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Mark’s Sandwich
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…
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Persevere
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…
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The Way of Wisdom
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…
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Practical: Faith, Hope and Love
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…