Judges 6-8
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- Written by: Chris Appleby
Gideon - An Unexpected Hero Audio
Gideon isn’t exactly your Hollywood image of a hero is he? In fact he’s the exact opposite. He’s much more the indecisive, timid type. He’s one of those people who want every ‘i’ dotted and every t crossed before they make a decision and even then they still have doubts. You can see the sort of person he is from the situation in which we find him at the beginning of this story. “11Now the angel of the LORD came and sat under the oak at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, as his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press, to hide it from the Midianites.” Just to make the situation clear, you need to understand that in those days wine presses were generally dug into the ground, so that if you got inside a wine press you’d be out of sight, in Gideon’s case from their enemies, the Midianites.
Yet the encouraging thing for those of us who relate to Gideon as this timid, nervous type, is that despite the unpromising material from which he was made, God takes him and makes him into a hero of Biblical proportions. So let’s spend some time thinking about the process through which Gideon was changed by God into a leader and saviour of his people.
Judges 2-4
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- Written by: Chris Appleby
Deborah & Barak - Lessons from history Audio
One of my favourite lines from the TV series, Mash, was the statement that this was the latest ‘war to end all wars’. The point they were making of course was that we never seem to learn from history. In fact, isn’t this the one lesson we have learnt from history: that we never learn from history? No matter how bad our experience of history is, we never seem to be able to learn our lesson so we avoid the same mistake the next time.
But that begs the question of course, whether there are patterns in history from which we can learn. Historians and thinkers have debated that question over many years. Some would say, “Yes, there is a meaningful pattern to history, and if we can find it we can do something to change the way things happen.” Karl Marx thought he’d found a pattern in history revolving around the unequal distribution of power and resources. If you followed his model you’d eventually arrive at a Utopian, classless society that he called Socialism. Well, that didn’t work out did it? No more than any of the utopian communities set up in the 19th century. Socialist societies have been found to fail just as badly as the capitalist societies he was critiquing.
1 John 2:3-27
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- Written by: Chris Appleby
Fake or Real? Audio
How do you spot a fake? You see a post on social media telling you about some new discovery, some whizz bang way of making money, or sure fire way of getting fit, being healthy, living longer, but how do you know if it’s real. How many times have you had a friend request on Facebook and realised that that person was already your friend? Steve sent out a text message last week saying be careful because someone was pretending to be him on email. We live in a world of fakes and sometimes it can be hard to recognise them from reality.
Well, clearly, from today’s reading, you don’t need to have Facebook to be faced with fakes. John writes to his friends to warn them about fake Christians and to help them be sure that they themselves are the real thing.
I’ve met people over the years who were not quite sure if they were up to the mark as Christians. They weren’t sure that they believed enough or understood enough or were faithful enough. And no doubt the people John was writing to here had similar worries. So he gives them four tests to apply to their lives to reassure them, but also to warn them about certain people who wished to lead them astray.
1 Cor 7
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- Written by: Chris Appleby
Marriage and Singleness - 2 gifts from God audio
“Dear Paul, life is so difficult here in Corinth. We’re trying to live a spirit filled life but Corinth is such a worldly city it’s hard to keep up the standards of life you seem to have set for us. In your last letter you warned us about those members who were living immoral lives, so we need some advice. Some of our leaders are saying that that means we should lead lives of total abstinence from sex. Did you really say: "It is well for a man not to touch a woman" or have they come up with that by themselves?”
It’s seems this is the sort of letter that Paul’s received and is now sitting down to answer.
He’s been through the introductory remarks about what he’s heard about them and now he comes to this and other questions they’ve put to him.
How Should we Pray
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- Written by: Chris Appleby
Praying with Paul - How Should we Pray audio
Today we move into a short series on prayer that we were introduced to last week by our service of “Music as Prayer”. Over the next 4 weeks we’ll be looking at Paul’s prayers to various churches in order to see both a model and a foundation for our prayers. Let’s listen to this short prayer that Paul prays for the Colossians and as you’re listening see if you can pick up some principals that might help you in your prayer life and we’ll see if you find what I’ve found. [Read Col 1:9-14]
I should begin by pointing out that Paul’s prayer for the Colossians has one major difference from the other prayers that we’ll consider over the next few weeks as well as a couple of similarities.
Acts 9:10-30
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- Written by: Chris Appleby
Are you a Tool? audio
I have a great collection of tools in my work shed. Most of them came from my father and grandfather though some I’ve bought for myself. Of course the fact that I have them there doesn’t necessarily mean they get used; or get used well when I do use them. But the ones I do use and can use well are the ones I value the most.
But we’re not here today to talk about my hobbies. We’re here to talk about witnessing to the gospel. So what have tools got to do with that? Well, as we’ll see in a moment God’s tools are people and interestingly he chooses to use the most unlikely of people as his tools in that task of sharing the gospel.
I mean, who could be more unlikely than Saul? He didn’t have a clue did he? We read the story last week of his mission to Damascus to round up the Christians there and how Jesus appeared to him to give him a new mission. I think we skipped over the bit about him becoming blind. But of course he was blind long before that wasn’t he? Although he was so well taught as a Pharisee he couldn’t see that Stephen was right; that Jesus was in fact the Messiah that they’d been waiting for and that opposing the Christian faith meant he was opposing Christ himself.
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