Read the text – Matthew 14:1-36
In this Bible Talk, Ken Noakes considers some very well-known passages: the beheading of John the Baptist, the feeding of 5000, and Jesus walking on water. In each of these accounts the question we as readers are effectively asked is ‘who do you think Jesus is?’ Herod gave his conclusion, the crowds made their approach, the disciples got a firsthand view of Jesus in action. The question: who sees Jesus as ‘truly… the Son of God’?
Read the text – 1 John 5:1-21
In this talk we reach the end of this series from 1 John and to the theological and pastoral conclusion of the letter. John has helped the reader to know that the Christ is Jesus and so in this talk Ken Noakes helps us to see the confidence that the believer has to live for Jesus now knowing what he has given for all eternity.
Read the text – 1 John 2:28-3:10
Central to fellowship with God the Father is acknowledging his son and in turn living as a child of God. This talk is about confidence in the Christian faith – confidence that comes from being adopted as a child of God and experienced in the new birth that the Christian person enjoys.
In this talk Ken Noakes describes the process of moving towards a confident faith. And also, the process that person may go through in moving away from a confident faith.
Read the text – 1 John 1:5-2:2
Sin is serious, and even Christians can live as if it isn’t! In this talk, Ken Noakes looks at what the Bible calls sin and helps us to understand more of what sin is and means for our world, our church and our person. Yet to sit right alongside the trauma that is sin, is the wonder that is forgiveness in Jesus. Sin we love yet we should hate. Whereas Forgiveness we want and we all need.
Read the text – 1 John 3:11-24 & 1 John 4:7-21
Love that is Christian, is a love for others that is both pleasing and acceptable to God before it is to the world. This is a huge topic and so contested today. For today, love is often determined by popular opinion or consensus – and as directed by the loudest voices. In this talk, Ken Noakes looks at the importance of understanding Love in the context of truth and obedience. God indeed wants Christians to be loving – love that is truthful, sacrificial, obedient even if different to the way the world looks for love.
Read the text – 1 John 1:5-2:6 & 1 John 2:18-27
The second in this series from the little letter of 1 John – this talk looks at the contrast between truth and un-truth and more particularly the danger of not thinking that truth is important. Truth and knowledge matter when it comes to faith – so does untruth and error.
In this talk Ken Noakes suggests that if we lose sight of the truth of the gospel, then it is impossible to live by the truth of the gospel.
Read the text – 1 John1:1-4 & 1 John 2:12-17
The little letter of 1 John packs a punch. It is rich with ideas we love to debate: truth and error, love and hate, forgiveness and sin, individualism and community, life and death. These ideas are not simple, yet we can be very simplistic in how we think about them for we don’t always consider how one may affect the other. 1 John works hard to draw these ideas and concepts into an integrated Christian worldview. And in the process helps us see the value of having the Word of Life to guide us in how we live.
In this first talk of six, Ken Noakes introduces the Letter of 1 John and its overlapping themes. In doing so he wants to make clear that believers have the Word of Life: Jesus. And life with him looks different to life without. 1 John has a lot to say to help Christians today live confidently for Christ.
God’s official royal announcement, which he entrusted to his chosen representative and slave, Paul, and which is the culmination and fulfillment of everything he has been doing and saying in history, is that Jesus is the promised Messiah and the powerful divine Lord. God’s gospel is not about us, it is about Jesus!
Ken Noakes looks at what Romans 1 teaches us about the Gospel of God, and given this is a graduation address, he challenges those graduating (and listening) to put into practice the knowledge they now have by proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus.
Read the text – 1 Corinthians 1:17-31
Why did Jesus have to die, and more die in the way he did, especially since he knew he would rise again just three days later. Why go through all he did? In this Good Friday talk Ken Noakes looks at the foolishness of the cross – foolish in the eyes of so many in the world, yet the wisdom of God.
Read the text – 1 Corinthians 14:1-40
What is prophecy? What is ‘speaking in tongues’? What does it mean to be an interpreter? How do we order ourselves when we meet in church? In this talk Ken Noakes, carefully steps through this passage from 1 Corinthians 14 (which is the end of a sustained argument starting back in Chapter 12). The matter and manner of what the church of Corinth were doing when meeting is clearly in view. Once established, a method to how to do that in Corinth is explained.
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