Chalmers' Blog

Teaching Leviticus

Leviticus, for some, is a difficult book. I’ve heard it described, I think by Tim Challies, as the book where Bible reading plans go to die. People start the year with enthusiasm and the desire to read the Bible in a year. Starting at Genesis things go well until Leviticus where it gets complicated. The book is full of talk about animal sacrifices, different kind of offerings and laws for the worship of the Old Covenant nation of Israel. But Leviticus is glorious! It’s not a book I’ve preached from much, but one I plan to preach from soon, Lord willing. But how exactly can you teach a book like Leviticus?

Saturday Snippets (July 1)

As well as reading a lot of books, I also read a ton of articles every week. Here are some of the articles that I’ve read recently and have found interesting, helpful, challenging and encouraging. I hope that they will be the same for you, my dear readers…

A plea for partnership beyond the surface

Over the last few weeks and months I’ve been thinking a lot about partnership, particularly partnership and what that looks like among churches. Often you’ll hear Pastors speak about partnership and how different churches work together for the good of the gospel. Sometimes those partnerships look like joint services, joint evangelistic endeavours or sharing resources about a particular topic or issue in society. All of those things are great and most certainly have their place!

Saturday Snippets (June 24)

You will be hated, just make sure it’s for the right reasons…

The Christian world is a funny place, especially as you view the Christian world online and how Christians interact with each other and with non-Christians. The thing that I find fascinating is that there are two sides (extremes, although that word seems a bit, well… extreme), on the one hand there are Christians who don’t seem to understand why the world is so against the Christian faith and on the other there are Christians who seem to love the fact that they’re being ‘persecuted’. Neither of these positions is helpful. The first doesn’t seem to understand the reality of what Jesus says in John 15:18-25, that Christians will be hated and face hostility. The second doesn’t quite understand that the only reason the world should hate us is because of Christ.

Life with Jesus, what does that look like?

Someone becoming a Christian is a wonderful miracle! God, by His Spirit, has brought someone who was dead in their sins and trespasses to be alive in Christ that is great news! But what next? I’ve often heard people say that when they became Christians they were given a Bible and just told to follow Jesus. That’s good advice, but it’s lacking in substance, because a new Christian has no idea what that actually means! We need to focus on following Jesus’ command, to go and make disciples not just converts. We need to disciple people, walk with them in their faith, be examples to them of what it means to follow Jesus and help them grow in their love for the Lord, His Word, His people and the lost. But how?