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Bern Leckie and Owen Lynch share thoughts and feelings about the second book of Chronicles from chapter 17 to the end. The big theme seems to be what makes a good leader for God’s people. The best ones seemed to make a point of seeking God and doing what he commanded, and they also tended to support or help restore the temple in Jerusalem so that all people could find it possible to find God when...

Do we view God as distant, or close and loving? David Jennings shares his experience of encountering God for himself and in the lives of people he has worked with. Descriptions in the Bible about the movement and power of the Holy Spirit can tell us what believers can expect from God and why. Do we need to do anything special to be loved by God? How do we get to meet with God, feel and know what h...

Bern Leckie and Owen Lynch share thoughts and feelings about Chronicles from book 1 chapter 22 to book 2 chapter 16. It’s become very noticeable that this account of Israel’s history has a different perspective and purpose from other versions of the same stories in the Bible. Some people like David and Solomon look like better versions of themselves, but why? Other books were probably written to w...

Bern Leckie and Owen Lynch share thoughts and feelings about the opening chapters 1 to 21 of the first book of Chronicles. A bit like Deuteronomy, this book is a retelling of familiar stories from a different perspective, and this time the special purpose of the book might make it look like the Bible has contradictions within itself. What if it does? Bern shares discomfort about this idea, coming...

Are we born broken or blessed? Claire Lynch looks at how teaching about “original sin” developed, and how the Bible tells a different story about God, the nature of life and the original goodness and blessing God gave to his creation, overflowing from his own goodness. Could we have misunderstood this because we’ve been brought up to seek rewards for things we have done well, and ended up believin...

Bern Leckie and Owen Lynch share thoughts and feelings about the final chapters of the books of Deuteronomy (20 to 34) and Proverbs (27 to 31). In lots of ways, we might not appreciate the revision sections of old laws. There are lots of questions about how they were conceived, what they meant to people, and what - if anything - they might mean to us today. What can we gain from understanding them...

How do we get help from God? Is it only when we ask, or does God get involved and help us all the time? This talk looks at times in life when we need help, and not just comfort, and the hope that believers through history have found in Psalm 121, which starts, "I lift up my eyes to the mountains— where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth." The Bi...

Bern Leckie and Owen Lynch share thoughts and feelings about the first 19 chapters of the book of Deuteronomy. This name means that it’s a repeat of the law described in the first few books of the Bible. Why is it there? The perspective isn’t quite the same as the first time this law was described, and seeing something from more than angle can make a huge difference to how we understand what it is...

From the series ‘A community of hope’ on the book Acts of the Apostles. How does life with Jesus shape us? Owen Lynch looks at the range of people described in Acts of the Apostles who became and grew as believers together. Between them, there were many roots of identity. Were they forced to abandon their sense of who they were, or was God deepening their relationships in their communities?

Bern Leckie and Owen Lynch share thoughts and feelings about the New Testament letters to the Hebrews, the Thessalonians, Titus and Philemon. What does faith look like for Jewish believers in Jesus as their promised anointed saviour? Hebrews is the name we give to a letter written to the first such believers, and it connects their inherited identity, stories and hopes with the new life they discov...

Bern Leckie and Owen Lynch share thoughts and feelings about the final chapters of the book of Isaiah and Psalms 79 to 89, some of which reflect how people shared difficult experiences with God. What does it mean to rely on God, and why is this important? Israel suffered through much of its history. While maintaining religious and legal systems which made it look and feel like they relied on God,...

Bern Leckie and Owen Lynch share thoughts and feelings about the chapters 28 to 49 of the book of Isaiah. When was the last time you thought about how amazing it is that people - including us - can hear from God? How can we know we hear from the real God, and don’t just replay our own ideas about life? Isaiah gives lots of guidance on this to people who desperately needed to know the reality of Go...

Bern Leckie and Owen Lynch share thoughts and feelings about the first 27 chapters of the book of Isaiah. Can we imagine the horror and trauma of national exile? How would we feel and what would we do to try and feel better about ourselves and our future if it happened to us? From a distance, we could look at Isaiah’s words of God’s judgement and correction to Israel as a history lesson we can eas...

Bern Leckie and Owen Lynch share thoughts and feelings about Paul’s guidance to the church in his letters 2 Corinthians, Philippians and Colossians. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians had been harsh, strict and apparently hurtful to some in that church in some ways, and in this follow-up, we get to see more of Paul’s heart - what did he really want for them? It looked like people had been argu...

Bern Leckie and Owen Lynch share thoughts and feelings about the end of the story in the books of Kings, along with Psalms 73 to 78. The big, tragic message of this part of the story is that God’s people ended up exiled from their promised land, and the main reason given for this was their turning away from God. Looking at how this happened, there are some intriguing details which might give us in...

Bern Leckie and Owen Lynch share thoughts and feelings about the middle of the story in the books of Kings. History is often told in terms of leaders, what they did and how their power influenced the world, but in this part of a story of corrupt leadership, the focus moves to prophets Elijah and Elisha. They were given power from God to help ordinary, suffering people, and to demonstrate the impor...

What it is like to follow Jesus? Dan Green looks at Simon Peter, whose story and character show several relatable sides to this. Peter’s choice to follow and believe in Jesus was remarkable, given his life experience, but maybe not as much as Jesus’ choice to call and believe in Peter first. Peter’s response to Jesus involved much practical learning, faith risks, new experiences and changes of min...

Bern Leckie and Owen Lynch share thoughts and feelings about the first part of the book of Kings. It can be hard to know what to make of these stories of life after King David. Characters like Solomon are awesome and sometimes live in ways we would love to have part of, but they are also complex and flawed. Drawing moral conclusions from what they say and do, and what happens to them, is usually t...

Bern Leckie and Owen Lynch share thoughts and feelings about Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians and both of his letters to a young leader, Timothy. After stressing to believers in Christ the importance of freedom from the law, why does Paul seem to be setting a lot of rules for the church in Corinth? Positioned at the intersection of lands and cultures, there were competing voices of authority...

What do we expect from people joining a journey of faith? Owen Lynch looks at the disputes which arose in the early church around following the Jewish law, why this was important to many people, and why the opening of God’s kingdom to all was a challenging, counter-intuitive idea to them.  Two key leaders, Peter and Paul, found themselves in dispute, but the story of Acts, and their letters w...

Bern Leckie and Owen Lynch share thoughts and feelings about several “minor” prophets with major messages in the Old Testament, as well as Psalms 66 to 72. We often think of the word “righteous” as quite religious or worthy in a traditional way, but when God’s prophets called people to righteousness, it looks like the major concern was how people were suffering because of a lack of social justice...

What might be stopping us from asking for everything God wants to give us? David Jennings looks at his experiences of scary situations, worries about losing control, and the stories he had been told about missionaries suffering. There is likely to be a cost when we trade what we wanted for what God wants, but could we find that it’s better not to settle, or let our busyness or current plans get in...

Bern Leckie and Owen Lynch share thoughts and feelings about the Old Testament prophets Hosea and Joel, and Psalms 52 to 65. What does God want most from people? Some parts of the Bible make it look like religious practice is the most important thing, while others make following rules in the rest of life seem vital over everything else.  But when God spoke through prophets about how life had...

Bern Leckie and Owen Lynch share thoughts and feelings about wisdom in the Old Testament including Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs and Proverbs chapters 19 to 26. Is the Bible an instruction book? It seems vital to review this before considering the wisdom literature, because that will shape our view on the role of what is written there. If the Bible is more of a conversation than a code to decipher,...

What does God need to do to change our minds? Owen Lynch follows the story of the first believers in “The Way” of Jesus and sees how his call for them to adopt a new perspective - what is often translated “repent” in our Bibles - might happen more than once, and could take dramatic forms. Peter had a vision from God which not only changed his mind but changed how people were accepted into faith an...