Neh 12:1-43 As a young Christian reading the gospels, I sometimes wondered about the emphasis in them on healing sick people and raising the dead, when I thought the point was that Jesus came to deal with sin and make…

Neh 11:1-36 A friend of mine was part of a growing church with wonderful relationships and a sense of belonging. However, given its growth, the leadership eventually decided to split the group and start a new church-plant with some key…

Neh 9:38; 10:1-39 A month or so after a Billy Graham crusade, someone in my youth group who ‘went forward’ was expressing her disappointment. The initial glow from her decision had faded and she wondered where God was. She felt…

Neh 9:26-37 A generation or two ago, the Church was at pains to emphasise the great truth re-discovered by the Reformation that we are not saved by works and can add nothing to the finished work of Christ that redeemed…

Neh 9:16-25 When I taught Old Testament, my students often started out with grave reservations about this part of the Bible. God seemed harsh and unrelenting to them, even vindictive. Yet, by the end of their studies, their perspective often…

Neh 9:9-15 Once my husband and I were driven by our host to an event in a city that we did not know. Our driver was not entirely sure of his direction and his wife, mother-in-law, and Siri were all…

Neh 9:6-8 When trying to gauge what a church is like, worship songs are often as revealing as the sermon. Sadly, many contemporary Christian songs express how confused, wounded and lost we feel in the world and emphasise God coming…

Neh 9:1-5 When God called me to Himself, I had little understanding of sin. I was only fifteen at the time, from a Christian home, so I struggled to feel a sense of guilt over wrongs I had done or…

Neh 8:13-18 Who hasn’t experienced the joy when our circumstances or an event brought home to us the meaning of a passage in new ways? Suddenly we realised the significance of what we read so that a dry portion of…

Neh 8:9-12 A friend of mine hates birthdays. Every year reminds her of the passing of time, of the fact that she is still single at 45 when she longs to be married. Birthdays for her are a time to…