As Jesus’ popularity grows, he has to take care with the crowds since they could easily try to fit him into their expectations and ideas rather than listen to his teaching about God’s will. So Jesus uses parables to find
Bittersweet finale
The end of Luke’s second book has a bittersweet taste to it. The bitterness comes from the rejection of Paul’s gospel by many of his fellow Jews in Rome, which highlights the power of sin in human hearts. The sweetness
Make me smile
Joy is found throughout the New Testament. Yet it often occurs in situations which involve pain or trouble, including our passage. So what is this joy and how can we experience it? Paul has preached Jesus as resurrected saviour to
Lessons from a synagogue
Across 2000 years, the Christian church has told the good news of Jesus Christ. It’s done so in a wide variety of contexts and ways. Here we have a very early example in Luke’s brief summary of the apostle Paul’s
No longer a dry tree
To join Jesus’ church ought to feel like coming home to God, it ought to feel like you’re finally fitted into where you belong. Jesus showed this in the way he treated social outcasts (Lk 15:4-10) and in our verses
What were you thinking?
Acts is about a vital period in history when the foundations were laid upon which Jesus’ church has been built (Ep 2:19-22). Key to this task was the apostles’ teaching (2:42). They’d spent 3 years with Jesus, watching, listening, learning.
To us a child is born (2 of 8)
Click the left arrow (“Nothing is impossible”) at the bottom to go to the next in the series Christmas is for the children, so it’s said. After all, at the heart of the original story is a baby called Jesus