Archive for August, 2009

Day of Atonement

by Hugh on August 31, 2009 in Faith, Talks with No comments

Yesterday I had the privelege to be able to preach Leviticus 16 to my church family… it’s an awesome passage packed with loads of juicy details which point us to Jesus’ work on the cross – we see in Hebrews 10:1-4 that what’s happening on the Day of Atonement is just a shadow of what’s coming in Jesus…

I preached in quite a thematic style, picking up implications and applications under 3 themes:

An unapproachable God?
Death and Life
The Two Goats

The last point of application was to look at Hebrews 10:19-25… in light of Jesus’ atoning sacrifice, the big application is to draw near to God, to meet with his people and encourage each other, because he’s returning soon!

You can listen to the sermon here – download MP3

You can see my notes here – download PDF

In two weeks time, I’ll be preaching from Leviticus 25, The Year of Jubilee.

Wedding Pranks

by Hugh on August 30, 2009 in Life with No comments

The wedding season slowly draws to a close with the exception of a few late ones. So I was happy to find photographic evidence of a little wedding prank played on my housemate and ex-co-cult-leader Mark:

Just so he didn't forget which shoe was which

John Owen: Duties of Pastors

by Hugh on August 29, 2009 in Faith, Talks with 1 Comment

John Owen

Last week, after preaching Matthew 24:1-35 at the church 8am service I received some helpful feedback and advice from my colleague. He gave me some practical feedback on my talk and also gave me two duties that John Owen charges to pastors:

The first and principal duty of a pastor is to feed the flock by diligent preaching of the word.
The second duty of the pastor towards his flock is continual fervant prayer for them.

The first one I find fairly ‘easy’, I like studying the word, understanding it, and teaching to others… but, continual fervant prayer… ouch, a rebuke, and a challenge… most talks I’ve delivered have been a half-done job!

Jamie as the Village People

by Hugh on August 29, 2009 in Random with No comments

I don’t normally make a habbit of posting TV adverts, but Channel 4 are producing some classics at the moment… I’m loving the new advert for “Jamie Oliver’s American Road Trip” – with him dressing up as the Village People… bizarre!

Spotify on iPhone

by Hugh on August 28, 2009 in Arts with No comments

Good news! The new Spotify application for the iPhone has been approved by Apple and will be arriving in the App store very soon. As far as I know the App is FREE, BUT in order to use it you need to be a premium member – £9.99 per month subscription… if you like music a lot, then I think that’s £10 well spent! The best thing, as you’ll see in the demo video below, is that you don’t just get to stream music, but actually download it to your iPhone, which means you can listen anytime, anywhere!

Matthew 24

by Hugh on August 26, 2009 in Faith, Talks with No comments

Matthew 24:1-35 is a pretty difficult passage to understand, but I had to get to grips with it as I was down to preach on it at church this last week. There’s a lot of debate about ‘when’ Jesus is talking about… have a read, see what you think?

I suspect your initial reaction is to say, “Jesus is talking about the end of the age”… that was my first reaction too. But, I think the answer is not that simple…

Matthew 24 Here’s the context:

Verse 2 – Jesus says the temple will be destroyed.
Verse 3 – the disciples ask two questions; when will the temple be destroyed, and what will be the sign of your coming / end of the age.

My understanding is that Jesus answers the first question in verses 4-35. The rest of the chapter, and chapter 25 is devoted to answering the second question. I have 3 reasons for saying this:

Jesus is speaking to his disciples, therefore ‘you’ means the disciples
In 3 places Jesus speaks of false Christs, and not believing them, the point being that Jesus isn’t returning yet
Verse 34 – Jesus says that all these things will happen in the disciples generation

HOWEVER, there are some difficult verses to deal with, which make you think that it is actually talking about the end of the age…

Verse 30 – it sounds like the end of the world, sun darkening, stars falling, heavenly bodies shaken! But Jesus is quoting Isaiah 13 and Isaiah 34 – in this context it is not the end of the world being spoken of, but the judgement of a city by an army… this is a picture to describe a military attack.
Verse 31 – “the Son of Man coming on the clouds in power and glory” – again, sounds like the end of the age! But this picture is from Daniel 7:13-14, it’s not Jesus coming to earth, but Jesus coming into his Father’s presence. Or look at Matthew 26:64 – Jesus says that the Sanhedrin will see this.

Check out David Field’s blog for more thoughts on this – cheers Anthony!

Chocolate Tart 1.0

by Hugh on August 26, 2009 in Life with 1 Comment

Ok, here it is folks, my first chocolate tart! Perfect consistency, think I had a little bit too much milk powder though – the proof will be in the eating tomorrow! Also, I doubled the recipe which made enough for one and a half pastry cases. Let me know if you’ve made one and how it turns out.

Subliminal Advertising

by Hugh on August 25, 2009 in Random with 12 Comments

Derren Brown is a very clever man. Albeit a little bit weird. If you’ve been watching Channel4 recently you’ll have probably seen his “backwards advert”. He plays on the power of suggestion, and it’s pretty powerful… anyone remember ‘the Heist’ where he ‘persuaded‘ a normal person to commit an armed robbery?!

So this is the advert. It’s advertising a new show/experiment he’s doing called ‘The Events’. Anyway, everything is going backwards, which makes the things going forward stick out in your mind… I wanted to buy a lottery ticket after! Subliminal messages are clearly pretty powerful!

Atonement

by Hugh on August 24, 2009 in Books, Film & TV with No comments

Every now and then I try and watch some films or read some books that I wouldn’t normally read… sometimes just to get a better understanding of what “popular culture” is liking at the present time, or specifically to be illustrations for talks. One such film is Atonement, staring Kiera Knightley and James McAvoy… originally it’s a novel by Ian McEwan.

Apparently it’s not the kind of film that a guy should be watching on his own… I should be watching Die Hard, or Dark Knight… but research is a good excuse. So anyway, this is genuine research as I prepare to preach on Leviticus 16 – The Day of Atonement… to be thinking about the question of atonement and how the world understands it.

Here’s my thoughts on how atonement is portrayed in this film:

Atonement is purely human – reconciling people with people
The culprit takes the initiative the make atonement with the victim
The motivation to make atonement is guilt
Atonement is costless
Atonement is rewriting the story, to make yourself feel better

I was hoping in watching this film to pick up a good illustration that pictures what atonement is… but it’s not really atonement at all, at least not that which we find in the Bible… atonement in the Bible is between man and God, it’s God’s initiative, his motivation is love, it costs him his Son, and he does it for his glory!