?? If so, why?
This has a dramatic retelling of the story, followed by an interactive message.
... the key to the story, in John, is where Jesus says “It’s me.” “It is I”. For it is recognizing Jesus that matters.
John 6:16-21
How do we make sense of this story, this most bizarre of Bible stories? Did Jesus really walk out into a lake in the middle of a storm in the middle of the night?? If so, why?
This has a dramatic retelling of the story, followed by an interactive message.
... the key to the story, in John, is where Jesus says “It’s me.” “It is I”. For it is recognizing Jesus that matters.
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Mother Eagle, Mother Hen
Deuteronomy 32:8-14 Matthew 23:34 - 24:2 A sermon for Mother’s Day. Isn’t it a lovely comforting image, the picture of God lifting us up on eagle’s wings? Not so much! God’s ‘mothering’ involves training children for maturity as well as soft comfort and security. What does the Biblical image of being lifted up "on eagle's wings" actually mean? |
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What on earth is "RIGHTEOUSNESS"??
Romans 3:19-31
Psalm 14
Paul uses this big word a lot, but what does he mean by it? We have tended to translate it as 'moral purity', i.e. keeping all the rules, being 'good'. But this narrow understanding really misses the point of what Paul is on about. I'm arguing that a better translation is "saving covenant faithfulness" (from a guy called NT Wright), which connects Christian faith strongly to our Jewish foundations. Big ideas, in a small sermon - I hope it makes some kind of sense!
Romans 3:19-31
Psalm 14
Paul uses this big word a lot, but what does he mean by it? We have tended to translate it as 'moral purity', i.e. keeping all the rules, being 'good'. But this narrow understanding really misses the point of what Paul is on about. I'm arguing that a better translation is "saving covenant faithfulness" (from a guy called NT Wright), which connects Christian faith strongly to our Jewish foundations. Big ideas, in a small sermon - I hope it makes some kind of sense!
Poverty in 1st Century Galilee
A fascinating on-line article, by Sakari Häkkinen
A fascinating on-line article, by Sakari Häkkinen