Sermon Archives

What is “atonement”? This is an English word that was simply “made up” by William Tyndale when he translated the Christian scriptures into English.  It’s beautiful how what Jesus has done has got into our everyday language!  But what was Tyndale trying to express with this word? The New Testament is not constrained to only […]

Beneath every behaviour is a belief. We go to a game because we believe it will be a good time and our team will win, or we go because we believe that loyalty is a good virtue. Sometimes we will be very aware of the connection between what we do, at other times we will […]

Toward the end of 2018 we went through 1 Samuel chapter 16 and 17, where we were introduced a young shepherd boy named David. This boy, famously and greatly against the odds, defeated the fierce giant Goliath. Often it is suggested to “go and be like David” out of these texts. Aside from not fitting […]

Advent is the season of preparation for the coming of God.  This series asks the question: why did God become man?  The series will explore why it was necessary for God to become man, and what difference is makes.  This series will be done together in partnership, services will still occur as normal, with ministers […]

We return to 1 Samuel, with Israel in crisis again. Saul is still on the scene though his kingship is ineffective and God’s Spirit has left him.  Who comes next?  What’s going to happen to God’s people?  In five weeks we cover the David’s ascent towards the throne; covering one of the most famous passages […]

There are many places in Mark’s gospel where a story starts and then is quickly interrupted by another story.  But each time this happens there is a common theme between the initial story and the interrupting one—this is Mark’s way of highlighting the main point.  The structure of the story goes like this: the initial […]

The second-last book in the bible has no chapters, it’s so short it only has verses. Though it’s short, it’s sweet and packs a critical message for our times. In the Western world, we may have thought that as Christians we could pretty much just go with the cultural flow. Recent events have caused us […]

In a TED talk given by Barry Schwartz the argument is made that the modern west has gone mad with bureaucracy because of our loss of “practical wisdom” (see here). Schwartz argues clearly that rules often fail us, incentives often backfire and yet we continue with them, in the vain hope that a few more […]

Acts 17 tells of a church that Paul and his companions started in Thessalonica as the gospel of Jesus Christ went out from Jerusalem.  However Paul was forced to leave Thessalonica because of persecution.  This historical background positions the first letter to the Thessalonians as Paul’s pastoral concern to these new believers in Jesus Christ […]