Christ Church Jerusalem

4 July 2021 - Sixth Sunday after Pentecost - To be a disciple is to be sent. We are sent out to preach repentance, confront evil, and heal the hurting. Rev. David Pileggi reminds us that to be successful in our call, we must be radically dependent on God. It is God's gifts of repentance, courage, and compassion that enable us to minister to those around us. Readings: Ezekiel 2:1-5; 2 Corinthians 1...

Once again our discussion centered around the Torah, its meaning and relationship to the Mosaic covenant, and also to Paul's use of the phrase the 'works of the Law'. Once again it has to be stated that there is a difference between the Torah (also known as nomos in Greek), the Mosaic covenant, and the phrase ‘works of the Law’. Also once again it must be stated that you must never take a passage...

27 June 2021 - Fifth Sunday After Pentecost - Who is Jesus? Is he just a man blessed with an extra measure of the Holy Spirit? In the healing of the woman with the issue of blood, Jesus is revealed as the Holy One of Israel whose holiness is more contagious than the impure stain of death. Jesus calls us to join the fight of life over death and shares with his followers the authority to confront ev...

Paul begins his challenge of Peter's hypocrisy by saying, “We who are Jews by birth ... who know”. The primary comparison is between Jews and Gentiles as a matter of nature, that is birth, and not between a matter of “knowing”. If the focus was on knowing, then this would lead us close to gnosticism. Jews are not “sinners,” which is the natural state of Gentiles who have no natural relationship wi...

20 Jun 2021 - Fourth Sunday of Pentecost - Despite knowing Jesus, many of us lack in spiritual maturity. Rev. David Pileggi, taking clues from the life of King David, points us to the path of transformation and maturity. We must discern the world as it really is, allow God to prepare us, and live a lifestyle of gratitude that bears testimony of God's faithfulness to us. Readings: 1 Samuel 17:(1a,...

Paul's opposition to Peter initially concerns itself with Peter's refusal to eat with the Gentile members of the believing community. The issue is part of a larger theological concern that is worked out in practical behaviour. Jewish people in the Second Temple period did not typically dine with Gentiles of any description, because of ritual purity concerns. The belief was that “things” could pass...

13 June 2021 - Third Sunday after Pentecost - We long for revival and to see the Kingdom of Heaven suddenly overtake the powers of this world. In the parable of the growing seed, Jesus teaches us that the kingdom grows slowly but surely under the sovereignty of God in partnership with his "farmers." From 120 people on the Day of Pentecost, the Jesus movement has spread throughout the world in 2,00...

Paul continues to reveal some autobiographical material not found anywhere else in Scripture. In Galatians 1, Paul described his first trip to Jerusalem three years following his Damascus Road experience. In Galatians 2 he describes a second journey to Jerusalem, this time 14 years later. The use of the word ἔπειτα ‘then’ probably indicates the timing to follow after the initial three years. Thus...

6 June 2021 - Second Sunday after Pentecost - What is the unforgiveable sin? Have we done it? Rev. Aaron Eime has us consider this anxiety-producing sin in light of God's desire to have relationship with us. The Holy Spirit is a person, not an impersonal power. It is the Holy Spirit that, through Jesus' work on the cross, dwells in us and unites us with God. If we reject God's offer of forgiveness...

Having laid forth a strong denunciation of the false gospel that currently persuades the Galatian communities, Paul gives some autobiographical material not found in any other epistle or writing. At the core of Paul's narration is that the Gospel preached by Paul is not Paul's gospel nor his invention. Paul claims divine revelation – the Greek word here is apocalypse – from the Messiah himself. Le...

30 May 2021 - Trinity Sunday - We serve the God who sacrificially sends himself out to heal his creation. He restores us to himself and enables us to share in the divine life. Rev. David Pileggi reminds us that God then sends us out to live lives of love and unity modeled after the divine community of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Readings: Isaiah 43:1-8; Isaiah 44:1-12; John 3:1-18 Blessed by our...

Having established himself as an apostle in the opening sentence, Paul follows the pattern of greeting he has learned from his teacher Gamaliel in the salutation to the communities in Galatia: “Grace and peace,” or in Hebrew, chesed v’shalom. Paul invokes God the Father and the Messiah Jesus as source of the grace and peace. Paul does not invoke a trinitarian formula and omits mention of the Holy...

23 May 2021 - Pentecost - As we commemorate the outpouring of God's Holy Spirit, Rev. David Pileggi reminds us that the Gospel is not merely about salvation and personal transformation. The Gospel is about healing creation and the relationships between individuals and people groups. Unity is a work of the Holy Spirit, however we must walk in love, repentance, and holiness to maintain unity, especi...

Epistles are not documents of mass production, even when in encyclical form. Documents that are encyclicals are meant to be copied and passed around to several communities, though most readers of the encyclical likely heard the document read in public and did not read it themselves. Paul identifies himself as an apostle, literally ‘one who is sent’. The concept of ‘agency’, that is of an agent bei...

16 May 2021 - Seventh Sunday of Easter - How do you become a better you? A whole segment of the publishing industry is devoted to self-help books, but those assume that our problems can be solved by ourselves. All of us are sinful and unclean so that our desires distort into potentially deadly cravings. Matthew Dalling reminds us that God sent Jesus to make us new creations, that his commands are...

Deacon Aaron Eime begins a new study on Paul's Letter to the Galatians. Notes for this study can be found at https://www.christchurchjerusalem.org/sermons/bible-studies/letter-to-the-galatians/ ‎ Blessed by our teachings? Consider saying thank you with a small (or large) donation. www.christchurchjerusalem.org/donate/

9 May 2021 - Sixth Sunday of Easter - In this age of anxiety, Rev. David Pileggi says the church worries too much about end-time prophesy and the latest heresy or apostasy. There is an unhealthy focus on wickedness and evil. The Scriptures remind us that God is the faithful king of all the world and that his goal is reconciling the nations back to himself. Our response to God's faithfulness and lo...

The end of the book of Deuteronomy contains the account of the death of Moses. The Bible in itself does not insist that Moses was the sole author of the Torah. Tradition has it that Joshua penned the final song of Chapter 33 and documented the final moments of Moses’ life. It has been assumed that the whereabouts of the burial place of Moses has been deliberately obscured by God Himself so as to i...

2 May 2021 - Fifth Sunday of Easter - Jesus calls himself the vine, calling on an image recurrent throughout the Scriptures, and places his followers as branches of himself. Jesus tells us that the Father is the vinedresser who meticulously prunes and trims the branches so that they will produce the sweetest fruit. Neville Jones reminds us that we are called to trust the the Vinedresser's discipli...

Following his song the next act of Moses is to bless the people before he himself leaves them and this world. The song of blessing has some similar characteristics to the blessing of Jacob in Genesis 49. One major feature of the blessing from Moses is the absence of the tribe of Simeon. Much of the blessing is in the third person, leading many to conclude that Joshua is recorder of the blessing. L...

25 April 2021 - Fourth Sunday of Easter - As a sheep, the choice of which voice you listen to is a matter of life or death. Ezekiel warned the wayward shepherds of Israel that their selfishness was costing the lives of the sheep. The shepherd psalmist writes about having to trust God to survive in the wilderness. Jesus then, in the midst of the pandemic of death, offers the sheep eternal life both...

The final song of Moses foretells a disastrous future for Israel, one of idolatry, violence and dispersion. The song is a national prophetic warning which does not have to come to pass should Israel heed its words. Israel’s behaviour will elicit emotions of jealousy and anger from God. Jealousy and anger are not sins in and of themselves; they are authentic feelings that God Himself can also feel,...

April 18, 2021 - Third Sunday of Easter - There is a debate of where specifically the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus took place. For some, faith seems diminished by not being able to pinpoint the exact locations. Our confidence in the resurrection, Rev. David Pileggi tells us, does not lie in identifying the place. The proof is found in 2,000 years worth of lives changed by the joy of knowi...

The last act of Moses is to break into song! We always knew he had it in him. The song is formed kike a psalm, using Hebrew-style parallelisms. The song of Deuteronomy 32 assumes that the children of Israel are already in the Promised Land, have succeeded in the conquest but have fallen into idolatry. Thus this final portion of the Last Words of Moses is heavily prophetic. The Song of Moses became...

11 April 2021 - Second Sunday in Easter - Death. If death is normal, then why do we have so much trouble with it? It does not feel normal. We are wired to hate death. Many in the world cope by saying there is nothing after death or by holding on to a fuzzy hope of an uncertain eternal existence. The resurrected Jesus gives us another view of death, says Canon Daryl Fenton. Disciples who encounter...