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A New King
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…
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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…