A Noble Theme

Introduction Video: Hespeler, 23 April, 2017 © Scott McAndless John 14:1-7 , 2 Corinthians 5:1-10 , Psalm 16 O ver five hundred years ago, an English king by the name of James commissioned the translation of the greatest book ever written, the Bible, into English. The result was a translation that was so good, so poetic and so beautiful that, for hundreds of years, it was essentially the only English Bible that mattered. But five centuries is a very long time and in all of that time the text of the King James Version never changed but other things did and that may have caused a few issues.       For example, in the fourteenth chapter of the Gospel of John – in the King James Version of the passage that we read this morning – Jesus makes this rather stunning promise to his disciples. “In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to ...

Introduction Video: Hespeler, 9 April, 2017 © Scott McAndless – Palm Sunday Isaiah 51:9-11, Matthew 26:47-56, Colossians 1:13-22 A few weeks ago I watched a movie you may have heard of. It was called “The Magnificent Seven.” It was a remake of an original 1960 western (which was itself a remake of a classic Japanese film), so I am betting that most of you have seen this movie in some form or another at some point in your life. That’s why I feel as if I am not going to spoil the movie for anybody if I give you a quick recap of the plot.       The story went like this. A very bad man got a bunch of very bad people together and they hurt and shot and killed some innocent people in a town. A group from that town went to get some help and found seven people (who were all magnificent) and they came and killed the bad people in the town. Those who were left alive all lived happily ever after. ...

Hespeler, April 2, 2-17 © Scott McAndless Jonah 3:1-10, Jonah 4:1-11. Jonah 2 O f all the prophets in the Bible, Jonah, I think is the one who just gets me. I mean, here is a guy who is just going on about his own business one day when he receives a message from God. “Wow, Lord, me? You think that I’m important enough to give a message to me?” But then, as Jonah listens or attends or does whatever you do when you receive a message from God, he begins to realize that this is not really a message that he likes or wants to receive: “Jonah, go an d preach my message to the people that you hate most in the world: the Ninevites.”       And then what does Jonah do? He behaves as if he was Donald Trump and the German Chancellor just asked him to shake hands. “What? Message? I didn’t receive any message. As a matter of fact,” Jonah goes on, “I think I just remembered that I gotta do something in...

Hespeler, 26 March, 2017 © Scott McAndless 2 Samuel 11:27b-12:14, Psalm 101, 2 Timothy 2:20-26 S ince back in February, I have been working my way through the famous list of the Seven Deadly Sins – a list that I have actually tweaked a bit by adding in two extras. So far we have talked about anger, pride, deceit, greed, envy, fear, and gluttony. There are two left – two of the classic deadly seven – lust and sloth and I haven’t really been looking forward to either one of them. I’ll tell you what my problem is with sloth next week, but today I’m going to focus on lust.       The problem I have with talking about lust is the tendency that has developed in western society to confuse sin with sexuality in general. It was something that mostly began with the Victorian Age as far as the English speaking world was concerned. Christians began to think and speak as if the only sin that mattered was...

Hespeler, 19 March, 2017 © Scott McAndless Ecclesiastes 2:1-11, 22-26, Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, Luke 18:18-30       “What do mortals get from all the toil and strain with which they toil under the sun? For all their days are full of pain, and their work is a vexation; even at night their minds do not rest. This also is vanity.” This is the rather bleak view of life that seems to lie behind much of the Book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible.       Traditionally the book was said to have been written by none other the great King Solomon himself, but most scholars who have studied it have concluded that the book never actually claims to have been written by Solomon, though it might have been dedicated to him. Instead, the book seems to have been written by somebody named Qoheleth, but even that doesn’t come across in our English Bibles because the name, “Qoheleth,” usually gets translated, w...

Hespeler, 12 March, 2017 © Scott McAndless Matthew 16:13-23, Matthew 14:22-33, Psalm 23 F ear: there is not a single person here who has not felt it, struggled with it and conquered it in some area of your life. Fear is a part of life. As a matter of fact, it is often a very helpful and even a necessary part of life. If it is fear of what might happen that keeps you from jumping into the tiger cage at the zoo or running out into traffic, then it is probably a good thing and even a kind of wisdom. But that is not the whole story that we need to tell about fear.       I would like to suggest to you today that fear can be a major sinful influence in a person’s life. I am not talking here about the normal everyday fear that we all experience and that is often useful and can make us wise. I am talking about what happens when fear becomes a central, destructive and driving force in somebody’s life. ...