||Pastoral Passage|| How naturally does rejoicing spring forth from your faith? The third of the blessings arising from being justified in Christ in Romans 5:1-2 is ‘hope of the glory of God’. This is something that ‘we rejoice’ in.
Author: Chris Northcott
||Pastoral Passage|| How do you relate to God? I have heard it said that Christians can either relate to God like a ‘son’, or like a ‘servant’.
||Pastoral Passage|| Evangelical Christianity has traditionally been very strong on the fact that through faith in Jesus Christ they are justified, or acquitted from the guilt of their sin. But I think we are not so strong on remembering the fruits of that justification.
||Pastoral Passage|| The short New Testament letter called First John gives a series of ‘tests’ by which Christians (real or professed) can check whether their faith is genuine, rather than sham or superficial. The first of these so-called ‘tests’ is that of obedience.
||Pastoral Passage|| It is a notable feature of our culture that responsibilities regularly take a back seat to fulfilling our aspirations and upholding our real or perceived rights. The example of Jesus challenges our assertion of our rights.
||Pastoral Passage|| Have you put your career in its proper perspective?
||Pastoral Passage|| Some people, like myself, are quite directly called into faith in God (or some aspect of Christian living or understanding) without personal difficulty, perhaps akin to the prior passage; Proverbs 1:20-23. Others, however, must struggle greatly and persevere in this struggle until they reach their object. This post discusses Proverbs 2:1-5, which encourages us to that struggle.
||Pastoral Passage|| I have been considering the theme of ‘wisdom’ in Proverbs lately, and what its connection to Jesus’ words in Matthew 23:34 could be: “I am sending you scribes, prophets and wise men.”
||Pastoral Passage|| The book of Proverbs introduces us to three people types: the wise, the simple, and the fool.
||Pastoral Passage|| Good things can get in the way of better things.
Chris Northcott 