Acts 2:42-47; 4:23-37; Isaiah 58:1-14. The place of generous giving in the early church is one that we focus on so readily! One preacher (Paul Scanlon) describes the first three words of Acts 2:42 as “the three most powerful words ever written about the early church; at the same time they are perhaps the 3 […]
Acts 1:37-41; 9; 1 Cor. 3, 5, 12:12-31 As the church in Acts began to move outwards, those who were convinced by their message wanted to know how they could belong. They listened to what the church said to them, accepted their words, believed, and were baptised. Huge numbers were added to the church and […]
Acts 5:12-39; Acts 8:1-8; Acts 17; Acts 25 We are called to be the presence of Jesus in the world around us, to serve the poor, the broken, the vulnerable and the lost (Acts 25). Whilst our Covid-19 lockdown has perhaps taught us new ways of staying connected with people, we also need to be […]
Acts 2:1-41, Acts 4, 8, 10, 16. The scene in Acts 2 is one of a church that was growing and developing through the power of the Holy Spirit. That was completely intertwined for the early church with purpose, authority and prayer. The Holy Spirit holds everything together and the church is powerless without this […]
Acts 1:12-26. We can’t ignore or fail to notice the central place of prayer in the early church – it’s mentioned in almost all of the 28 chapters in Acts! Justin Welby once stated that “When we are retuned in prayer we are transformed so that we can transform the world”. That’s the purpose and […]
Acts 1:1-11, Acts 3-6, 8-10, 15, 28. Acts 1 and Acts 28 are like book ends for the whole theology of Acts. We need to notice that there were times of retreating to safety away from the threat of the world and times of house arrest (sounds like what we’re experiencing during lockdown!). Yet, God’s […]
2 Corinthians 4: Isaiah 58. We are moving from a series that we have been doing, “Life in all its Fullness”, where we had a look at John’s gospel and particularly about our own personal salvation and relationship with God and then beyond this week we will be looking at “Church in all its Fullness”, […]
Genesis 1:31; Jeremiah 29:11; Luke 4:14-21; James 1:2-8. Sometimes the answer to something doesn’t bother us too much, but there are plenty of other times when it does, and we’re desperate to know, we’re longing for an answer. We need to know, we need to understand, we need to work things out in our minds […]
John 21. Do we ever believe, or do other people tell us, that because of something we’ve done we can never be forgiven or restored? Surely that’s how Peter must have felt? He had declared in the hearing of his friends and his Lord that, “Even if all fall away on account of you, I […]
John 20: 19-31; Luke 24:13-49. Some of the disciples were quicker than others to believe and embrace the glory of Jesus’ resurrection. What made the difference was their personal encounters with their risen Lord and Saviour. Once they had experienced Jesus personally, faith was strengthened through the ways in which Jesus proved Himself to be […]