How to live faithfully for God (2 Samuel 10)
2 Sam 10:1-19 As a young Christian listening to teachings about love, forgiveness and turning the other cheek, I used to be uncomfortable with the impression that Christianity was the religion of the weak and the meek. In many churches…
The challenge of treating a potential rival as a friend (2 Samuel 9)
2 Sam 9:1-13 A church known to me had quite a power struggle over electing a pastor. The man eventually chosen was a charismatic personality, a great preacher with a conservative evangelical theology and a strong leader. Given the earlier…
The right response to a promise-keeping God (2 Samuel 8)
2 Sam 8:1-18 I must admit that the long list of David’s military conquests does not make riveting reading, since the ancient place names and people groups are unfamiliar to most of us. Yet it is an important point in…
Lessons on how to take God’s grace (2 Sam 7:18-29)
2 Sam 7:18-29 All of us, I suspect, have known times when God’s grace reached out and touched our hearts in a special way. It could have been when we first understood how Jesus died to save us, or when…
Why accepting God’s ‘no’ is a better way (2 Sam 7:1-17)
2 Sam 7:1-17 A few years after I started working, I felt the stirring for Christian ministry. An opportunity arose with a mission in the UK reaching out to international students and during my interview, my future supervisor raised the…
How to avoid the root of bitterness (2 Sam 6:12-23)
2 Sam 6:12-23 A pastor once told the story of a friend, who went into Christian ministry. While the friend’s classmates earned big salaries and became high-profile and successful people, he was involved in humble service with little pay and…
How to and how not to approach God (2 Sam 6:1-11)
2 Sam 6:1-11 A church I know through a friend decided on an extensive building project as they were running out of space for Sunday services and other group activities. Out of several proposals, the preferred option of the leadership…
The challenge of living with plenty (2 Samuel 5)
2 Sam 5:1-25 When I got married, a dear friend made me a hanging ornament that had the seven produce of the Promised Land (Deut 8:8) on it. In Deuteronomy, God’s people leave behind the desert to enter a land…
How to overcome temptations of power (2 Samuel 4)
2 Sam 4:1-12 When I was learning to drive, my driving instructor would often show me a particular manoeuvre, let me do it once, then move on to something else. It was rather unsatisfactory as I often did not feel…
God’s will through twists and turns (2 Sam 3:6-39)
2 Sam 3:6-39 When my husband and I were considering moving to New Zealand, we put out feelers about possible job openings for me in theological education, since those opportunities were likely to be scarcer. The initial inquiry led us…