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1 Peter 2 v4-10: what does the Bible mean by cornerstone?
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.…
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1 Peter 2 v1-3: crave spiritual milk
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…
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1 Peter 1: Christians are like foreigners on earth
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…
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James 5: say no to lifestyle inflation
Many centuries before personal finance YouTubers warned about the dangers of “lifestyle inflation”, James wrote a letter warning of adopting a lifestyle of “luxury and self-indulgence”. 1. Lifestyle inflation Lifestyle inflation is the idea that, over time (and especially if your income goes up) you feel that you need more and more expensive things and…
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James 4: wrong motives should be resisted
In James 4, the half-brother of Jesus warns against bad motivations in a couple of big ways. 1. Friendship with the world He says (NIV): “don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.” To be…
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James 3: ‘no human being can tame the tongue’
Chapter three of James’s letter focuses on the things we say. Here are three big ideas from the passage. 1. This affects every Christian We all tend to sin in different ways. Adultery isn’t my problem, but I can think of a long list of other sins that I’m inclined towards. James, however, makes the…
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James 2 v14-26: faith without deeds is dead
When I was 11, my class had a discussion about what it takes to get into heaven. Most of my peers thought that, in Christianity, if you’re basically a good person, you go to heaven. It’s your behaviour that wins the favour of God and puts in you in a nice place when you die.…
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James 2 v1-13: don’t be a snob
The first half of James chapter 2 is a tough one. I suspect we all use “heuristics” – or rules of thumb – to work out our view of other people. We look at people’s clothes and appearance and work out class or intelligence or job or affluence or likability. If we work a room…
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James 1: God does not tempt anyone
The New Testament letter by James, the younger brother of Jesus, contains some key advice on how to act as Christians. In a series of blog posts, I’ll be covering the four chapters of the book, starting here with James 1. It centres around the idea that we, as Christians, will face many challenges –…
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Romans 8 v1: ‘there is now no condemnation’
I was at a big church in the centre of a major town. The preacher was speaking about Romans 8 and kept repeating its opening, when a someone interrupted from the back. The text in question says (NIV): Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus…
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God hardening hearts: what does Exodus’s perplexing idea mean?
In Exodus, Moses is trying to persuade the ruler of Egypt, the Pharaoh, to let the enslaved Israelites go and worship God. But God, who is committed to making this happen, is said to “harden” the Pharaoh’s heart. God tells Moses in Exodus: When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all…
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Abraham Bartimaeus Ben Witherington III Charles Wesley Handel Isaac Isaiah 6 James 1 James 2 James 3 James 4 James 5 John Wesley Justification King David King Solomon Magi Mark 8 Mark 10 Matthew 5 Moses N.T. Wright Nathan the Prophet Penal substitutional atonement Pharaoh Richard Dawkins Romans 8 Scot McKnight Sovereignty The Children's Society Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion Zacchaeus Zadok the Priest