Author: nickjones2011

God had been so clear. He had picked a weak man from a weak clan. He had reduced the army down to 300 to show the victory had come from the Lord and not from their strength and yet something seemed to go to Gideon’s head. I wonder if we get a hint of it…

God’s people had turned away from Him again, so God handed them over to the Canaanites who oppressed them for 20 years, then God gave them rescue through very unlikely rescuer and means, a woman and a tent peg (see Judges 4-5). Surely God’s people would learn not to turn away from Him after this?…

“Things have never been so bad” – that was what one man told me yesterday about the state of the world. I knew what he meant, and yet there’s a sense that every generation probably feels that, and when you open the book of Judges you see that things have been really bad before. How…

God made some enormous promises to Abraham. These were totally undeserved promises, we discover in Joshua 24:2 that Abraham’s father worshipped foreign gods. Yet God promised to make a great nation, give them a land and they would live under God’s blessing and one of his descendants would bring blessing to the whole world. It…

It’s a crucial question, and yet it’s also a crazy question – “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” (Luke 18). It’s crucial for we will all stand before Almighty God, and yet it’s crazy for you cannot do anything to inherit, an inheritance cannot be earned, it is given. How would you answer?…

How much faith do you need? How do you get more? In Luke 17, the apostles ask Jesus to increase their faith. Just before this, Jesus has challenged them to give no offence and take no offence. He’s told them to be careful not to cause another believer to sin, he’s warned them how serious…

Whatever you make of what is happening in Israel, we can all agree it is awful to see such suffering. It is strange to be reading through the book of Joshua while all this is happening. What are we to make of the conquest of Canaan and the driving out of the nations? The first…

There’s two ways to be lost. One is more dangerous than the other. The first way to be lost is to break all the rules, but the second way to be lost is to keep all the rules! Which is more dangerous? The first way seems more dangerous and the second is certainly more respectable,…

Imagine you were planning a wedding, who would you invite? Or if you were planning a party? In Jesus’ day, people held banquets, these were an opportunity to celebrate, and perhaps a way to move up in society, or at least to get a nice invitation back for a dinner. It was a sort of…

“How long, O LORD will you forget me forever?” These words from Psalm 13 may well describe the dear lady Jesus met in our reading from Luke 13. She had had a disabling spirit for 18 years. Had she been crying out to God for 18 years? She hadn’t given up on God for she…