John wants uncertain and damaged communities to have certainty, assurance in God. The certainty that John wants Christians to have is a discerning and tested assurance – not an unexamined fundamentalism. His path to certainty and assurance are truth (about … Read more
Tag: Love
1 John 4.13-21. Love & fear
Perfect love drives out fear. In this part of his letter John gives the struggling Christian church assurance about the signs they belong to Jesus. [Audio | Notes]
Michael Flynn
Audio
For further thought
Q: Because … Read more
1 John 4.7-12. Love, actually
Love. Our most powerful four letter word. The poet W. H Auden introduced this ‘timid similarity’ in his famous poem about our love: ‘Law like love I say. Like law we often weep, like law we seldom keep.’ So can … Read more
Matthew 7.1-12. How to evaluate others
Imagine using our judgment of others to serve them rather than ourselves. Imagine instead of categorising people so we can feel better, we see our wrongs clearly enough to lay aside self-righteousness so we may better serve the people we … Read more
1 Thessalonians 4:1-12. Living to please God
Sex, work and death are the topics that Paul goes on to address as he begins to “make up what is lacking in your faith” (3:10). What resonates with us in Melbourne is, for Paul, love is a reason for … Read more
1 Thessalonians 2:17-3:13. Stand firm in the Lord
According to the apostle Paul, there are two spiritual forces at play behind human actions. God, who we are invited to cooperate with in spreading the news about Jesus Christ and building up those who have entrusted their lives to … Read more
Luke 10:25-37. The poor are any of us
Jesus was constantly having arguments and many of those arguments have changed the world. In the parable of the good Samaritan he defends the relevance of the ancient word of God in Leviticus and we learn that how we treat … Read more