St Jude's Mapperley Archive Blog

Yesterday was Palm Sunday - the start of what is often called Holy Week . In the morning services, we remembered Jesus entering Jerusalem as king. Not as a king coming for war, but as the king coming in peace and riding on a donkey, as Solomon had done (1 KIngs 1:38-40) and as Jacob had predicted over 1000 years before for the king that would come from Judah (Gen 49:10-11) and Zechariah had famously predicted in Zech 9. In Mark the account starts in Jericho with blind Bartimaeus calling out "Son of David, have mercy on me!". Son of David was a title for the coming king the Jews had been hoping for - the Messiah. Before Mark 11, Jesus has been keeping his Messiahship a secret. When he went to festivals, he did so in secret (e.g. John 7) so that there wouldn't be too much fuss around him. But now he casts all that aside. He rides into Jerusalem on a donkey (pilgrims were meant to walk!) as a king, with people throwing their cloaks in front of him. There is a festival atmosp...

Hi all, Yesterday, we finished off our series in Paul's letter to the Galatians looking at 5:26-6:18 . It seems a bit odd to start with 5:26 – it's the last verse in its chapter, and the (sometimes helpful) NIV section heading comes at the start of ch 6. But actually looking at chapter 6 in terms of the last few verses of chapter 5 really shows how it hangs together. In 5v25 Paul tells the Galatians to keep in step with the Spirit – to keep up with what God is doing in their lives by his Spirit. In chapter 6 Paul shows some examples of what that looks like. In 5v26, Paul tells the readers not to be "vainglorious" (or "conceited" in the NIV). Don't be puffed up like a balloon which might look impressive but is actually empty. One way of looking at chapter 6 is by seeing what "Mr Vainglorious" would do, and that we are called to do the opposite. Mr Vainglorious doesn't seek to restore people who have messed up v1 Whe...

The All-Age service yesterday was on the theme of "mothers in the Bible". And on my table, we got talking about the story of Leah in Genesis 29 . I mentioned that one of my all-time favourite sermons is by Timothy Keller on the story of Leah. (And you can read it online here .) Maybe we'll revisit it at some stage, in which case you'll know where I got it from... I thought it would be worth giving a brief overview of the sermon. Keller does it much better than me though! Keller draws out three bits of bad news, then three bits of good news, but the good is much stronger than the bad. Bad News 1: Sin Does You We often talk about people sinning, but sin isn't something we do. It's something that does us, and then rebounds around and keeps on messing things up for ages afterwards. We see that here with how Isaac favouring Esau rather than Jacob has echoed through the generations. The less-favoured son is now playing favourites with his wive...