A couple of weeks ago I was asked to preach on Psalm 135 at my home church. Although I no longer have time to write daily bible study notes, I thought I’d share it here in a few posts this week, since I found it to be more thought-provoking than it appeared on first reading.
Psalm 135 starts off with a call to praise God.
Continue reading135:1 Praise the LORD! [Hebrew: Hallelujah!]
Praise the name of the LORD
I’m on day three of my celebration of the 40th anniversary of the greatest musical ever written. Over the past two days, we’ve looked at the stories of Jean Valjean and Javert: how they each responded differently to God’s grace. Today, we expand our understanding of salvation beyond the individual and look at the bigger picture.
Continue readingI’m celebrating the 40th anniversary of the greatest musical ever written. Yesterday, we looked at the story of Jean Valjean: how he was shown undeserved mercy, and responded to that by sharing that same kindness to others, no matter what it cost him. He “lived up to” the grace he had received.
Today, we look at another character, with a completely different response to God’s grace. The policeman, Javert.
Continue readingLes Misérables—the greatest musical ever written—turns 40 this year. I first saw it when it premiered in Australia a couple of years later, on a year 10 elective music excursion with my now-wife. And in a few days, the anniversary “arena spectacular” opens in Sydney. Yes, I have tickets.
The reason it has maintained its place at the top of my ranking for the past four decades is that I don’t just appreciate it on a musical level. And before you make your own judgement on that, ensure that it’s the original 1980s score you’re listening to, not the insipid arrangement of the 2012 movie that robbed it of much of its character, and that the part of Javert is at least 30-odd foot away from being grunted by Russell Crowe. Yes, I have strong opinions.
It’s not just the music that makes it great; it’s the theology of the story. So I thought I’d mark the 40 year anniversary with three posts about how the gospel is central to the plot of both the musical and the Victor Hugo novel on which it’s based. Whether you’re an old fan like me, or someone encountering it for the first time, I hope it helps you appreciate the richness of some of its themes.
We begin today with the main character, Jean Valjean.
Continue readingThe past few years have witnessed a steady stream of high-profile church leaders being removed from leadership as patterns of abuse, impropriety, and pride have been brought to light. And there are likely more to come, along with many others whose profiles are not prominent enough to gain attention. It’s not just the leaders themselves who are in the spotlight, but also the churches whose culture tolerated such behaviour as long as it brought “success.”
It’s enough to make a godly person think twice when considering a call to pastoral ministry. Why would I want to be a part of that? Is that how pastors—or at least, effective pastors—inevitably end up?
Continue readingLast week, I looked at Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and how it encouraged us to view opposition from and rejection by the wider world honourable in God’s eyes. This week, I thought I’d take a look at what else Jesus has to say about responding to hostility.
Multiple times throughout Matthew’s Gospel—which was written to a maligned and rejected minority group of Jesus-followers—we see Jesus stressing the inevitability of persecution[1] and hatred. Nowhere do we find this more strongly than in chapter 10:
Continue readingAdapted from Tim MacBride, To Aliens and Exiles: Preaching the New Testament as Minority-Group Rhetoric in a Post-Christendom World (Cascade, 2020), 163-67. Used with publisher’s permission.
Matthew 5:11 “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.”
While Christians in the West can’t presently claim “persecution” in its narrow sense, there are plenty of times we’re insulted, misrepresented, and ostracised because of our faith. More so now than perhaps in recent generations. Yet as long as it is because of our faith—rather than because we’re being insensitive jerks—then Jesus says we’re “blessed.” More than that: he says our response should be to rejoice:
Continue readingThis video (and transcript below) illustrates the importance of cultural background in understanding the New Testament. For more, enrol in the Bible Overview subjects at Morling College, as part of an undergraduate or graduate certificate.
We’re looking at a short passage near the end of Philippians (4:10-20). It’s a passage that’s all about gift-giving and receiving – and the cultural expectations and obligations associated with it. All about who owes what.
Continue readingThis article originally appeared on the Morling College blog in July 2020.
The monologue sermon gets plenty of negative press in Christian circles these days; some of it deserved. Preachers routinely go longer than their congregation’s attention span, perhaps overestimating their ability to hold interest, or being too busy to invest the extra time it takes to be sharp and to the point. Further, our culture now expects more opportunity for comment and interaction, and rightly values a plurality of voices in any communication. And since COVID-19, several months of online sermons have, for some, highlighted dissatisfaction with the traditional model.
But before we consign the monologue sermon to the dustbin of history, I want to look at some of its strengths.
Continue readingThis is an article I wrote for the students at Morling, at the start of semester 2, 2022. I’ve posted it here as I think it applies to far more than just study…
If at some point last semester you asked yourself, “why am I so tired?”, you’re not alone. Emerging from pandemic lockdowns, many people have found reengaging with the routines of in-person life to be more exhausting than before. Some of it may simply be that we became used to fewer interactions with others, and just need some time to build up our “social fitness” to its pre-pandemic levels. Or it may be due to unhelpful habits we developed during lockdown in areas like eating, drinking, and sleeping.
Continue reading
timmacbride.com 