St Jude's Mapperley Archive Blog

Good morning! Yesterday, we finished working through Numbers 11. In some ways the end of Numbers 11 is quite a difficult passage – we are (rightly) uncomfortable with passages about God's judgement on groups of people. After all, we understand that God is love and relates to his people with love. So this morning, I thought I'd offer three quick perspectives to help us see what the God of Love is doing in judgement passages like Numbers 11. 1. God judges the worst offenders to give the rest of the people a chance When we read stories like Numbers 11, it's important to remember their place in the bigger story of God and Israel, and in the bigger story still of God and the whole human race. In the story of God and Israel, God is leading Israel through the desert towards the Promised Land, and they're probably only a month away by this stage – they reach the edge of the Promised Land in chapter 13. Before they get there, they need to learn to trust ...

Good Morning! Yesterday, we continued our series "In the Wilderness". One of the things that has really encouraged so far in the series has been hearing stories of people deciding not to grumble because of what God has been saying to all of us through his Word. I know it can be difficult – this last week I spent a fair bit of time on a conference which gave me plenty of opportunities. But I decided beforehand not to grumble, and I didn't grumble as much as I usually do on those things, instead trying to encourage others. I think it's important, though, to draw a few helpful distinctions between grumbling, lament and asking for prayer or help. Lament is what a lot of the Psalms do – it's bringing our sorrow into the open before God, being honest with him about it and letting him speak into it. It can be a very powerful thing. Some laments are individual, some are corporate – sometimes it's helpful to bring another person in on our la...

Good morning! Yesterday was one of those unusual Sundays when I was working but not preaching, so I thought I'd share a few quick thoughts on how to respond to the threat of Islamic fundamentalism, which has obviously been in the news a lot recently with the execution murder of Alan Henning. 1. Remember God's Justice Lots of the Psalms can appear quite bleak at first reading. But actually, they were written precisely to help God's people respond to difficult situations like the rise of the Islamic State. Here's Psalm 10:7-15, for example. 7 His mouth is full of lies and threats; trouble and evil are under his tongue. 8 He lies in wait near the villages; from ambush he murders the innocent. His eyes watch in secret for his victims; 9 like a lion in cover he lies in wait. He lies in wait to catch the helpless; he catches the helpless and drags them off in his net. 10 His victims are crushed, they collapse; they fall under his strength. 11 He ...