Bible Talks: Recent Episodes
Stockton Anglican
From giggling teenagers to blushing brides, from the poor to the rich, from the young to the old, all have found something in the song of songs to warm the heart and redden the cheeks. Come with us for a brief overview of this timeless book, The Song of Songs.
Paul shows us in Acts 27 what it means to be Brave, Confident, Stable, An Encourager and Trusted. All of this we too have in Christ, lets lean in and see how we might imitate Paul as he imitates Christ.
Acts 26 is Pauls silent sermon to the line of Kings who opposed Jesus from his birth to his death. These Kings to which King Agrippa is the last, choose power and lost their souls. What might we choose?
We Christians, we can get a bit uptight about lots of things, and while this can be a good thing, sometimes our stubbornness can blind us to those who need Jesus the most.
Paul asks a group of God fearers that he just meet, if they have received the Holy Spirit, they so No, so Paul shares the Gospel with them, to which they respond, receive the Holy Spirit and start speaking in tongues and prophesying. Is this how we should do ministry today?
The skill and flexibility that Paul demonstrates in Acts 17 is to be admired. His preaching of the Gospel to be studied and copied, his willingness to accept anyone, jew, gentile and especially women is to be commended.
A demon possessed girl, an exorcism, Paul and Silis in prison, a miracle earthquake and a yet another family saved for the Kingdom of God. Acts 16 has it all.
Is Scripture on equal footing to Reason, Tradition and/or Experience? And why should we sit under the word of God? Acts 15.
Everyone wants to be the main character, but the truth is this. We can’t carry that kind of weight and we were never ment to.
God loves you. Be honest with him. Ask for his help to identify the sin that may be behind much of your trouble, your burdens and even your sicknesses. James 5
Words can be powerful, poisonous and polluted. Join us as Dr Col Harrison takes us through the power of words in James 3.1-12.
This gift is about the Holy Spirit of God, enabling us to grown his kingdom through the service of others. It is about getting our hearts right before God. It is about a group of people that enable the Church to grow and thrive. Lets be encouraged by the gift of service.
Is it when a preacher waves their arms and half the crowd falls over, with catchers ready behind them? Or is it a steady and constant life of asking and seeking God in prayer? Prayers for things that are beyond our ability and control? Lets find out.
The Holy Spirit is a spirit of truth, wisdom and understanding. Through him we can argue for the faith, we can stand up to opposition, we can encourage and we can guide the Church.
Make no mistake, God can give this gift to anyone. You can be rich or poor and you might not even know the gospel all that well and you can still receive this gift, in fact you may already have it.
The gifts of the Spirit are for Christians in community. For the building up and the encouraging of others and to be manifest as an expression of love.
Are the gifts of the Spirit for us today? What does Spiritual abuse look like? How do I receive the gifts? Join us for an overview of Spiritual gifts and to the start of our new series.
The greatest battles are not physical. In fact physical battles are nothing, they are a mere discomfort, an inconvenience when compared to Spiritual battles. For the Spirit drives culture, change and eternity, and battles in these spheres truely matter.
Our next chapter of Nehemiah is a lesson in leadership, in vision, mission, trust, opposition and delegation. There is something here for everyone as we seek to do the mission of Christ on earth. (Nehemiah 2.11-3.12)
God takes great delight in using us to answer our own prayers. I think this teaches that prayer is often like that old saying. You can give a person a fish and feed them for a day, or you can teach them to fish and you have given them not just food for a life time, but you have given them meaning, purpose, hope, resilience, joy, you have given them a story. Zero to hero, that’s Nehemiah.
George Whitfield, John Wesley, the Hebrides, the Toronto Blessing and the Billy Graham Crusades are just a few examples of great revivals. Meaning, what we see in Jonah is nothing new or out the ordinary. God in times of stress and trouble has been turning the hearts of people towards himself throughout all of human history. The take home.. Pray for revival today, continue to work on your own heart and rest assured that God will do a great thing.
What will it take for us to turn to the Lord, to trust Him, to lean on Him and to receive His love?
In what ways are we ignoring God? How are we limiting our own transformation before God? And whats the take home? God is not passive when it comes to calling us to repentance. Jonah 1
Struggling with sin? Struggling with the sin of others? This message from Galatians 6 is for you.
Love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control are wonderful gifts and they are yours, they are already yours, but do not let it go to your head. That’s Galatians 5 in a nutshell!
In Galatians 4, Paul warns of those pushing the old ways, those waiting to deny the freedom we have in Christ.. Those wanting to go back to the so called “good old days”.
No this is not prosperity doctrine, or name it and claim it theology. This is Paul teaching in the strongest terms that we receive Christ by faith and that our salvation is Christ plus nothing. (Galatians 3)
The preverbal hits the fan as Paul rebukes Peter for promoting an inward looking faith, one that makes a mockery of the Gospel. Sadly this mistake is nothing new as scores of Christians today, either exclude themselves or are excluded from gathering under Christ. Come and see where Paul takes us in Galatians 2.
In Galatians 1, Paul blows his own trumpet, or does he? Is his authority really a divine authority? Is his message really a divine message, one received by revelation from Jesus Christ himself? Join us for the first in a series on the challenging book of Galatians.
Today we are not only challenged with the most difficult of teachings, lover the sinner but we are given the tools to expose the true colours of the ungodly. The grumblers, the fault-finders, those who follow their own evil desires, boast about themselves and flatters others to their own advantage. (See Jude 1:24-25)
Today we challenge culture with the word of God. Join me in part 1 of a 2 part series in the book of Jude.
What does my life mean? why does it matter? what’s the point of it all? Are just some of the questions we attempt to tackle today as we open the book of Ecclesiastes.
In Titus 3 Paul details for us what God’s way looks like, what our way looks like and how God moved to shift us from our way to His way.
Titus 3
How do we respond to the evils of our culture? How do we respond to the evils we see in the Church? How do we live the freedom with have in Christ. Just some of the questions we seek to answer as we reflect on Paul’s letter to Titus.
What does it look like to be compassionate? Why does it matter? Why doesn’t Jesus have sympathy or empathy for the crowds? What is compassion? Why does it matter? Matthew 14:13-21
Is Heaven our greatest desire? Is Heaven just a carrot that we never receive? Is Hell just the big stick of religion? Are we every good enough? Just a few questions we attempt to answer as we unpack Jesus’ teachings on Heaven and the weeping and gnashing of teeth. Matthew 13:44-58
We ought to approach our gathering as the people of God's Kingdom with great celebration and good cheer...
What does it look like to tell people about Jesus, what can we expect and why should we do it? Matthew 10:24-39
Sinners welcome would be clickbait, but sinners only, this is the truth of our coming to Christ, of our Salvation and Sanctification. Matthew 9:1-26
Is the great commission to be taken seriously? Is it rather a matter of context? Is it possibly an insertion into the gospel narrative by the early church?
Matthew 28:16-20
We can take pride in the Spirit of God for he makes his church discernably different.
Acts 2:1-21
The coming of the kingdom of God is like the changing of the tide, it is slow, deliberate, and nothing can stop it.
Acts 1:1-14
Loving God is the most moral, most right, and most good thing that a person can do.
John 14:15-21
False teachers devastate, destroy and divide those who follow them, in Jesus day it was the Pharisees, today it is the social media influencers. Come with us as we unpack what a true leader looks like.
Come with us into 1 Peter 1 as we talk through fear, death, love, suffering and Jesus.
1 Peter 1
The message of Easter is powerful and challenges us to embrace and receive the new life and forgiveness of Christ.
Transactional love has all the trimmings of real love. For a time, it can meet our needs, for a time it can make us happy, and for a time it can make us the centre of another’s universe. But eventually, when it comes down to it, this kind of love is narcissistic for it is blind of its own desires and demands, it is blind to it’s own sense of entitlement and it is a love that can never satisfy. This is what we observe in Judas as we unpack Matthew 27.1-10.
As Abram starts to become the man of faith that we know him to be, we realise that it doesn’t matter what we are going through — or indeed what battles we are fighting — if we are in Christ, for the best is yet ahead of us.
Genesis 13-14
The Story of Abram isn’t about the gift, it isn’t about pragmatics or even about justification, it is about a blessing that can survive the brokenness of humanity.
The call to mission requires us to follow the command of our Lord to go even when it requires us to make nonsensical sacrifices.
In today’s message we work through the following sections and questions:
THE TABLE OF NATIONS
Why do we live separated as nations?
THE SCATTERING AT BABEL
Why can’t we live together as one?
THE AFTERMATH OF BABEL
What happened after the scattering at Babel?
THE AFTER FLOOD ANCESTORS
How did the ancestors of God’s people live after the flood?
THE CALLING OF GOD
How did God’s people come into relationship with Yahweh?
Genesis 10:1-12:8
The story of Ham discovering his fathers nakedness appears really odd. But if we are prepared to lean in we can discover much..
1- Todays story is far more complex than it appears.
2- the fruit of sin is self slavery.
3- Noah is not Jesus.
Genesis 9:18-28
Even in our disobedience, the grace of God is one step ahead, reaching out to us with a hand of forgiveness in order that we would be brought back into his love, peace, and blessings.
Genesis 6:9-22
We cannot blame the powers of the Spiritual realm for all the wrong we experience in our daily lives, instead the book of Genesis directs us to take personal responsibility for the mess we see in the world around us.
That is to say: we can’t blame fallen angels for the hate and despair; we can’t blame Satan when we give into temptation, we can’t blame God for allowing suffering and death; nor can we blame our wives…
Genesis 6:1-8
We all face the same temptations and pitfalls of the first humans in our daily lives. What can we do to resolve this problem in our lives?
Genesis 3:1-7
The final section of the creation story ultimately requires us to talk a whole lot about sex, sexuality, and the meaning of life.
Genesis 1:26-2:3
The desire for peace, for rest, and for a good creation remain in the heart of every human being. As such it should be no surprise that we find our created origins in such a place.
Genesis 1:1-23
Today we unpack Psalm 40 and its fulfilment in John 1. It is a thousand year journey from David’s song to Jesus the lamb of God.
Psalm 40
John 1:29-42
How do we manage anxiety and how do we step into God’s plan despite our anxieties.
Luke 2:41-52
There are three stories of life that we must share: that of Christmas; that of Easter; and that of our personal hope centred on Jesus.
Matthew 1:18-25
God is love, is probably one of the most used and abused passages in all of Scripture. Why is it used? Why is it abused? 1 John 4
It would be a mistake to take John literally, but equally it would be a mistake not to heed his warning. 1 John 3:11-24
Are we to be fanatics as Christians? Do we really believe that people are lost without Christ? Are we too pursue them with everything we have? How far is too far? 1 John 2.15-29
If forgiveness is a matter of grace, a gift from God. Does it really matter if we sin? 1 John 2.1-14
When we put aside our differences and lean into Christ and the work of his kingdom, sin becomes but a footnote, replaced with unity, encouragement and endurance, gifts from God. Romans 15:14-16:27
The Church is a family and all families have their disagreements. Today we look at how not to fall into the traps of judgement, hate and evil. (Romans 14)
Worship done God's way was exemplified by Jesus the Messiah, who calls us to shape our worship after the pattern of his life.
Every time we utilise something that we do not fully understand we are excising faith. Romans 10-11
Paul’s torment for his fellow Jew’s makes for difficult reading. So how do we respond to those around us who do not know Christ? Romans 9
Does God really do everything for our good? Does God really love us? Does God really give all things to those He loves? What does persecution really look like? SO much and more in todays passage from Romans 8.31-39.
Daddy is a title that we reserve for fathers that truely know us. Fathers that we are on relationship with and almost unbelievably God invites us to call him Daddy. (Romans 8:1-17)
In an almost throw away line, Paul gives us the reason for human existence, the very meaning of life. Romans 7
When it all gets to much, when we fail, when we succeed, when we struggle. In all of it, the constant should not be guilt, shame or pride, the constant should and must be our praise and worship of our great God. Romans 6:15-23
Since Adam, death reigns like a tyrant over all that walk the earth, but those who believe in Christ, those who receive God’s grace in him, reign in life beyond.
For anyone going through something and hearing that there is a sunny side to suffering is about as helpful as putting a screen door on a submarine, except when it isn’t.
What must change for us to be as bold as the disciples in our witness and in our sharing of the Gospel?
It is Easter Sunday, the time when we remember the resurrection, the life, and the faith. So much to be thankful for and to rejoice about.
The Apostle Paul sets the record straight on what is required of us in order to enter the Kingdom of God, and what it means to be a “Good Christian.”
What promises of God are we doubting? What impossible thing of God do we continue to question today? Who have we given up on?
Romans is full of sinful patterns and today it is no different, for today we have the pattern and sin of double standards laid bare.
Paul focuses in on sin that is far more subtle, more serious, more insidious and more widespread than anything mentioned thus far.
We have lost the wonder, the beauty, the trust, and the joy of a man and a woman coming together for life.
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. This is the book of Romans greatest offence and the topic of this introductory message.
Acts 17 shows us how God’s people have been formed, chosen, and known by his name, and that the continuing culture of God’s people must be derived from our very name: the name of Christ. No other name should determine the course and culture of God’s people in the world except the name of Jesus.
Acts 17
What are our rituals? Why do we do them? Are they really helpful or are we using them to avoid real change?
Perseverance in suffering, and peace in anxiety is made possible by rejoicing in the Lord.
Our experience of joy as believers comes from our unity with Christ, rather than anything the world has to offer us.
Our journey to advance the gospel in the present, will bring us great joy through the good work of Christ in us.
Join Keith Wilson as he takes us through a Biblical view of what the Antichrist is and isn't.
Jesus takes the cross from a symbol of suffering and shame to one of beauty and freedom.
Christianity was never supposed to be a movement that we justify, it was supposed to be a faith that justifies us.