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Philip Yancey asks, “Who would complain if God allowed one hour of suffering in an entire lifetime of comfort?” I think most of us would sign up for just one hour of suffering in a lifetime of comfort! I’m sure you have had more than an hour of suffering in your lifetime already. Yancey reflects…

“Only if your God can say things that outrage you and make you struggle (as in a real friendship or marriage!) will you know that you have gotten hold of a real God and not a figment of your imagination.” (Tim Keller, The Reason for God). In our reading today we have one of those…

False teaching is deadly. The apostle Paul is so concerned about it that the first thing he tells Timothy to do is to “charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine” (1 Timothy 1:3). False teaching must not be tolerated in the church. What is false teaching? It is anything which is different from…

It is striking how often the great apostle Paul asked for prayer. If a man with a towering intellect, and great gifts knew he needed prayer, how much more does every other pastor. Gospel ministry is hard, and your pastor needs you to pray for him. What an encouragement it is for a pastor to…

Whatever you are facing in life, what a comfort Christ our warrior king with us. Psalm 127 is not a psalm about us having lots of children, but of the blessing of belonging to Christ. We are told first of all that the Lord builds the house. The word ‘house’ was used in psalm 122…

I don’t like talking about hell. I don’t imagine the apostle Paul liked talking about hell either, but like his master, our Lord Jesus, he had to speak about the reality of hell. Jesus Christ is the most compassionate man who ever walked this earth, and his compassion led him to warn about hell and…

Do you long for good government? Our world leaders make huge promises, but often fail to deliver. Psalm 72 is a prayer for the ultimate leader, it comes at the end of book 2 of the psalms and it’s a prayer that the king would be the king of Psalms 1&2. That he will be…

Losing a loved one is hard. The Christians in Thessalonica were confused, they were a young church and expectant church. Paul had taught them that Jesus would return and rightly they expected this could happen in their lifetime, but Paul had got torn away from them before having the opportunity to teach them everything. So…

The return of Christ is in every chapter of Paul’s short letter to the Thessalonians (1v10, 2v19, 3v13, 4v16, 5v2). The return of Christ changes how we live in the present. Paul is so thankful that the Thessalonians turned from idols to the living God, trusting in Jesus’ death on their behalf (1:9-10). He had…

It must have been hard for the apostle Paul to keep going. Can you imagine not just having rude things said about you, but stones thrown at you! Can you imagine the pain of being lashed with a stick until you bled, being thrown in prison and more. Each time Paul opened his mouth to…