The idea of God, and of leaders who follow him, acting as a shepherd runs through the Bible. In Genesis, Jacob refers to “the God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day”. The term is best associated, in the Old Testament, with David. In 2 Samuel, David is anointed King of…

Peter continues his theme of suffering for being a Christian, now addressing the problem of peer pressure. In 1 Peter 4, he connects the suffering that Jesus purposefully experienced on the cross and says that we should arm ourselves with the same resolve. He writes (in the NIV): For you have spent enough time in…

Peter is famous in the Gospels for the unfortunate part where he denies Christ three times before a chicken disrupted everyone’s peace. Yet Jesus recommissions him. In John 21, after Jesus has been brought back to life, the Messiah asks Peter three times whether he loves him. After that effective verbal reversal of the three…

Suffering is a running theme through the whole book of 1 Peter. In this passage, the second half of the chapter, the followers of Jesus in are encouraged to let Christ’s light shine through their lives, despite the problems they face. Shining light despite suffering The apostle starts off by returning to an idea, from…

When I was a teenager, I spent a summer holiday working on a building site. It involved a lot of mixing concrete and cement. Yet when I first properly thought about the building term “cornerstone”, as it appears in 1 Peter 2, it was a little alien. That’s because modern construction methods don’t require one.…

In the James Bond film Spectre, 007 uncovers the work of a sinister global criminal organisation. The body, Spectre, stands for Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion. It actually embeds its support for malicious intentions in its name. Most people, however, would like to think of themselves as good, even when there’s a…

I don’t know about you but I sometimes sign up to an organisation’s email list because the content seems good at the time. Months later I click “unsubscribe” because I found the emails a bit boring or my interests moved on. Christianity isn’t something that we simply subscribe to with no commitment. We can’t “get…