St Jude's Mapperley Archive Blog

Good Morning! Yesterday morning, we started a short series in Matthew 25, looking forwards to the day when Jesus comes back. Guy and David both did a great job of helping us to understand the passage and see how it affects us. I'm not going to go over what they said, but it's well worth a listen on the website when the talks are up. Matthew 25 is in the few days before Jesus is killed. Conflict with the religious authorities has escalated through Matthew 21-23. In chapter 24, Jesus talks to his disciples about the future - about the destruction of the temple (which happened in AD 70; Christians got out in time because of Jesus' warning) and Jesus returning as king (which obviously hasn't happened yet). Matthew 25:1-13, which we looked at yesterday, is a story helping us to understand what this waiting is like. Here's the story in a less familiar translation: Jesus: Or picture the kingdom of heaven this way. It will be like ten bridesmaids who each picked up a lante...

Good Morning! Yesterday morning, we finished off our series "In the Wilderness" by looking at the time Jesus went into the wilderness – Matthew 3:13-4:11. Matthew is very clever in the way that he tells Jesus' story. Especially in chapters 1-4, he emphasises the bits that show that Jesus is the True Israel – he is the embodiment of the perfect People of God. Israel failed in the wilderness in Numbers 11-14. The devil tempted them, and they fell. But Jesus didn't. Just like Israel, he came up out of the water having been assured that he was God's Son, and was then led by God's Spirit into the wilderness. Israel survived on their own food for 40 days or so, then complained and accused God of leading them into the wilderness to die (Ex 16). Jesus went without food for 40 days and nights, was within a week or so of starving to death, and yet would not take the devil's temptation of using his powers to turn stones to brea...

With yesterday being Remembrance Sunday and tomorrow being 11th November, I think it only right that I should let poet and evangelist Glen Scrivener take this morning's Monday Mail with his new Remembrance Video. See it here on youtube. Here's the text: If I should die think only this ... A bullet flew by that did not miss... What story of the war is told? Romance bright or horror cold? Triumph's tale or tragic loss, the iron or the wooden cross? Lost lament or victor's boast? Full brass band or lone last post? Heroes, villains, cowards, kings? It's war... it's all these things. It's us unleashed for good and ill, the gallant heart, the savage will. A Kaiser's pride, a nation's fear, a global greed, it's all in here. What causes war, the old book asks? Beyond the history, beneath the masks, There grows a want, becomes a will, demands our way, prepares to kill. The war we mark as long ago, is close to home, it's all we know. What ceases war? ...

Greetings! Yesterday, we finished our series in Exodus and Numbers, looking at the people's journey from Egypt to the Promised Land. We saw the people reach the Promised Land in Numbers 13 & 14, and how they failed to enter it. It started well, with the people reaching the edge of the land and Moses sending scouts out to explore it, but it all went horribly wrong. We saw 5 stages in the disaster that unfolded as the scouts reported back in Numbers 13:24-33 . 1. They ignored God – they didn't see the land as the land that God was giving them or the Promised Land – it was just the land Moses had told them to look at. 2. They looked at the opposition instead of God. They saw lots of people, and fortified cities. 3. They were afraid. 4. They let their fear distort the facts. By v31-33, they are contradicting themselves with the land eating its inhabitants, but the inhabitants being giants. 5. They let their fear affect their sense of self-wort...