Through the Bible in 66 Days - Mark

 

The Gospel of Mark is the shortest, sharpest and most fast‑moving account of the life of the Lord Jesus. It doesn't ease the reader in gently. It launches straight into action. From the opening paragraphs, Mark bounces from scene to scene, miracle to miracle, showing that Jesus has complete authority over sickness, evil spirits, nature, and even death itself. Nothing is wasted. Every episode is chosen to reveal that Jesus acts with the power of God.

Many believe Mark drew heavily on Peter's firsthand memories — the fisherman with the big personality and the bold voice. You can feel that energy in the writing. It is vivid, urgent, and full of movement. Mark is a master storyteller, stitching one event to the next so that you barely catch your breath. His aim is clear: to show that Jesus is God's promised one, full of divine authority, yet also the humblest Servant who ever lived.

A Gospel for Busy Romans — and for Us

Mark's main audience was Roman readers — people who admired strength, decisiveness, and leadership. But they also knew that the greatest leaders were those who served others. So Mark presents the Lord Jesus as the perfect Servant‑King. He has all authority, yet He stoops to help the weak, touch the untouchable, and teach the crowds with compassion.

Did you miss St Patrick's Day?

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Around A.D. 390, Patrick was born into a Christian family in the Roman province of Britain. As a teenager, he was taken as a slave to Ireland. He later wrote that while living in Ireland, “the Lord opened the understanding of my unbelief… that I might turn to the Lord my God with all my heart.” From that time forward, Patrick began seeking God’s direction for his life. In his autobiographical Confessions, he wrote, “Tending flocks was my daily work, and I would pray constantly…. The love of God and the fear of Him surrounded me more and more.” 

After six years, Patrick escaped and returned to Britain. There, Patrick experienced his own Macedonian call: he heard the voice of a man in Ireland calling, “Come and walk among us again.” He became a minister and, around 432, returned as a missionary to the area where he had been enslaved. Patrick’s passion for evangelism brought the gospel to Ireland and beyond.

At that time, Ireland was considered the “end of the earth” because it lay beyond the borders of the Roman Empire. The vast majority of people were pagans, practising witchcraft, magic, and human sacrifice. Under Patrick’s preaching, some of the leading druids were converted. The king’s brother became a Christian, and a church was established in his home area. By 447, fifteen years after Patrick arrived, most of Ireland had heard the gospel. 

By the time of his death, Patrick had planted approximately 200 churches and baptized 100,000 converts. He promoted true discipleship, refusing to baptize new converts until they showed steadfastness in the faith. 

Perhaps most importantly for the spread of the gospel, Patrick established an indigenous Celtic church. He trained men to serve the churches he planted. Following Patrick’s death, missionaries from Ireland took the gospel through central Europe, as far north as Iceland and back to Britain, the land from which their first missionary had come. In the years after Patrick’s death, Christianity’s greatest evangelistic efforts were led by Irish missionaries, the fruit of Patrick’s ministry.

Patrick is far more than a mythical character celebrated by wearing green on March 17. He is a hero of early Christianity and, in many ways, a model for missions today.

Author unknown

Kindness

Kindness is at the very heart of the Christian life. The Bible calls us to embody compassion, forgiveness, and love and history shows us powerful examples of this lived out in the UK during the 20th century, such as the work of the British Red Cross during wartime relief efforts.

Kindness is not optional for Christians. It is commanded. Scripture reminds us to “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” This verse captures the essence of kindness as its rooted in God’s forgiveness and love.

Throughout the Gospels, Jesus demonstrates kindness to the marginalized: the leper, the Samaritan woman and the tax collector to name but three. His acts were not mere politeness but radical compassion that broke social barriers.

The book of Galatians lists kindness among the fruits of the Spirit, showing that it is evidence of God’s work within us.

Proverbs in the Old Testament shows how kindness can be transformative: “Gracious words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.” Kindness heals, uplifts and restores.

Lady Jane Grey (1537-1554)

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Lady Jane Grey was a remarkable character from the history of our country.  She was known as the ‘Nine Day Queen of England’ and she died at the age of 16.  She was highly educated, very intelligent and was a descendent Henry VII the first monarch of the House of Tudor that ruled through most of the sixteenth century.  Jane was born in 1537 and died in 1554.  She had a personal tutor and was able to speak a number of languages and could converse in Greek and even correspond with intellectuals in that language.

She studied not only languages but also the Word of God, the Bible and came to a settled conviction which led her to faith in Christ.  She believed  the Gospel and knew that the only way to Heaven was through faith alone in Christ alone. She grew up with two sisters, one named Katherine who was very beautiful but not an intellectual like Jane, and Mary who had some kind of physical deformity.  Her parents were deeply ambitious and carried the hope that Jane would one day inherit the throne and become Queen of England.

The interesting story of Edward Fogarty

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Edward Fogarty was very active in preaching and Sunday School work in Belfast but in 1918 a business trip to the North of England was to change his life forever. He saw the great spiritual need of Co Durham and Northumberland and gave up his employment to take the message of the Gospel, the good news of the Lord Jesus Christ, to areas rarely visited by any preacher who was prepared to go there.

He would preach in the open air and in his wooden tent. The wooden tent was a canvas tent with wooden sides, Edward himself having a room inside, which he used as his living quarters. He had little to support him for he was pioneering in areas of mining and farming that saw men taking home low wages. He moved amongst the poor with many only having the bare necessities of life. Nobody was too poor, too ill or too disagreeable for Edward to challenge them with his message. What, however, was the message that he preached unashamedly, whatever the cost to him.

In his early years Edward heard preached, at an open air meeting, that the Bible says that all have sinned before God. Furthermore as sinners men face awful consequences but God had provided a unique way to save men and women from the penalty of their sin forever and give them the free gift of eternal life. 

John Bunyan- Lessons from an international bestselling author

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One of the most read books in the English Language is ‘The Pilgrims Progress’ by John Bunyan. Bunyan was a tinker by trade and after his marriage he became interested in the Bible. After first attending the parish church he joined the Bedford Meeting, a non conformist group in St John’s Church Bedford. He later became a preacher but with the restoration of the monarchy the freedom of the non conformists was curtailed with only the Anglican Church Bishops allowed to ordain preachers, a practice rejected by Bunyan and those of the Bedford Meeting. Bunyan was arrested and spent the next twelve years in prison because he refused to give up preaching.

John Bunyan’s writings are a testimony to the strong convictions he held as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. In ‘Election and Reprobation’ he wrote, “Sin where it reigns is a mortal enemy to the soul, It blinds the eyes, holds the hands, ties the legs, stops the ears and makes the heart implacable to resist the Saviour of souls.” A choice piece in,’Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ”, Bunyan makes reference to the return of the Prodigal Son to his father and uses it to go on to say, ‘He that is come to Christ, his groans and tears, his doubts and fears are turned into songs and praises. For he has now received the atonement (reconciliation) and the earnest (pledge) of His inheritance.’

The most famous of Bunyan’s writings is the classic ‘The Pilgrims Progress,’ with over 1300 editions being produced. It tells of the journey that Christian takes on his way to Heaven. Christian is carrying a burden on his back and is seen running till he came to a hill with a cross on it, together with a sepulchre at the bottom. “I saw that just as Christian came to the cross, his burden loosed from off his shoulders, fell from off his back, and began to tumble till it came to the mouth of the sepulchre. It fell in, and I saw it no more”. A most heart warming way to illustrate that the burden of sin is lifted forever at Calvary’s cross by the expression, “and I saw it no more”. This is what salvation means, free from sins burden evermore.  

Harry Ferguson Tractors

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Often innovators and visionaries are derided and mocked in their lifetime and it can take years before people see them in a different and more positive light. There is a commemorative stone on the promenade in the town of Newcastle in County Down, Northern Ireland dedicated to the memory of a creative and determined character by the name of Harry Ferguson. The name ‘Ferguson’ is for many agricultural workers and farmers associated with tractors and Harry Ferguson was the inventor of the “Little Grey Fergie” tractor.  Yet the engraved stone on the sea front at Newcastle says nothing about his tractors.

It was in 1909 that Harry Ferguson became the first person in Ireland to fly a plane.  It had never been done in that country before and he was to achieve fame for paving the way for others.  In Belfast he had spent time designing a monoplane and then devoted his energy and creative ability to building the plane and making sure that all parts worked.  Eventually when it was all assembled to his satisfaction it was towed to the estate of Lord Downshire in Hillsborough Park during December 1909.

Communication

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Looking back, I can see it’s several weeks, two months in fact, since I wrote any news bulletins or blogs from here, so on this mid-summer’s day while the sun is behind some clouds, I thought it was a good opportunity to write again. But what can I write about this time? 

You’ll see that I’ve dropped the “Coronavirus” name from the title of my bulletin now – more in hope than in realism because it’s only too obvious that the pandemic is not over yet. It’s good to see how vaccines are making a difference, and most of us have now had our two doses, but infections are still a real danger to society as this horrible virus itself fights for its survival. In the UK we might yet see a third wave coming our way as we watch crowds mixing in several places without any attention to “social distancing”.  

Google it - where do you find the truth in 2021?

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I have learned a lot from my grandchildren.  At the moment they are thirteen and fifteen and I have enjoyed watching them grow from tiny babies into active and curious teenagers.  One of the things I have particularly loved about them was their curiosity.  They have always been full of questions such as “Why does the sun go in and out?” and “Why does the moon change shape?”  At the moment they think that grandpa knows everything.  Well, almost everything.

Jacob, the younger of the two, did catch me out some years back when he was nine.  We were travelling along the Mumbles Road at the time of a high tide when he came out with the question, “Grandpa, how much water is in the sea?”

I paused before answering. “A lot!” I replied.

He was not going to let me get away with that.

“I know, but how many litres is that?”

I shook my head.  “Sorry, I don’t know.”

He was quiet for a couple of minutes, then came out with the answer.

“We could Google it!”  Google!  The source of all information.  

Perhaps you remember the days before we had online information.  Then, to many, the definitive source of information was the Encyclopaedia Britannica with its multiplicity of volumes. I only ever saw a complete set of the Encyclopaedia when I was in school and wondered at the time how long it would take to read them all, but now we have Google and therein lies a problem, for not all the information online is correct.

A few years ago when Mary Berry was stepping down as judge on the Great British Bake Off, I was searching for something online, when, quite by accident I stumbled across a hyperlink which said, “New judge appointed for the Great British Bake Off.”

I was intrigued, and so I clicked on it to see who was going to replace the legendary Mary Berry.  The page I came on to had a large colourful picture of Mr Tumble complete with yellow bowler, red nose and spotted bow tie. For those of you unfamiliar with children’s TV, Mr Tumble is a modern version of Coco the Clown, and, yes, the page was a spoof.

Having said that, it was cleverly written and very convincing. It raises the question, how can we know what is right? Surrounded by conflicting opinions on the media and bombarded by everything on the internet, where can we find the truth.

The Bible tells us that truth is not found in a thing but in a person – The Lord Jesus Christ.  In fact, He was not just the source of truth but could make a remarkable statement.  In John 14 v 6 we read these words. “Jesus said to him, “I am the way the truth and the life.”  It was not that Jesus spoke the truth or represented the truth. He claimed that He WAS the truth. 

In this world of fake news when we are surrounded by some who would seek to deceive us, it is good to know the One who was and is totally trustworthy. No wonder, then, that millions down through the ages have trusted Him with their lives and committed their lives to Him.

Messages with Meaning (30/03/21) Written by Stephen Treseder for Your542Day

Anniversaries

 

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Anniversaries!

 

A year ago, this weekend was the last time we had our normal services in the Gospel Hall – it’s maybe an unhappy anniversary!  Most anniversaries celebrate life’s happy events, including Mothers’ Day just now. But it’s not all joy to look back to the beginning of a year that has been so difficult for so many people.
 

From August to December after the first lockdown, we enjoyed a bit of respite, but the past two months have been more difficult again. Although we won’t celebrate looking back, we can hope this might be the beginning of better days ahead.

 

At this stage, we are encouraged to balance hope with caution –

·       hope that the number of Covid infections will continue to fall, but caution because the numbers are still very high;

·       hope because the number of vaccinations continues to rise, but caution because the virus has the nasty ability to change;

·       hope that restrictions will be relaxed for all the kinds of things we have enjoyed doing, but caution because transmission of the virus is so easy;

·       hope that everyone will get the message about caution but caution because we know people can ignore it and be selfish.

 

The Bible has this advice about selfishness, for it’s something we all have to guard against: “Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others” (Philippians 2.4). Notice the word “also”. It’s not that we are to neglect our own affairs, but we haven’t to become so absorbed in these that we have no room or time for others. There are examples in the Bible of people who got the balance right and others who got it badly wrong. Can you think of some of each type? Why not email me some answers! It would be lovely to hear from you!

 

The supreme example of living unselfishly for others (and also dying for others) is, of course, our Lord Jesus Christ. Philippians 2.5-8 describes how He who was so great and glorious in heaven came to earth to die on a cross for you and me. Another verse reminds us that “though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich (2 Corinthians 8.9). The riches, of course, are spiritual ones, not material ones. Salvation from sin and its consequences is more important than prosperity and luxury.

 

Zacchaeus found this one day - read about him in Luke 19.1-10. Did you ever sing this one, maybe in Sunday School?

 

A certain man of whom we read,

Who lived in days of old,

Though he was rich, he felt his need

Of something more than gold.

Oh yes, my friend, there’s something more,

There’s something more than gold!

To know your sins are all forgiven.

Is better far than gold!

 

This springtime anniversary weekend also brings the cheer of lengthening daylight hours, flowers coming into bloom, a bit of warmth in the air. We are reminded of God’s sure promise recorded away back in Genesis 8.22, and we realise that what the old German hymn says is so true –

 

All good gifts around us

Are sent from heaven above;

Then thank the Lord,

Oh, thank the Lord,

For all His love.

 

[Matthias Claudius, 1740-1815]

 

Written and used by permission of Bert Cargill of the Gospel Hall, St Monans

 

Farming Life in East Sussex

There is a Christian farmer in East Sussex who has spent years planting and pruning thousands of willow trees to create a Bible verse that can be read-only from the sky. The farmer started this incredible task in the 1990s on his farm near Whitesmith, East Sussex.   He chose John chapter 14 verse 6 to patiently cultivate. The willow trees spell out words spoken in answer to the question, ‘How can we know the way?” Jesus replied, ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life’. As well as a message, his carefully spaced “many thousands” of willow trees form a maze. 

 

The maze has been used by friends and members of his local church and although the farmer knew that his maze was well set out, it was only after a number of years he was shown a picture of it taken from above from a helicopter. Now every time he sees a plane going over, he offers up a little prayer that people will see the verse and it will help them to trust in and follow Jesus. So, close up it is a maze with people trying hard to find their way through, but from above it is an easily read message. 

Are you being deceived?

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None of us likes to be deceived, yet we may be subject to some kind of deception almost every day. Perhaps you have been deceived in the purchase of some commodity; for example, if the car you bought was ‘clocked’. That means the milometer (the device recording the number of miles the vehicle has travelled) had been turned back to give the impression that the distance travelled was a lot smaller than the true mileage. Along with this, the price was increased because supposedly you were buying ‘a very nice low mileage car’. Sometimes a soccer player is tackled and the tackler hardly touches him but he rolls around the turf so that the referee is deceived into awarding a ‘free kick’. Many people have been deceived by politicians who promised lots but delivered little.

We remember, when we were at school, the excuses we made because we did not have our homework done. We deceived the teacher. One of the worst deceptions was when we deceived our parents by lying to them about places we had been and the company we were with. As we look back over the past our cheeks blush and we feel most uncomfortable.

Did you enjoy Latin at school?

Latin was obligatory when I was at school. It was one of the standard subjects on the curriculum. I actually quite enjoyed Latin despite the old adage we used to repeat under our breath:

Latins a dead language

As dead as dead can be 

First it killed the Romans

And now, it’s killing me

It might have felt tough going at school, but it is actually very useful to know some Latin as a lot of Latin motto’s can be found over the entrance of many listed buildings. For instance, the motto of the University of Oxford is ‘Dominus illuminatio mea’. These are the opening words of Psalm 27 (the Bible) meaning The Lord is my Light. One of the long-established independent schools on the Wirral has the motto ‘Beati Mundo Corde’. This means Blessed are the Pure in Heart, again a quotation taken out of the Bible (the Beatitudes). It is quite significant that public institutions saw the value of quoting the Bible. This book was once the backbone of our nation’s progress and development.

Radicalised Christians!

In recent times we have all become familiar with a rather sinister word - radicalisation. After an act of terrorism, investigations will begin to determine how the terrorists were radicalised. A person is considered radicalised when they take the words of their prophet and their holy book literally.

I was wondering what a radicalized Christian would look like, someone who takes the words of Christ literally.

Would people in shopping malls or concert halls or school classrooms have anything to fear from radicalized Christians?

Radicalised Christians will love their families, their neighbours, and their enemies.

They will seek to save life, not to destroy it.
They will forgive those who wrong them, and bless those who hate them.
They will pray for their government and pay their taxes.
They will give honour to whom honour is due.
They will live sacrificial lives for the blessing and relief of others.
They will comfort those who mourn.
They will hunger after righteousness, show mercy, seek to be pure, make peace, will not kill, will not commit adultery, will turn the other cheek to those who smite them.
They will live their lives for the glory of God and for the welfare of their fellow men.
They will be thankful, kind, honest, faithful, pure and forgiving.
They will travel enormous distances and make huge sacrifices to share the gospel with others.
Their great motivation in life will firstly be love for God, and secondly love for their neighbour.

Do you know any radicalized Christians?

Written for Seek the Truth Bible Media by John Parkinson of Ballymena

For more information text the word INFO to 07747 101352 

To access podcasts and videos explaining the good news of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ visit www.seekthetruth.org.uk

This site will give you access to Bible Teaching Audio's and Video's as well.

All posts have the aim of pointing people to Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour or to aid Christian growth and development.

The Global Gospel - Acts 18

Acts 18Authorized (King James) Version (AKJV)

18 After these things Paul departed from Athens, and came to Corinth; 2 and found a certain Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus, lately come from Italy, with his wife Priscilla; (because that Claudius had commanded all Jews to depart from Rome:) and came unto them. 3 And because he was of the same craft, he abode with them, and wrought: for by their occupation they were tentmakers. 4 And he reasoned in the synagogue every sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks.

5 And when Silas and Timotheus were come from Macedonia, Paul was pressed in the spirit, and testified to the Jews that Jesus was Christ. 6 And when they opposed themselves, and blasphemed, he shook his raiment, and said unto them, Your blood be upon your own heads; I am clean: from henceforth I will go unto the Gentiles.

7 And he departed thence, and entered into a certain man’s house, named Justus, one that worshipped God, whose house joined hard to the synagogue. 8 And Crispus, the chief ruler of the synagogue, believed on the Lord with all his house; and many of the Corinthians hearing believed, and were baptized. 9 Then spake the Lord to Paul in the night by a vision, Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace: 10 for I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee: for I have much people in this city. 11 And he continued there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.

For more information text the word INFO to 07747 101352 

To access podcasts and videos explaining the good news of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ visit www.seekthetruth.org.uk

This site will give you access to Bible Teaching Audio's and Video's as well.

All posts have the aim of pointing people to Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour or to aid Christian growth and development.