Psalms in Book 1 Psalms in Book 1 (Psalms 1 to 41) are mostly personal songs, so I will be looking at how they apply to us personally. Social and communal aspects of life and work do not come in until the later books of psalms. The first two psalms introduce themes that set the …
Matthew 22:34-40 4 questions 3) The great Commandment
The King’s defence When people believe in urban legends and conspiracy theories and someone confronts them with the truth they will not listen and change, they just personally attack. That is all over social media, you find it in the editorials of newspapers and in blogs. There is nothing new about that. The religious and …
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Psalms, an introduction
The Psalms After our church, Holy Trinity Huddersfield, celebrated its 200th Anniversary in 2019 and we were asked to read through the Bible in a year as a church, I decided the focus in 2020 would be about worship, so I started by blogging about the psalms of ascent, songs that are sung by pilgrims …
Matthew 22:23-33 4 questions 2) Sadducees and the resurrection
The King’s defence The religious and political leaders are trying to trip Jesus up. The first was the Pharisees and Herodians; now it is the Saddusee's turn. They hope they will stop Jesus, but they have no idea what Jesus' mission is and they are actually helping Jesus. Jesus came to be God's sacrifice for …
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Christianity is based on the church?
"Jewish religion is based on the home, Christianity is based on the church." The Sunday morning programme on BBC Radio Leeds is how I wake up before church. Then it's either get up immediately if I am a playing some instrument or other in the service or have a coffee and a lie in for …
Matthew 22:15-22 4 questions 1) Paying Taxes to Caesar
The King’s defence After three parables where Jesus said the chief priests had been shown up before the people for rejecting God Matthew's account moves on to three questions to attack Jesus, followed by a question to them by Jesus. I have mentioned a few times in this series how Matthew likes to group things …
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Neurodivergence may not be a disability say scientists
MEDIA WATCH Dyslexia should be considered a difference, not a disorder says a new report from Cambridge University. Dyslexia - source Wikipedia Commons Please note this post is about dyslexia, and while there is no evidence that it could apply to to autistics as well, there is absolutely zero evidence so far that it could …
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Holy nudity?
Nakedness and the Bible. Let's get the Jesus question out of the way first. Jesus is depicted implicitly as naked five times in scripture. The first is his birth, we are all born naked, the second at his circumcision, then his baptism, crucifixion and his resurrection. The resurrection is explicit, we are told the grave …
The wedding — Matthew 22:1–14
The King’s judgements Jesus cleared the temple and the chief priests, who ran the temple, did not like this, so on Jesus' next visit they ask Jesus where his authority to do this came from. Instead of giving a direct answer Jesus tells three parables against them — in the first, the parable of the …
The truth
Whistle blowers and the church When I was in secondary school one of the teams we played against was from the Verona Fathers, a Roman Catholic seminary where boys were being trained as prospective priests. We cheered our team and jeered theirs during the game but before and after the game things were OK between …
Making an ass of myself 