Last month, one of my kids came home with a set of ANZAC Day flash cards he made at school. As at most Australian schools around April, they’d been learning about the sacrifice the ANZACS made in World War One. When most Australian youth and kids think of sacrifice, I reckon they think of ANZAC Day. The ANZACs endured extreme hardship, facing brutal conditions, disease, and heavy casualties, especially in the battles at Gallipoli and on the Western Front. Their sacrifices helped forge a sense of national identity. The theme of sacrifice would also become a key part of Israel’s national identity, Jesus’ mission, and should be key to how we think about our own lives as Christians. In this article, we’ll have a look at the theme of sacrifice in Exodus—what it was and why it was needed—and then turn to consider how this points to Jesus and what it means for us.

This article contains the study questions and answers I’ve written for a youth Bible study on Habakkuk 3. Feel free to use and adapt as you like. My only request is that you don’t ditch the stuff about Jesus. We need to read the Old Testament through a Christ-focused lens.

This article contains the study questions and answers I’ve written for a youth Bible study on Habakkuk 1:12-20. Feel free to use and adapt as you like. My only request is that you don’t ditch the stuff about Jesus.

This article contains the study questions and answers I’ve written for a youth Bible study on Habakkuk 1:1-11. Feel free to use and adapt as you like. My only request is that you don’t ditch the stuff about Jesus.

I recently gave a youth talk that touched on the problem of porn. Here are a few follow-up thoughts to what I said in my talk.

I was just writing a study on Matthew 10:32-42. I came across verses 41-42, which talk about receiving rewards.

41 Whoever welcomes a prophet as a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever welcomes a righteous person as a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward. 42 And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward.

That raised for me the age-old question. What is the reward? Here are a few quick thoughts. Certainly not comprehensive, but hopefully helpful.

This morning, I was reading through Matthew 10 in my Bible reading. In verse 16, Jesus delivers one of his premier mixed metaphors: “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore, be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.” I found the “sheep among wolves” bit fairly easy to wrap my mind around. We are like sheep following our shepherd, Jesus. There are people out there who will oppose the gospel message we’ve been sent by Jesus to preach. These are the wolves. But what about the snakes and doves? I had to pause and think about that.

In the late 90s, the artist Mýa summarised how many of us today think about life and reality in her song “It’s All About Me”:

It's all about me me me me me
Forget about you you you you you

It’s fairly self-indulgent, right? Though not a particularly well-known song these days, it basically captures the “me-mindset” that we all adopt from time to time (if not all the time).

If someone asked you, “Where does God live?”, what would you say? It might sound like an unanswerable question, but it’s a question that the Bible actually answers. From the very beginning, God made it clear that he wanted to dwell with his people. He’s not sitting back in some celestial armchair in the Milky Way watching Netflix while history plays out. He’s not hidden away out of reach. He wants to be with his people. To be among them. To walk with them. Even live in them.

Most people don’t talk about “covenants”. Lawyers and property developers talk about covenants, but other than that, we normally only hear about them when discussing the Bible. In the Bible, a covenant is a deep and binding agreement between two parties. It’s stronger than a contract, but much more personal than a deal. It’s a key way God chose to relate to his people throughout the Bible.

Can you think of any celebrations that have really stuck with you? Maybe a birthday, a family Christmas, a big sporting win, or a school formal. We especially remember those things—and the significance of those things—when they are marked by something. A song, a speech, a cake, a meal. Celebrations help us remember things. Important things. That’s why God gives his people festivals in the Old Testament: to help them remember things, important things. They were like spiritual “stop signs”, giving people a chance to pause, remember and refocus on what truly matters.

If you've ever tried to read through the Old Testament, chances are you’ve hit a wall when you get to Exodus 20 and following and thought, “Soooo… many …  rules.” And you’d be right—there are a lot of laws in the Old Testament. According to Rabbi Moses Maimonides of the 12th century, there are 613 of them. That’s a lot.

It’s New Year’s Eve. This is the year, you tell yourself. This is the year you finally read the Bible all the way through. You’ve bought a new Bible, you’ve got the little stickers with the books of the Bible, and you attach them to your Bible. You’ve even gone and bought a booklet for taking notes. This is the year!

Someone from church just asked me on a connect slip if the apostle Thomas went to India. I’d heard the claim before, but never done the research. Here’s what I’ve been able to gather (and I’ve probably spent too much time on this). Did Thomas go to India? Maybe.

Have you ever wondered what the Israelites ate in the desert for forty years? Someone at church just asked me. Here’s (at least part of) the answer…

Imagine that someone you loved was critically ill. They had been sick for some time and were now at the point of death. Now imagine that there was a doctor who could heal them. You’d be desperate for that doctor’s help, right? You’d be willing to beg that doctor for help. Now imagine that this doctor told you to go away and that your family member would be fine. How would you feel? You’ve seen your loved one experience intense pain. Now, this doctor tells you that everything is just going to be fine, simply because the doctor said so. Would you take him at his word?

New followers of Jesus often make the best evangelists. It wasn’t that long ago that they were without Jesus. Now they’ve met him. Every day, they can clearly taste the difference Jesus makes, and they are busting to let people know.  Once someone has been a follower of Jesus for a while, the enthusiasm can wear off a bit. The practical realities of life can distract us, slow us down, and even wear us down. Sharing Jesus with others becomes a lower priority. But this means we’re now less concerned with a third kind of person: those who have yet to meet Jesus.

Where do you go if you want God to bless you? Where do you go if you want to receive eternal life? Where do you go if you want to worship God? For many Christians, the most obvious answer to this question is “church.” We think that if we go to church, God will bless us. We think that if we go to church, we will receive eternal life. We think that if we go to church, we’ll be able to worship God.

This brings us to the final article in this series, Interrogating the Trinity. So far, we’ve asked, What is God? Who is God? How is God God? When is God? Where is God? Now we’re up to the Why question. I feel like the most fruitful approach to this interrogative is to consider why this all matters. Why does it matter that God is Trinity?

It’s time to return to our series of posts on Interrogating the Trinity. In previous articles, we’ve considered questions such as What is God?, Who is God?, How is God God?, and When is God? In this article, we turn to the question Where is God? In many ways, the answer to this question will be similar to the answer to the question, "When is God?” There is a fair bit of overlap. That said, I think there is enough unique content to warrant a separate article. So, Where is God?