Crumbs from the Table

At church we are coming to the end of a series in the gospel of Matthew on the "kingdom", arguably the key theme is Jesus' preaching. Before embarking on this series, after many years in ministry, I had a working definition of "kingdom" which went something like this: "The kingdom of God/heaven is the saving rule or reign of God in the lives of people through the person of Jesus Christ."  While there is much that is true in the working definition above, most particularly the centrality of Christ's person (without him there is no kingdom), I do now think this definition could be misleading in suggesting that the kingdom is now, when the consistent teaching of the Lord and his Apostles is that the kingdom is future; the "kingdom of God" is virtually synonymous with " the age to come ".  It is something of a commonplace that the kingdom is not a place. It might however be true to say that the kingdom *is* a time (namely the age to ...

At this time of year, we are remembering and reflecting on Christ's resurrection from the dead, and we think of the Apostles who were witnesses of that resurrection.  Not all those who saw the risen Christ were Apostles. For example, Mary Magdalene who was the first to encounter the Lord after his resurrection, or the 500 brothers mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15.  An "Apostle of Jesus Christ" was someone personally chosen by Christ to be an Apostle (Acts 1), and who had seen the risen Christ first-hand (1 Corinthians 9:1-3).  There are at least four categories of people who can be described as "Apostles of Jesus Christ".   1)  First there were Simon Peter and the rest of the Twelves minus Judas, who was replaced by Matthias  (see Acts 1) 2)  Then there were the brothers of the Lord , which definitely included James and most likely also Jude (1 Corinthians 15:7; 9:5) 3) Besides these, there were also "other Apostles" who were not one of the Twel...

This is how Mark 2:5 in Greek:  "καὶ ἰδὼν ὁ Ἰησοῦς τὴν πίστιν αὐτῶν λέγει τῷ παραλυτικῷ· τέκνον ἀφίενται σου αἱ ἁμαρτίαι." Here is my translation: "And Jesus, seeing their faith, said to the paralytic, "Child, your sins have been forgiven."    This verse, in the passage on the healing of the paralytic brought by his four friends, has various interesting features.  It was on seeing "their" faith, that Jesus spoke these words to the paralysed man. I would suggest this might reflect the role in the church of the early centuries of "sponsors" in assisting those coming to Christ. While unable to "believe for someone", they do nevertheless have a role to play.  Of particular interest is how Jesus addressed the paralytic, namely "child". The ESV translates this as "son", possibly imagining how an older or more senior person might address someone younger or more junior. I understand there is also an equivalent Hebrew fo...