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Justice divine is satisfied How can God, at one and the same time, be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus? (Rom 3:26 KJV) That was the question we left hanging in the air in the previous

B. A servant to the circumcision

B. A servant to the circumcision

Now I say that Jesus Christ has become a servant to the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made to the fathers, and that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy… . (Rom 15:8–9 NKJV)

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Why circumcision? I promised I would return to the account of the birth of Ishmael but I have been somewhat reluctant to start on this devotional, simply because of the propriety of the topic. In many ways, the Bible is

Abraham, My Friend 01

Abraham, My Friend The Making of a Praying Man Preface: Every story has a purpose and my re-telling of this story has its purpose revealed in our sub-title. Abraham’s life is rich in illustration of the purposes of God and

Abraham, my Friend 08

Abraham, my Friend 08

the head of an old man by Guernico used by kind permission of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Transcendent and Immanent It is wonderful to consider the way in which God, who measures the cosmos with a single span, is able

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Second best? We have tracked Abraham’s disastrous descent into Egypt, now let’s track his restoration.  He went up out of Egypt into the Negeb. And he was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold. Or as the Hebrew

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Machpelah, a costly hiding place In the Hebrews 11 ‘National Gallery of the Heroes of Faith’ there is a single reference to Jacob/Israel but with a double focus: By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of the sons

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Kings, Confederates and a Priest I would like to ask you to read this instalment twice. Genesis 14 is packed with action and relevance. It gives a vivid background to the kind of world that Abraham lived in and shows

Abraham, my Friend 07

Abraham, my Friend 07

Foundations for a blessing It is time now to examine the Blessing. Thus far we have identified Abraham as an ordinary man who became an extraordinary man. He was born into no special family and had no special advantages but

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Abrahamic Perfection I want to say more about Genesis 16 but I think it will make more sense if we revisit later rather than try to look too far ahead. In essence, Ishmael was ‘fathered’ by uncircumcised energy and came