Category Archives: Scripture

Lamentations 3 brings us a change of voice – rather than the voice of Jerusalem, or the poet’s description of Jerusalem we hear from the poet himself about his personal experience of grief. This chapter is even more highly structured than the previous 2. In English it is split into 66 verses, although it isContinue reading “Lamentations 3: In the Depths”

As we move onto the second half of chapter one we are still listening to the voice of Jerusalem. She sees her suffering as brought upon her by Yahweh’s fierce anger. It is vital that we feel the force of this suffering, and that we do not try to water down her words. It isContinue reading “Lamentations: Alone in the Pit”

In the last post I introduced the theme and structure of Lamentations. Now it is important to sit with the reality of the text itself. We need to read, and we need to sit with what it says, and listen to it. It will be important to situate it in the context of the wholeContinue reading “Lamentations II – Exposed”

A while ago I posted on the concept of Lament, intended as a introduction to a series on Lamentations. In that introduction I explored the wider concept of lament, and in this post I will focus more specifically on the book of Lamentations itself. Reading Lamentations is not necessarily immediately straightforward. It is not aContinue reading “Lamentations I”

Lament. There is nothing the church needs right now more than the ability for its leaders to lead us in lament. That, of course, is one of those ridiculous statements people like to make to capture attention. There are 101 things that the church needs right now, and what each individual church needs is different.Continue reading “Lament I”

O come, Desire of nations, bindAll peoples in one heart and mind;Bid envy, strife and quarrels cease;Fill the whole world with heaven’s peace.Rejoice! Rejoice! EmmanuelShall come to thee, O Israel. This last verse is self explanatory in so many ways. It speaks of the longing that we have for a better world. It alludes toContinue reading “Advent VII: Desire of Nations”

The next verse of O come O come in the version I found refers to the Key of David: 5 O come, O Key of David, comeand open wide our heavenly home.Make safe for us the heavenward roadand bar the way to death’s abode. This verse intrigues me because I think there is more toContinue reading “Advent V: The Key”

It is a strange title, that goes with the fourth verse of O Come O come – at least in the first version I came across online. I think it is more usual to have ‘rod of Jesse’, but branch of Jesse’s stem has the benefit of being a clear reference to one particular OTContinue reading “Advent IV: Hope from a faithful branch”

It struck me that it might be thought somewhat odd to begin a bible section of the blog with reflections on a hymn, even one with such a majestic tradition as O come O come. More regularly the idea here will be to put a weekly post focusing on a particular text of Scripture, hopefullyContinue reading “Advent III: LORD of Might”