Do you struggle with trusting God today? Have you doubted his goodness in your life, his wisdom in your struggles? Have you wondered why did God let this happen to me? Our struggles are real, and they do hurt, and many times, we are left questioning where is God, what can he be doing in this circumstance. Today’s passage seeks to assure us of God’s commitment to his people.
The Passover was instituted by God for His people. This is some sort of a routine, and we realise here that routines are revelatory. Routines reveal things about the people doing the routine, as well as the entity that enforces the routine. In a similar way, the Passover reveals something about the people doing it, as well as the God who gave them these instructions.
Today’s text is special as we will be achieving two goals: a macro-goal that has to do with the structure of Exodus 11-13, and a micro-goal more specific to the text that explains the importance of “the Exodus”. How are chapters 11-13 designed, Why does this event have a special name that control the entire book, and how does it relate to the New Testament?
Today's passage is frankly quite foreign to our time and place. We are aliens coming to this, and to understand, we need to ask ourselves this question: what do God’s people have to value? It is substitution. God’s people were taught before they left that they need to value substitution. It doesn’t just shape Israel, but all gospel believing Christians. The question therefore we all need to have at the back of our minds is: so what?
By this time, we've read of so many plagues. Put yourselves in the shoes of the Israelites. They are a people trapped in slavery. What do you think is their biggest problem? Is it Moses who made their lives worse in Exodus 5:21? They led bitter lives in their slavery (Exodus 1:13-14). Is it Pharaoh who refuses to let them go? These could all be problems, but they pale in comparison to a larger problem: their sin and God’s righteous judgment of it. Today, we see what God does for his people in his terrible judgment of sin.
What is God like? We are used to reading Exodus for the actions, but tonight, as we look at this passage, we’re looking at the details and seeing the God that it describes. Be like the man in Ps 1 – meditate on the Lord that you may bear fruit.
Our study in Exodus continues in the plagues, and in this study, we'll take a look at plagues 7-9. Those of us that grew up in church might have read this passage or heard it retold many times. But what does it really mean? If plagues 7-9 are understood biblically, they are reasons to be scared and for us to tremble. Have you ever considered how the plagues are scary, and that God is actually scary? Let's keep that in mind as we slowly unpack the meaning and significance of the plagues.
What do you think about God’s revelation of Himself through His acts of judgment? Does it show us the fruit of a successful anger-management program, where the wrathful God of the Old Testament learns to take deep breaths and count to 10 before He becomes the loving God of the New Testament? Today’s passage combats such faulty notions by showing us that God acts consistently, and His acts of terrible judgment and loving salvation both serve the common purpose of making Himself known, and bringing glory to His name. The theme of Pharaoh’s hardened heart is also threaded through this passage. We might be tempted to jump to theological squabbles about election and free will, but doing so would be to miss the point of the passage. How do we make sense of these issues? Read on to find out more!
We begin part 2 of our series in Exodus under the theme of "Mighty to Save". In our previous study, we read about Moses, the man God chose to carry out His promises to deliver His people. Moses was no hero, but he was weak and fearful.
We spent an entire series (6 weeks!) in the first chapter of Mark. Yes, you read me right. 6 weeks in Mark 1. The big idea was to read the chapter to see the King and His followers. This is a summary of what we've covered.
Disciples follow by their own volition, and who they choose to follow is key - no one wants to follow a dud. This is why we have looked at the Kingship of Jesus Christ, the Kingdom that He proclaimed, the call and the cost of following this King, the authority of this King, and the purpose of this King’s ministry over the past 5 weeks. In today’s passage, we take a look at another aspect - the compassion of the King - to consider how it relates to everyone in the world, and how it relates to his disciples.
We have been following the life and ministry of Jesus in Mark 1, and in today's passage, we read of Jesus coming out in Mark 1:38. This verse tells us one of the earliest purpose statements of Jesus. We know now that the purpose of Jesus is really about His death. One Bible scholar commented that the last week of His life takes up a lot of the gospels. But here in Mark, we learn something about Jesus’ purpose. Why did He come out? Where did He come out from?
How would you answer the following statement: "Jesus came to ____ (location) to _________ (action). There are many answers in the ultimate sense. But this text gives us a specific answer, as we will see.
We don't like the word "authority". In life, we see how many people abuse their authority — parents, teachers, government, and even the church. Many may be able to tell a specific story of the abuse of authority. But the Bible speaks of the importance of authority and also the struggle with authorities. The book of Judges show us clearly the problem when there is no authority, when everyone did what was right in their own eyes because there was no king. The NT books, especially the epistles, were written to churches that had some part of their lives that were not under the authority of God. In Mark 1:21-34, we will seek to examine Jesus' authority and we hope to come to conclusions not only about the nature of His authority (in each of the headers) but also that authority is a good thing. But we all do not like authority by nature.
Do you wonder what God’s desire for your life is? Do you wonder what it means to be a follower of Jesus, or how you might be a follower of Jesus?
Last week, we introduced this new series by defining discipleship as “intentionally laying aside my will and direction for my life, turning another way, and living according to the will and purposes of another”. It is putting aside how I want to live, and living in another direction. As Mark progresses, it speaks of a Kingdom, which is a “society created by a group of people who intentionally lives as disciples”. The Kingdom of God is all about its King. Its King’s obedience, victory over sin and temptation, and message of repentance and faith. How are we to respond to this new King?
We are creatures. This is the reality of being human, and our actions are based on the forces acting upon us. We are all products of some form of discipleship, for there are a thousand forces discipling us and telling us what the overriding direction of your life should be. But God has exactly one will for our lives. Of all the possible scenarios of how we can live our lives and be discipled, God has one possible set of terms and circumstances, and it is in this Book that that we learn the will of God and the direction we are to take. Read on to see what Mark has to say about discipleship and God’s plan for disciples!
This is the end of our first part in Exodus! Here, we see God tell his servant why He’s been doing what He’s done - and this has huge implications for Moses and Aaron and God’s people, as it does for us today.
Question 42 of the New City Catechism poses a question that is helpful for our discussion today. How is the word of God to be read and heard? We are to read and hear it with diligence, preparation and prayer; so that we may accept it with faith, store it in our hearts and practice it in our lives. This is taken from 2 Tim 3:16-17, and these verses will really be tested tonight as we read a passage that is basically a genealogy. Do we truly believe that every word breathed out by God is profitable?
This week’s passage picks up where we left off last week: the people of Israel were mired in depressing slavery, and Moses the saviour of Israel was faced with the harsh reality that things sometimes get worse even when we walk in obedience to God’s commands. But God remains sovereign, and this week’s passage allows us to peek at what the strong hand of God looks like in our worst situations. Read on to find out more!
What do we do when things go wrong? As Christians who live in a broken world plagued by sin, the honest reality is that things fall apart. A faithful Christian mother wrestles with the difficulty of raising a child with Down’s Syndrome. A young man who reaffirms his commitment to Christ finds himself stricken by disease that takes him away from his job and career prospects. A lady committed to Christ receives news that she has breast cancer and must undergo a mastectomy. What do we do when things go wrong? Today’s passage depicts a similar situation: things go very wrong very quickly for God’s people - even when His rescue plan is in effect! What is our hope in all of this?
