[This reflection by Helen Ruffhead was published in the weekly news bulletin of Horley Baptist Church, 16/Mar/2025]
Many people will be surprised to learn how much the Bible talks about money. There are numerous verses in the Old and New Testament about caring for the poor. Jesus himself said: “You cannot serve both God and money” (Matthew 6 v24) and told parables about the dangers of greed. 1 Timothy 6 v10 says: “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil”.
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[This reflection by Michael Goble was published in the weekly news bulletin of Horley Baptist Church, 09/Mar/2025]
During recent Thursday group meetings we have been taking an overall look at each book of the Wisdom Literature in the Bible – Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and lastly, The Song of Solomon. That sounds pretty daunting, but each week we have heard things that gave us guidance and wisdom about living our everyday lives, how to cope with our experiences in life, what we need to understand about Who God is and our relationship with Him.
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[A ‘Tuesday Challenge‘ originally prepared for the congregation of Horley Baptist Church during February 2025]
Speak, Lord, in the stillness whilst I wait on Thee;
hushed my heart to listen in expectancy.
Emily May Crawford, (1920)[1]
How often do we get to experience stillness? In our age of perpetual motion, can our hearts really be hushed? Are stillness, quiet and silence all the same state? More importantly, are those conditions prerequisites for us to hear the Lord speaking?
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[This reflection by Martin Shorey was published in the weekly news bulletin of Horley Baptist Church, 23/Feb/2025]
Battleship Faith: Holding On When Prayers Go Unanswered
In the past week, the question of suffering and unanswered prayer has arisen a number of times. How do we feel and respond when God doesn’t seem to answer prayer? Why does the Bible encourage us to “present our requests to God”[1] only for us to sometimes feel as though our prayers are ignored or unanswered?
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[A ‘Tuesday Challenge‘ originally prepared for the congregation of Horley Baptist Church during February 2025]
Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven.
Luke 11 v2 [NKJV]
This extract from the template prayer that Jesus taught his disciples is ingrained in the minds of many people, not just in what we might call Christendom but also in its Jewish and Islamic equivalents. The prayer itself is often recited verbatim in the churches of many denominations but in essence it is an example of how our prayers should be constructed.
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[This reflection by Dennis Ginter was published in the weekly news bulletin of Horley Baptist Church, 16/Feb/2025]
Martin’s teaching last Sunday was very challenging! Especially his closing remark that what the Father wants of us is to “follow Jesus”.
In our home group on Monday we explored that together. I drew our attention to 1 John 4 v7-8. The phrase that puzzled me was in verse 7: ‘… everyone who loves is born of God and knows God‘. Everyone? That brought us to Martin’s question about me being In or Out of God’s Kingdom.
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