Paul's Podcast

Most of us would agree that a good teacher can make a big difference. Have you had one before? Maybe at school as a kid... What about the impact of a bad teacher? Ever had one of those? Much more significant than the experiences we had in school growing up, how much more important is it to have a good teacher when it comes to the things of God? Today Paul points the finger at these false teachers...

The average person spends about a third of their life at work. One study revealed that's - on average - 90,000 hours over a lifetime. Our work can provide a great opportunity to be distracted from God's work, or it can provide a great opportunity for us to jump into it. Which will it be...? Find out more about us here - crossroadslondon.org

We have a bread maker at home. It has a timer, so, sometimes, on particularly delightful evenings, Emma puts the ingredients in and sets the timer so the bread starts baking in the morning before anyone is awake. This means the bread bakes for 3 hours AS we’re waking up. We are greeted with a perfect, full, rounded loaf in the morning - that tastes delicious - and the smell, my goodness... This br...

Believers aren't lemmings. The thing with lemmings is they migrate and they can swim. So as people observed this, they would literally see lemmings following each other over hills and off cliffs and into the sea. The myth became that lemmings were so foolish, they would follow their leader even if it meant walking into certain catastrophe... hence the phrase “like lemmings to the sea.” Though...

We know we should be subject to our authorities. We know we should esteem very highly our authorities within the church. Here we learn that we should count our authorities in the church that do a good job worthy of double honour. How do we practically do that ? Find out more about us here - crossroadslondon.org

Last week we learnt that pretty much 9 times out of 10, we can get what we need by just doing the basics: reading our bible, being in prayer, serving through our local church, looking after ourselves physically... Occasionally though, life does throw something at us that we can't deal with ourselves. We need help. (This might be a financial situation, a work situation, a health situation what...

Us believers say with pride: "true Christianity is not a religion, it is a relationship." And that’s true and it is wonderful. Thanks to the decision we made about Jesus, we get to enjoy a relationship with God. But, we can forget, that one of the clearest ways a great relationship with God is demonstrated is through our relationships with other people, especially other Christians. What...

Two weeks ago we said, as concerning The Good Fight of Faith, to win it we have to stay in it. Last week we learnt that to win it, we have to train for it. This week we'll see that to win it, we have to focus on it. What does this mean and how do we do that? Let's take a look ... Find out more about us here - crossroadslondon.org

Let me start by showing you a training schedule that will benefit your faith... ...and we look at this and, though it may well be a benefit to our faith, we think "eurgh! That looks less like a relationship with Jesus and more like a week in the workhouse." This highlights a problem to us: often when it comes to godliness, the question we struggle with is not 'how do I train in godl...

Today, we look out on a new battlefront.  We have studied the battle front of doctrine (chapter 1) and the battle front of authority (chapters 2 and 3). Chapters 4, 5 and the first two verses of 6 focus on the battlefront of people. How are we to be with people to ensure success in the fight? Tellingly, the first person we need to put under the spotlight here is not our nosey neighbour, not our fr...

Growing up as kids, we’re always told to ‘behave properly’ in church. Usually this meant keeping quiet, dressing slightly more smartly than we would usually, being polite to people, not mucking around during the songs. Those might be good things! But as we grow up, we realise there might be other behaviours we ought to display 'in church'. What are these other behaviours and why are they...

We have some family chores in our household: Isaac is in waste management, Robin is in hospitality. The boys, of course, want a raise. Like good capitalists, they’re thinking 'if I had a little more money, I could use it really effectively.' The parents, of course, are happy for them to have a raise… but something we want first is to see them be faithful with what is currently on their p...

Today we see that a pastor needs to be proven. He's not the only one... Find out more about us here - crossroadslondon.org

1 Timothy 3:1 This is a true saying, if a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work. Here’s the truth: if a man wants the job of pastor, he wants something very good indeed. Last week we saw that, for a church to Fight the Good Fight of Faith, they need a Fully Qualified pastor. (And we saw 7 things in particular that God expects a pastor to be). This week, the flip-side: 6 things...

"This is a true saying, if a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work." (1 Tim 3:1) If a bishop/pastor is supposed to watch over themselves whilst overseeing the flock, meant to be sharing the gospel with the lost and ministering the word to believers, watching out for wolves whilst cheering on the congregation - how important is it that we get the right man in charge?...

It is easy to identify a successful woman. How? Not because she has a lot of money and is dressed in some kind of power suit... Not because she is forthright and assertive and is reading a book on women in leadership... Not because she is popular and has a lot of attention, especially from men... Not because she is able to complete every job that the world and/or her husband and/or her church thro...

Ever watch a movie right to the end, past the final scene, when you get to the credits? There are a lot of names listed there, those credits roll for a little while… Spielberg is the director, Leonardo di Caprio is the star, supported by Kate Winslet and Billy Zane (why is Titanic my go to movie here?). And then there are many more who contributed, like lighting guy number 2, assistant hairdresser...

Welcome to the second battle front that 1 Timothy deals with: the battle over authority. Authority was an issue in the garden, before the garden, in Ephesus, and in the church today. Just who is the boss? And what should I do about it? Let's find out... Find out more about us here - crossroadslondon.org

Not all competitions are inclusive. Take sumo wrestling for example, probably a few requirements in there that would prevent us fighting sumo effectively. Thankfully, the good fight of faith is not like that. This is a battle anyone can fight well. Today we'll see that any Christian, anywhere, under any circumstances can war a good warfare... we just need to have these 3 things in place... Fi...

Signs we love to see: Buy One Get One Free;  Free Parking;  Train on Time;  Free breakfast bap with every hot drink. These are all positive signs; they are signs we want to see. In terms of our lesson today, we are going to see some more signs that are good ones. More important than getting a free bacon sandwich with our coffee though, these are signs of sound doctrine. These indicators will tell...

Here comes another sermon on the importance of bible doctrine. <Exhales> The bible tells us doctrine is important, but man, do we have to keep going on about it? Can't we have some lessons on heaven, angels or gifts instead, or at least some preaching that will help me with the problems in my life today? The bible is very clear about the importance of doctrine, but sometimes we still ne...

For big cats, often the primary place for them to attack their prey is in the neck. Whatever animal they are facing, they know they can bring it down if they do some damage in that area (like the expression says: 'go for the jugular'). For a Christian, the dangerous animal is the Devil (as a roaring lion, walking about seeking whom he may devour - 1 Peter 5:8); for the Christian, the jug...

Success in war often comes down to the outcomes of particular key battles.  Take the American Civil war, for example. There were a many key battles in there, but two that really influenced the outcome of the war were the battles at Vicksburg and Gettysburg.  Why the history lesson?  The same applies to our spiritual war.  To use Paul's words to Timothy, Christians are supposed to fight the go...

Joy seems to be a bit like a nice red Ferrari - we all want one, but not that many of us seem to get one... So we can be thankful for the book of Philippians, which, as we know from our Tuesday night bible study, has the theme of ‘Joy In The Midst of Suffering’. And one of the things chapter 4 is chiefly concerned with is finding joy in the Lord at all times. We are going to break a few rules toda...

We've finished the book of Haggai! There is a lot of content in these two chapters, so today we are going to step back and summarise what we've learnt. What do we see when we consider the book of Haggai in its entirety? We see that the remnant of Israel had their priorities wrong in 4 areas. We see that, to turn them into faithful builders, Haggai had to get them to re-prioritise in thes...