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Deuteronomy 23:1 is at first sight a troubling verse: “No one whose testicles are crushed or whose male organ is cut off shall enter the assembly of the LORD.” What are we to make of that?! It’s not the sort of verse you stick on your fridge is it! Why are these people excluded? Before…

Our world is very confused about how to live, it seems to live by the mantra, “Do whatever makes you happy.” But what if your happiness leads to someone else suffering? God’s law gives us a clearer answer. God’s love tells us to live for the good of others. In Deuteronomy we see lots of…

All sorts of voices compete for our attention, who should we listen to? There is so much confusion in the world, who knows what is best? There is so much suffering in the world, who can help us to navigate it? Our reading from Deuteronomy tells us that God will raise up a prophet like…

Can you remember what you heard at church on Sunday? Or what about what you read in your Bible yesterday? Well you may say, I can’t remember every meal I ate either but they still did me good! This is true, and its very hard to measure the impact of God’s Word in our lives.…

The death of anyone is hard, but when it’s your child, it is perhaps the hardest of all. And when it’s your only son, and you’re a widow it would surely be overwhelming. It’s hardly the sort of thing you could call “light and momentary”. Jesus meets a woman in exactly this situation in today’s…

There’s no one like our God! What a privilege to be His people. The book of Deuteronomy recounts what God has done to get Israel to this point. As Israel is about to enter the promised land, God is saying to them, remember who you are. Who are they? They are a beloved people. Here…

Is your Christianity a hobby? A hobby is something you do in your spare time, and it could be that’s how you think about Christianity, something for Sunday. Perhaps that’s how Simon felt about Jesus, he was happy to listen to Jesus occasionally, but to listen to Jesus in all of life was a bit…

Do you long for an end to suffering? It’s a silly question really, of course you do! Whilst much good can come through suffering, we’d rather be free from it. In our readings today the boundaries of the promised land are drawn out (Numbers 34), but as good as the land is, suffering and death,…

Look at the heart of Jesus: “But I, when they were sick – I wore sackcloth; I afflicted myself with fasting; I prayed with my head bowed on my chest. I went about as though I grieved for my friend or my brother… But at my stumbling they rejoiced and gathered; they gathered together against…

How will God preserve His people? Doesn’t Christianity seem to be dying out? It can feel like that in the West. But the book of Numbers has a strange encouragement for us, God is able to preserve His people! In our reading today we come to the second census, more counting (the book of Numbers…