Tag: cnvrstns

John 21:15 – 25: Reinstating Peter

January 6, 2012 / Benjamin Welby / 0 Comments

Conversations is starting a series on the life of Peter after Jesus’ death and over the next few months we’ll be exploring that.

Peter’s story begins on his home turf. Jesus arrives in a fishing village, he teaches, he meets some of the fishermen. They recognise him as the real deal. They follow.

This group of men includes the sons of Zebedee: James and John as well as another sibling pair – Andrew and Simon. At some point Simon’s becomes known as Peter. This change gains significance in Matthew 16 when Jesus asks his disciples ‘who do people say the Son of Man is?’. Peter gives the Sunday School gold star response: ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God’ and Jesus is delighted with Peter and says ‘On this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it’. Simon’s name having become Peter is significant because Cephas/Petros means rock so Jesus is saying – ‘On this Peter I will build my church…’

So Peter is held in high regard by Jesus – he is also always mentioned first in the lists of the Twelve Apostles; he is present at more exclusive events such as the Transfiguration of Jesus; and he joins Jesus in walking on the water. John’s gospel gives Peter prominence – at the last supper he’s reluctant for Jesus to wash his feet and later names Peter as the disciple who cut off an ear when Jesus was arrested.

But the lowest point of Peter’s life (before Jesus’ death) is the denial. All four gospels detail how Peter was to deny Jesus three times before the cock crows. Continue reading

Thank you Dave

September 15, 2011 / Benjamin Welby / 2 Comments

Last night was gutting. The leader of my church stepped down (in person, not via Twitter).

A tweet expressing gratitude, stating "Bye bye conversations. You have been amazing. Thanks." The tweet is from user @davemajgill.

For those of us involved with Conversations the last two weeks have been something of a blur. The pace at which decisions have been taken has left our community pretty shell-shocked as we look to the future.

That future includes Sally, Scott and I joining the Steering Team alongside Ben, B and Adam. And we’re committed to the same reasons that motivated Dave to kick Conversations off in the first place. His stepping down as leader doesn’t alter our vision statement.

Nehemiah: 1

September 15, 2011 / Benjamin Welby / 1 Comment

These are my sermon notes from last night (Wednesday September 14th) shared with the community at Conversations. We’d had some difficult news in the preceding week relating to the future of the church and its leadership which makes our series on Nehemiah feel helpful and timely. You can read a bit more about that in my other post from today.

Let’s start with a bit of context:

The events of Nehemiah 1 take place 1,000 years after Moses and 400 years before Jesus.

Israel is in a desperate state – the Babylonians have conquered Jerusalem.

When they did that they deported almost everyone from the city – for 70 years Jerusalem was a ghost town. Potentially set to be forgotten to history.

The Jews began to make homes for themselves in Babylon. They settled and although they continued to follow God, they didn’t hold onto the idea of a Promised Land.

Some of them ended up in prominent places – Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego leaders in Babylon; Esther a Queen in the courts of a Persian king.

After those 70 years they had the opportunity to return home, to the Promised Land. Only 50,000 out of 2 or 3m returned. And that’s what the book of Ezra is about: rebuilding the temple and laying a spiritual foundation for Israel.

So, Nehemiah starts 15 years after the Book of Ezra ends, about 100 years after the first exiles return to the Promised Land and about 150 years after Jerusalem was destroyed.

The walls are still ruined.

They’d tried to rebuild them in Ezra 4:6-23 but had been stopped by their enemies. No-one thought this could be overcome so the walls lay in ruin and the people exposed to the danger of an unfortified city.

The book of Nehemiah is about a man who left a place of safety to put it all on the line to defend his city. To go to a place he was called to love, and to love it back into full strength and rude health. It cost him, but it glorified God and it transformed that city.

¹ The words of Nehemiah son of Hakaliah: In the month of Kislev in the twentieth year, while I was in the citadel of Susa, ² Hanani, one of my brothers, came from Judah with some other men, and I questioned them about the Jewish remnant that had survived the exile, and also about Jerusalem. ³ They said to me, “Those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire.”
Nehemiah 1:1-3

Nehemiah hears about Jerusalem.

We find out he lives in the citadel – that means he’s important.

Nehemiah’s heart is in Jerusalem. He wants to know how the city and his people were doing. His heart was not on himself, but on others. Jerusalem was special to God, so it was special to Nehemiah too.

1 John:4 – Love Wins

May 20, 2011 / Benjamin Welby / 0 Comments

1 John is a book that sets out some of the most fundamental characteristics of who God is and what being a Christian, part of His family, looks like.

And John’s quite blunt really. He sets it out quite clearly that God is holy, we are sinful and Jesus is our only hope.

Then he says that if you say you keep God’s commands, and don’t, then there’s a problem. And he says that if you’re more in love with the world than you are with God, then there’s a problem there too.

So we end up with an ideal of what we should be aiming for. John tells us about the need for right doctrines, right lifestyles and right relationships. It’s almost as though there’s something of a tick box exercise happening – tick all the boxes and well be called children of God and we’ll be like Him. If we live in Him then we won’t sin any more because Jesus has destroyed the work of the devil. So we should love one another and when we do that we know we’ve qualified for eternal life.

Sounds straightforward – the Eye-Spy of Christianity. An easy reference guide against which we can mark ourselves and score those around us.

Thankfully God isn’t sitting on a cloud waiting to smite us for cocking up but is desperate for a relationship with us that isn’t about legalism and transactionality. Continue reading

John 21:15 – 25: Reinstating Peter

Thank you Dave

Nehemiah: 1

1 John:4 – Love Wins

Never miss a new post

Tags