Spiritcode

The Journey of the Wise Men  Ancient Babylon was home to the first civilization to study the stars, and some wise men called Magi, who were scholars and astronomers noticed something extraordinary in the heavens. For centuries, these wise men had studied the Jewish prophecies passed down during Israel’s captivity in Babylon, and those prophesies included the foretelling of a Messiah. When an unusu...

NEWBORN KING  Caesar Augustus as the emperor of Rome decreed that a census be held so that everyone in the empire could be taxed according to their property ownership and other possessions. They all had to go to their place of birth to be registered so Joseph who was of the house and lineage of King David had to take Mary to Bethlehem, to his family home. The Scriptures had prophesied that the tru...

MESSAGE AND MESSENGERS  Before the fall of Adam and Eve, God the Father's plan was already in motion to bring about a new creation of humanity in the earth combining God and humanity in his Son, Jesus. This was not an afterthought of God after the fall but a divine plan for union of human mortality and Divine immortality (John 11:26), giving humanity a path to oneness with God, and Jesus was fully...

PRINCE OF PEACE  Isaiah prophesied around 720 BC about a time and a place where great light would confront great darkness (Isaiah 9:2). The great light that he writes about occurred with the birth of Jesus, the first Christmas around two thousand years ago, and the place was in the Middle east in a region called Galilee of the Gentiles, where the darkness of the tyranny of the Roman empire had ove...

GOSPEL PARABLES 16 GOOD SAMARITAN The background to this parable is yet another story about the Jewish Pharisees and legalists taking opportunity to appear righteous in front of Jesus for the sake of impressing the crowds. To do this they would pose theological questions to Jesus for which they believed they had a smart answer. A lawyer (an expert in Mosaic law) decided he would ask Jesus a questi...

GOSPEL PARABLES 15 TWO SONS  Today I’m sharing the parable of the Two sons from the Gospel of Matthew (21:28). The background to the parable of the Two Sons is that the Pharisees and Jewish leaders were strongly resisting what Jesus was saying and doing and questioning his authority, as they had with John the Baptist, so Jesus speaks this parable to them, Matthew 21:28 “What do you think of this?...

GOSPEL PARABLES 14 A SERVANT MINDSET  The background to this parable in Luke is Jesus answering his apostles when they asked him to increase their faith. He said to them ‘If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.’ Luke 17:6 Having that kind of spiritual authority no doubt impressed them, and they...

GOSPEL PARABLES 13 THE GOOD SHEPHERD AND DOORKEEPERS We are continuing in the Parables today with the narrative of the shepherd and the sheep and we previously discussed the story of the shepherd who goes out to find the lost sheep and bring it back to the sheepfold. All the Gospel parables come from Matthew and Mark and Luke, however John does record this one and only parable of the Good shepherd...

GOSPEL PARABLES 12 THE ONE LOST SHEEP  This story is about God’s determination to leave ninety-nine sheep to go and find the one sheep that has gone astray and become lost, and to bring it home. The parable is found in both Matthew and in Luke and while the story of the shepherd and the sheep are the same there is a different emphasis on the nature of the lost sheep in each account. In Matthew the...

GOSPEL PARABLES 11 THREE LOAVES AT THE MIDNIGHT HOUR We are continuing in the three stories of the three loaves of bread that reveal what is hidden in these stories about the work of the three Person of the Trinity in our lives, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The background of this parable is that Jesus has just taught his disciples the Lord’s Prayer – the Our Father, urging them to conf...

GOSPEL PARABLES 10 LEAVEN IN THE KINGDOM We are continuing in the parables of the three loaves of bread and we saw recently that there were three stories that contain the phrase three loaves of bread. The Three loaves of bread symbolise the three Persons of the Trinity, The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit. We also found that these stories revealed the nature of each of the Persons of the Trin...

GOSPEL PARABLES 9 A WOMAN GIVEN EAGLES WINGS  Continuing in the Parables of the three loaves of bread, we saw that there were three stories that contain the phrase ‘Three loaves of bread’, and last week we did the story of Abraham and the judgement upon Sodom and Gomorrah. Today I’m looking more fully at the original three loaves parable of Jesus in Matthew 13:33 ‘The kingdom of heaven is like lea...

PARABLES 8 Leaven in three loaves This is the shortest parable of Jesus in the Bible and it occurs in Matthew Ch.13 and in Luke Ch.13. Jesus taught this after he had taught the parables of the mustard seed and the growing seed. Reading now from Matthew. Matthew 13:33 Another parable He spoke to them: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till i...

GOSPEL PARABLES 7 THE GROWING SEED  The parable of the growing seed is only found in the Gospel of Mark, and it comes after the Parable of the Sower who sows seed on four different types of soil – the wayside and the rocky ground and the thorny ground and the good soil. It follows the same Kingdom theme that sets the overall framework of the seed as being the word of God and the soil being our hea...

GOSPEL PARABLES 6 THE MUSTARD SEED  This parable comes after the parable of the Sower and the seed in the three Gospels of Matthew Ch.13 and Mark Ch.7 and Luke Ch.13. It follows the same Kingdom theme that sets the overall framework of the seed as being the word of God and the soil being our hearts of faith. Jesus told his disciples that if they did not understand that truth they would not underst...

PARABLE OF THE HUMAN DIVINE SPIRIT BARRIER  Today we are revisiting the last parable that we looked at where Jesus was describing the four types of soil that the Sower sowed the seed into, symbolising the four states of the human heart in receiving and understanding and acting upon God’s word to us. Seed was sown by the wayside, some on stony places, some on thorny ground and some on good soil.  T...

GOSPEL PARABLES 5 THE PARABLE OF THE SOWER  We have come again to the place where the three Gospels all write about the same parable and it is about Jesus teaching the parable of the Sower. (Matthew 13:3 Mark 4:1–9 Luke 8:4). Matthew 13:2 Great multitudes had gathered to Jesus, so that He got into a boat and sat down and the whole multitude stood on the shore. Then He spoke many things to them in...

GOSPEL PARABLES 4 THE FIG TREE The next parable that Jesus taught while he was still in Galilee is recorded in Luke Chapter twelve and it is about a fig tree that had not borne any fruit for three years and the owner of the vineyard had ordered the vinedresser to have it cut down.  Luke 13:6 And he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it an...

GOSPEL PARABLES 3 BUILDING BIGGER BARNS  We have been reading in chronological order the Gospel parables that are common to Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and there are also some that are only recorded in two of the three Gospels. And the next small group of parables that come in chronological order that we will do are only found in Luke. Today, we are looking at a parable in Luke 12, where Jesus teache...

GOSPELS PARABLES 2 BUILDING ON ROCK OR SAND Matthew 7:24 Luke 6:46 The next parable that Jesus taught was about a man who either builds a house upon a rock or builds his house upon the sand. Matthew 7:24 Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat o...

GOSPEL PARABLES 1 SALT AND LIGHT  We have mentioned that there was a turning point in the public ministry of Jesus where because of his influence and miracle working power, he had become Public Enemy Number One, posing a threat to the Jewish leadership and also to the Roman Empire.  Up to this point we have been studying the major events of his ministry which was mostly in Galilee and after his ba...

GOSPELS 17 THE TRANSFIGURATION The turning point in the public ministry of Jesus where he now becomes Public Enemy Number One was the message of Jesus to the disciples about taking up the cross. He had said he was going to the cross and now that journey begins. He had become an enemy to the Jewish leaders, and many of his followers had turned away from him. His influence over his followers include...

GOSPELS 16 TAKE UP YOUR CROSS  In the three Gospels of Matthew and Mark and Luke, (Matthew 16:21 Mark 8:31; Luke 9:21), after Jesus declares that he is the rock upon which he would build his church, he straightaway tells his disciples not to talk to anyone about that fact that he is the Christ, and he then says, ‘I must suffer many things at the hands of the Jewish leaders and be rejected by them...

GOSPELS 15 UPON THIS ROCK I WILL BUILD MY CHURCH In the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, after the feeding of the five thousand and Jesus declaring Himself the Bread from heaven, Jesus and the disciples travelled to Caesarea Philippi, a Roman colony near Syria and Lebanon. This affluent, idolatrous area, devoid of Jewish crowds and synagogues, was an unusual place for Jesus to visit, but he had...

GOSPELS 14 BLOOD COVENANT In Gospels 14 we will continue in the Bread narrative that we looked at in Gospels 13 in the Gospel of John and Chapter six where Jesus said that he was the Bread of Life. And just as we eat bread and take bread into ourselves to sustain and energise our natural life, we take the Spiritual life of Jesus into us by faith through the Holy Spirit, to sustain and energise our...