Restless Wonderer

We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. The gospel of God’s grace, when grasped fully, poses a serious question about sin.  If God has forgiven our sins on the basis of Christ’s death in our place, why shouldn’t we keep on sinning?  Why should we live differently?  Indeed, why not sin more so that God’s grace can increase?  Paul anticipates these questions in Romans 6.  Faced with this challenge he does not retreat at all from his confidence in our standing in God’s grace through Christ.  Rather, he points his readers back to their baptism and reminds them that it was a re-enactment of the gospel, a tangible parable of death and resurrection.  We died with Christ and now we live a new life with Him. Paul’s teaching is sometimes misunderstood.  How can he say that our old self is dead?  If that’s tru...

A new command I give you: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. Most people know that Jesus taught us to love one another.  In John 13 he describes this as a ‘new command’.  What is new, or fresh, about this commandment is not so much its content as its point of reference.  The Old Testament Law, contrary to common perceptions, was really an embodiment of love.  It was given by a loving God to the people He had graciously redeemed from slavery in Egypt in order to forge them into a theocratic nation, a people of His very own who would enjoy His blessings and demonstrate His character to the nations.  The Law was also intended to draw individual Israelites into a loving relationship with God, by showing them their sin and providing the sacrificial system on the basis of which they could seek His forgiveness and express their gratitude to Him. Not only did the Law express God’s love for His people, it was also intended to guide ...

In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you. Covenants are powerful things.  They are binding relationships between two parties, consisting of promises and expected responses and usually accompanied by a sign to serve as a reminder.  I am in a covenant relationship with my wife, indicated by the ring round one of my fingers – the one I use as I write this, somewhat strangely since I type with only two fingers, to hit the ‘Shift’ key.  I am bound to Gar-Ling for life, to be faithful to her and to help her to be the person God wants her to be.  She made similar promises to me too.  That kind of covenant I can understand and I’m incredibly thankful for it, but when I begin to translate that experience into the nature of God’s relationship with His people my mind begins to boggle.  How can the eternal God, creator of all things, sovereign and all-powerful, bind Himself...

And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for they say, “The old is better.” I know nothing about wine.  I know some is red and some is white, but I haven’t a clue what the difference is between a Shiraz and a Merlot (even those names sound more like characters from fairytales to me).  I have been known to drink the occasional glass of wine, but I’m virtually teetotal most of the time except for the tiny sip of red wine I take once a week when celebrating communion.  What I’m saying is that I wouldn’t have a clue what good wine is.  I’m not the kind of person Jesus envisages in this brief parable. In the culture Jesus inhabited, wine was a staple of the diet, partly because water was unsafe and partly because grapes grew abundantly in the climate....