How do you respond to difficulty? Do you think of how to solve problems, do you like to share your problems with as many friends as possible? Do you feel hopeless in your problems? In today's passage, we'll read of how another Christmas mother found hope.
We begin our new Advent series on the Mothers of Christmas. We begin with Mary, the birth mother of Jesus, whose life was suddenly turned upside down with this announcement from God.
In this final study on the life of Samson, we've finally arrived at the encounter with Delilah, and Samson's eventual downfall. What final lessons can we learn from this flawed hero?
At the end of Judges 14, Samson held a wedding to a Philistine lady, but because he lost a challenge he made with the wedding guests, he went on a rampage to fulfill his part of the bargain. At the end of the chapter, we read of how he went back to his father's house, and as a result, his wife was given to his best man (Judges 14:20). We pick up the narrative in today's study, and we continue to see how the life of this judge of Israel unfolds.
Judges 14 records for us Samson's life, but his story may be surprising to many of us. As we make our way through this chapter, there will be many points that will seem very strange to us. In those moments, let us remember that the words of Judges 14 are also God's words, and there is a reason for these verses to be here.
This series takes us into the life of Samson. Some of us may vaguely remember the narrative from Sunday School classes, but as we take a closer look at each verse in this series, some parts may surprise you!
As we come to the end of this series, we need to consider how we ought to respond to the gospel. The gospel is basically good news. It is not a story and neither is it a character description. What are we telling people when we share the gospel is important because that message will have a corresponding response.
In this third study of the series, we'll look at who Jesus is from Rom 3:21-26. Martin Luther called this passage “the chief point, and the very central place of the Epistle, and of the whole Bible”.
In the first study, we learnt about the world that God created in Gen 1. He declared that all that He had made was good, but that world looks very different from the world we live in today. We live in a world after Gen 3, and today, we will learn about the cause of the brokenness of this world.
In the first of our "Gospel Explained" series, we start from the beginning, and look at the focus of the first chapter of the Bible -- God. This might come as a surprise to some of us, but in reading Gen 1 with God as the main subject, we might come to learn a lot about Him, and ourselves in the process.
Here's a summary of Leviticus at a glance.
In this summary study, we'll take a look at Leviticus as a whole, and try to understand some of the broad principles and lessons from this book.
We've come to the end of Leviticus, and this is a passage detailing laws about vows. Why does Leviticus end like this? In fact, we would expect it to end with Lev 26 which is about the blessings and consequences of obeying and disobeying God's word respectively. Let's let this question stay at the back of our minds as we proceed to look at the text in greater detail.
Have you ever felt that God was distant? Are you feeling spiritually dry? Tucked within Leviticus 26 are some truths about God's heart for His people that might be surprising for us!
To understand Lev 25:23-55, we need to know what the Year of Jubilee is, which was covered in the previous study. The Year of Jubilee is essentially a massive socio-economic, religious practice. Today, we'll see further implications for their land and how they are to treat each other.
In these verses in Leviticus, we learn of a special Year -- Sabbath Year and Year of Jubilee -- that the people were to observe. Rest, restoration and redemption were very much built into the lives of the people of God, and not only for themselves, but also for the land that they lived in. Through it all, the command for rest was to teach them to obey and trust in God's provisions.
These verses in Lev 24:10-33 differ from the rest of the book thus far, as it suddenly switches into a narrative. Let's take a closer look at how it differs, and why it's important.
We're now done with the feasts, and in today's study, we're taking a look at 2 items in the Tabernacle -- the lampstands and the bread.
Our study on the Feasts in Lev 23 takes us to the Day of Atonement this week. Lev 16 also mentions the Day of Atonement, but there, it focused on the work of the priests on behalf of the people. Then, God gave instructions to His priests to observe this Day. In Lev 23, this focuses on God speaking to His people as He details how they are to celebrate this Day of Atonement.
For us as Singaporeans, National Day marks the most nationalistic event in our calendar.The nation of Israel also celebrated their national day in the form of the Passover, and today we will understand why they are celebrating, and why another nation’s “national day” even matters to us.
