Daily reflections

This amazing messianic prophecy grows out of the hopeful and joyful message in chapter 52 that God does rescue and restore his people even from the depths of despair. It would be hard to find any New Testament passage that...

This is another passage full of hope for a devastated people. The prophet is speaking to a woman, but the context of the surrounding chapters suggests that the woman stands for the whole nation of God’s chosen people, or...

The book of Isaiah has sometimes been called the 'fifth Gospel' because of its foreshadowings of the story of Jesus. It's here at the beginning of Jesus' ministry, describing John the Baptist in his proclamation of the coming...

The story of the calling of the first disciples is so well known that we don't always see how remarkable it is. Jesus is walking along the lake shore and sees Peter and Andrew fishing; 'Come with me,' he says, 'and I will...

The Sermon on the Mount covers Matthew 5–7. It's the longest block of teaching in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke), and contains some of Jesus' most challenging teaching – and his most comforting.

In the first part of Matthew 6, Jesus tells his hearers that they shouldn't make a show of their religious duties in public, but keep them between themselves and God.

For those of us who grew up going to Sunday school, it’s hard to read these verses without thinking of the teaching song, ‘The wise man built his house upon the rock’. It’s catchy – but it misses the point, which...

Matthew 8 contains a series of miracles and encounters with Jesus, each of which illustrates something of his power and his character. This little story is multi-layered. In demonstrating his power over the tempest, it refers...

While Jesus’ calling of his first fisherman disciples looks almost random, his calling of Matthew is quite deliberate – but again, it’s not because he was particularly qualified. He is a tax collector, or employed by...