Frank Retief was pastor at St James Church Cape Town for 31 years, having planted the church in 1968 with his wife Beulah.  He became the Presiding Bishop of the Church of England in South Africa until he retired in 2010.  Frank remains active in ministry through preaching, teaching, pastoral work & writing, and has authored a number of books.

An uncommon King (Part 2)

Matthew 1 v 18. This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about. His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.  

We will not dwell for the moment on what this event must have meant to Mary and to Joseph as two human beings. Rather I would like you to focus on the sheer miraculousness of this conception.

Notice, in the first place that the great Creator of the universe who can do anything, miraculously plants a conceptual seed in Mary’s womb. There have been many critics of the virginal conception over the years, mainly because man in his arrogance thinks he knows everything and decided that miracles do not happen. Well, it happened here with Mary. Remember, it was not the birth of Jesus that was miraculous. That happened very naturally. Rather, it was the conception of the Christ child that was an utterly miraculous event.

Now in the second place, we must not fall into the mistake of thinking that because He was born of a virgin that that was the source of his deity. He was not divine simply because He had no human father. One theologian put it like this: “Neither sinful nor holy parents could produce an offspring who was God. That is beyond their humanity. And neither could a virgin mother do this.” Rather we are to remember as God the Son, the second person in the Trinity, Jesus was fully and truly God prior to and apart from the virginal conception. That means that God the Son who exists with God from eternity, did not come into existence because the Virgin Mary conceived and gave birth.

All this is a great mystery. But then we are dealing with a great God, who sent a great Saviour into our world to effect a great salvation for us.

Meditation:  The birth of Jesus is usually celebrated without being fully understood. Of course the mystery of this event is beyond our understanding. But surely we need to appreciate it more? Although we cannot understand all, that does not mean we can understand nothing. Do you ever ponder these things?

Purchase your books from our online shopping cart,
Email orders@christianbooks.co.za or
Visit one of our stores

By Author & Blogger Tim Challies

Gospel weariness. It’s a little phrase I picked up from a friend when he preached at our church not too long ago. His text was James 1, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds…” As he began to preach he told of some of the difficulties his church had encountered in recent days. Most recently and most painfully, dear friends who had only one opportunity to have a child had experienced stillbirth at eight and a half months, just two weeks from delivery. What tragedy. What sorrow.

He and his friends are Christians so they know that suffering is not empty, it is not purposeless, it is not meaningless. But that doesn’t make it any less painful.

Why? Why do we experience such suffering? Why does God allow it? Just from these early verses in James we see something unexpected—trials do us good. Trials do us good by developing spiritual maturity, by developing the most precious character traits. “Trials don’t come about because of what you’ve done but because of who God wants you to be.” Trials generate humility, leveling the field as small and great alike experience pain, miscarriage, death. Trials develop compassion and dependence, teaching us to sympathize with others and be dependent upon God. Trials give us courage in forcing us to handle what we were sure we could never deal with. The couple that lost their child displayed all of this when they said, “We have nowhere to go. All we have is God and his character to lean on.” At the funeral they declared, “Though the fog will not lift and the pain will not go, we hold on.” That’s faith.

Trials do us good in at least one more way: Trials develop a gospel weariness, a weariness with this world. Reflecting on all he had seen and experienced my friend said, “I hate this world right now. All it has done is break my heart.” It had broken his heart and the hearts of the people he loves. “None of us want to stay here. We want to rise in the resurrection and be done with the pain. All this world does is fool you and fail you. It over-promises and under-delivers.”  

Read more…

Purchase your books from our online shopping cart,
Email orders@christianbooks.co.za or
Visit one of our stores

By Stephen Witmer from DesiringGod.org

Gossip is tasty to its speakers and hearers. “The words of a gossip are like choice morsels; they go down to the inmost parts” (Proverbs 18:8 NIV).  A choice morsel is exciting and enticing, swallowed greedily, like potato chips or onion rings. But gossipy words aren’t just a burst of flavor on the tongue; they “go down to the inmost parts,” promising to meet the deep desires of our hearts.

Why does gossip taste so good? Ironically, while gossip’s content usually focuses on other people, at its core, gossip is really about me. It promises to make me feel a certain way about myself. We gossip because of what gossip promises to do for us. Therefore, when we gossip, we’re serving and worshiping ourselves (perhaps that’s why Paul lists gossip as a sin of idolatrous people in Romans 1:29).

Jonathan Dodson’s articles have helped me identify gossip’s false promises. Let’s consider four of them it makes to us.

1. “You Are Interesting.”

We all like to feel accepted, and interesting gossip can serve as our entrance badge into a conversation or group. All the more so if the gossip is negative and leads to mutual complaining. Gossiping and griping can be a bonding experience (“Did you hear the latest about our boss?”).

But gossip offers what it can’t deliver. When gossip says, “You’re interesting,” or, “You belong,” it’s lying. To people who thrive on gossip, you’re only interesting as long as your gossip is interesting. When we use gossip to gain access into a community (a church, a workplace, a friendship circle), our words tear apart the very community we want to join.

Jesus gives us a true community, the church. Our entrance badge into that community is his own blood, which unites the church in love. We don’t get into the church based on what we say about others. We get in based on what God says about us in Christ.

Read more…

Purchase your books from our online shopping cart,
Email orders@christianbooks.co.za or
Visit one of our stores