Category: Uncategorized

Naomi had troubles that you would not call light and momentary. She had lost her husband and 2 sons, faced famine and returned to Israel empty and bitter. Empty, apart from her wonderful daughter-in-law Ruth who is loyally clinging to her. And there is another ray of sunshine, it was the time of the barley…

Judges 19-21 is no laughing matter. It is men behaving badly in some of the worst ways. They were dark days. The beginning and end of the reading tell us what the problem was – Israel had no king, and everyone did what was right in their own eyes, (19:1, 21:25). Doing right in their…

Where do you look for strength? Do you sometimes think, if I could just have that, then I’d be ok? In Judges 17-18 we see the folly of idolatry. An idol is anything we turn or trust in apart from God. It can be a good thing that then takes God’s place and becomes harmful…

He’s almost a superhero with his super strength. I’m sure many young boys are impressed by him, it’s hard not to be, as we hear of him grabbing a donkey’s jawbone and defeating God’s enemies! And yet, Samson shows us how flawed human leaders are. It wasn’t so much that power went to his head…

“Keep me as the apple of your eye” – what an amazing thing for David to pray to God (Psalm 17:8). What does it mean? It’s an expression Moses had prayed about God’s love for His people Israel (Deuteronomy 32:10). To be the apple of God’s eye surely means God has His eye on you…

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?…