While the law to tithe one’s income strictly speaking was an Old Testament requirement, nevertheless, the New Testament provides several guidelines showing that the principle of giving is still as strong or even stronger for the New Covenant believer. Here are some helpful guidelines: 

Give Cheerfully and Willingly: in 2 Corinthians 9:7, Paul writes, “Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” This suggests that giving should come from a joyful and voluntary spirit, not obligation. 

Give Generously: The New Testament encourages sacrificial and generous giving. For example, in 2 Corinthians 9:6, Paul says, “Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.” This implies that generosity is rewarded, though the focus is on the spiritual rather than the material gain. 

Give According to Your Means: In 2 Corinthians 8:12, Paul explains that giving should be proportional to what one has: “For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one does not have.” This shows that the amount isn’t as important as the intent and ability. 

Care for the Poor and Needy: Jesus and the apostles consistently emphasize giving to those in need. In Luke 12:33, Jesus instructs, “Sell your possessions and give to the poor,” highlighting a priority on helping the less fortunate. Similarly, Acts 20:35 quotes Jesus: “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”

Give Secretly and Humbly: In Matthew 6;2-4, Jesus teaches that giving should not be for show: “When you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets…But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret.” The focus is on humility and sincerity. 

Tithing as a Starting Point (Optional): While the New Testament doesn’t mandate the Old Testament practice of tithing (giving 10% of income), Jesus acknowledges it in Matthew 23:23, saying it should not overshadow “justice, mercy, and faithfulness.” Many interpret this as encouragement to give beyond a legalistic percentage, based on love and faith.

Often referred to as the "National Anthem of Christendom," this hymn stands as one of the church's most beloved worship songs. Written by Edward Perronet, a young English minister, it was first published in 1779 and has since been translated into nearly every language where Christianity has taken root. Its bold, jubilant lyrics invite us into genuine worship every time we sing them. 

But what does it truly mean to worship? Worship is: awakening the conscience to the holiness of God, nourishing the mind with the truth of God, opening the heart to the love of God, and committing the will to the purposes of God. 

We can be deeply grateful that God inspired an 18th-century pastor to pen this stirring hymn. It reminds us that as we sing, we join with angels in heaven and redeemed believers from "every kindred, every tribe" on earth in unified praise. One day, we will all join together in "the everlasting song", declaring Christ as "Lord of all."

Edward Perronet descended from a family of French Huguenots who fled persecution, seeking refuge in Switzerland and later England. Though ordained in the Anglican Church, Perronet was drawn to the evangelical revival led by John and Charles Wesley, eventually leaving the state church to fully support their mission. While he wrote several hymns, All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name is his enduring legacy, echoing through generations as a timeless call to worship. 

We are going through an overview of God's redemptive plan. Each week will feature a small video followed by fellowship followed by questions and discussion. Resources can be found at https://www.godsbigpicture.co.uk/resources.

Ladies' Book Study

The ladies of the church will be reading through The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom.

The start/time of the study is still to be determined.  

There are copies of the book available at the church for any who need. 

It can also be purchased here

Book Overview: 

At one time Corrie ten Boom would have laughed at the idea that there would ever be a story to tell. For the first fifty years of her life nothing at all out of the ordinary had ever happened to her. She was an old-maid watchmaker living contentedly with her spinster sister and their elderly father in the tiny Dutch house over their shop. Their uneventful days, as regulated as their own watches, revolved around their abiding love for one another. However, with the Nazi invasion and occupation of Holland, a story did ensue.

Corrie ten Boom and her family became leaders in the Dutch Underground, hiding Jewish people in their home in a specially built room and aiding their escape from the Nazis. For their help, all but Corrie found death in a concentration camp. The Hiding Place is their story

Excerpt from: Morning and Evening: A New Edition of the Classic Devotional Based on The Holy Bible, ESV-by Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Alistair Begg, (January 1)

We will be glad and rejoice in You. We will not open the gates of the year to the sorrowful notes of the organ, but to the sweet strains of the harp of joy and the high-sounding cymbals of gladness. "O come, let us sing to the LORD; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation." (Psalm 95:1) 

We, the called and faithful and chosen, will drive away our griefs and set up our banners of confidence in the name of God. Let others lament over their troubles; we with joy will magnify the Lord. Eternal Spirit, our effectual Comforter, we who are the temples in which You dwell will never cease from adoring and blessing the name of Jesus. Jesus must have the crown of our heart's delight; we will not dishonor our Bridegroom by mourning in His presence.

We are ordained to be the minstrels of the skies; let us rehearse our everlasting anthem before we sing it in the halls of the New Jerusalem. We will exult and rejoice: two words with one sense, double joy, blessedness upon blessedness. Need there be any limit to our rejoicing in the Lord even now? Do not men of grace find their Lord to be the sweetest of incense even now, and what better fragrance have they in heaven itself? We will be glad and rejoice in You. That last word is the meat in the dish, the kernel of the nut, the soul of the text. What heavens are laid up in Jesus! What rivers of infinite bliss have their source, aye, and every drop of their fullness in Him! Since, O sweet Lord Jesus, You are the present portion of Your people, favor us this year with such a sense of Your preciousness that from its first to its last day we may be glad and rejoice in You. Let January open with joy in the Lord, and December close with gladness in Jesus.

Excerpt taken from: The Dawning of Indestructible Joy: Daily Readings For Advent, by John Piper. Crossway, (p.69).

He shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth. And he shall be their peace. MICAH 5:4–5

 “He shall be great to the ends of the earth,” Micah prophesies. There will be no pockets of resistance unsubdued. Our security will not be threatened by any alien forces. Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess him Lord. The whole earth will be filled with his glory. And “he will be our peace.” Yes, in this context that includes final, earthly, political peace. Micah spoke of it already in Micah 4:3:

He shall judge between many peoples, 

and shall decide for strong nations far away; 

and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, 

and their spears into pruning hooks; 

nation shall not lift up sword against nation, 

neither shall they learn war anymore. 

One day the ruler—the King of kings and Lord of lords—will return and make that a reality. The great Christmas carol will finally be fulfilled: 

He rules the world with truth and grace 

And makes the nations prove 

The glories of his righteousness 

And wonders of his love. 

But there is another, deeper peace—a peace that must happen before there can be peace on earth. There must be peace between us and God. Our unbelief and his wrath must be removed. That is our deepest peace—and our deepest need at Christmas. 

Micah knew it was coming. He had experienced it personally (Mic. 7:8–9). He describes it beautifully at the very end of his book, in Micah 7:18–19: 

Who is a God like you, 

pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression 

for the remnant of his inheritance?

 He does not retain his anger forever,

 because he delights in steadfast love. 

He will again have compassion on us; 

he will tread our iniquities underfoot. 

You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. 

This was the great work of the Messiah yet to be done. Yes, there are enemies on earth that must be defeated if we are to have peace. But, oh, the great enemy called sin and judgment— that is the greatest and worst enemy. The gospel at Christmas is: Christ has trampled this enemy underfoot at the cross. So for everyone who trusts in him, their sins are cast into the depths of the sea. 

Therefore, we say not, “Glory to us,” but, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

Excerpt taken from: The Dawning of Indestructible Joy: Daily Readings For Advent, by John Piper. Crossway, (p.45).

All the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and those who came after him, also proclaimed these days. Acts 3:24 

There is something tremendously important to get hold of here for understanding the biblical teaching about prophecy and fulfillment. 

We often think of prophecy as relating to what is yet future or to what is now beginning to happen in the world. And we easily forget that what is past for us was future for the prophets. 

What we need to remember is that with the coming of Jesus Christ into the world, the days of fulfillment, proclaimed by all the prophets, began. And ever since the first Christmas we have been living in those days. The “last days” foretold by the prophets are not the twenty-first century. The last days began in AD 1. 

This is the uniform New Testament witness. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 10:11 that the Old Testament events happened “to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.” For Paul, the end of the ages was not two thousand years later in the twenty-first century. 

No. The beginning of the end was already present in the first century. The long-awaited Messiah had come. So the writer to the Hebrews (1:1–2) says, “At many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son.” When God sent his Son into the world, the last days began. 

It is a great privilege to live in the last days because, Joel prophesied, “in the last days . . . God will pour out his Spirit upon all flesh” (Joel 2:28). All the prophets looked forward to the day when the Messiah, the Son of David, the King of Israel, would come, for that would be a day of great blessing for God’s people. And now he has come, his kingdom has been inaugurated, and we live in an age of fulfillment. 

What we anticipate in the future at Christ’s second coming is not something completely new but rather the consummation of the blessings we already enjoy, because the promises have begun to be fulfilled in our lives. 

Christmas cut history into two ages: the age of promise and the age of fulfillment. So when Peter says in Acts 3:24, “All the prophets . . . proclaimed these days,” we see that he means “these last days'' (Heb. 1:2), in which God has spoken to us in his Son, the days from the first Christmas to the time of consummation yet to come. This is where we live. The already of fulfillment is massive— incarnation, crucifixion, atonement, propitiation, resurrection, ascension, heavenly reign, intercession, outpouring of the Holy Spirit, global missions, ingathering of the nations, church, New Testament Scriptures, prayer in Jesus’s name, joy unspeakable, and purchased certainty. 

But the not yet is real and wonderful and waiting for its time: the second coming, the resurrection of the dead, new and glorious bodies, the end of sinning, glorification, judgment on all unbelief, rewards, entrance into the Master’s joy, new heavens and new earth, Jesus present among his people face to face, no more misery, pleasures forevermore. 

Christmas split history. Foretastes of the future abound. Drink deeply on what he achieved for us. And be filled with hope for all that is coming.

The Dawning of Indestructible Joy: Daily Readings For Advent, by John Piper. Crossway, (p.29).

Moses said, “The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you. And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people.” And all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and those who came after him, also proclaimed these days. You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, “And in your ofspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first, to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness. Acts 3:22–26 

What this passage teaches us is that God brought Jesus onto the scene of history to bless people. “In your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” 

God said to his Son in heaven, “The time is fulfilled; I have promised blessing; now is the time to make good on my promise; you will be my emissary of blessing; I want blessing to come to the world; I have so much to give; go now and bless my people, bless them; indeed bless all the families of the earth through them, bless them, bless them.” 

You can see this in verses 25 and 26 as God’s blessing is mentioned twice. In verse 26, it says explicitly that God sent Jesus to the people of Israel to bless them. And when it says that God sent him to Israel first, it means that he will send the blessing on to others after that. Verse 25 makes plain that this was God’s aim in the covenant he made with Abraham: “In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” Blessing for the Jews and then, through them—through the Jewish Messiah— blessing for all the peoples, and that includes you. 

So I say to you that God is moving toward you with blessing in this Advent season. You are in verse 25. It doesn’t matter that two millennia have passed. With God, a thousand years is as a day (2 Pet. 3:8). With him, it is as though he made this promise two days ago. That’s how fresh the blessing for you is today. If you will move toward him in faith, you will receive the blessing. That is what Christmas is all about—the greatest blessing.

Excerpt taken from: The Dawning of Indestructible Joy: Daily Readings For Advent, by John Piper. Crossway, (p.21).

Even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. Mark 10:45 

 Christmas is about the coming of Christ into the world. It’s about the Son of God, who existed eternally with the Father as “the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature,” taking on human nature and becoming man (Heb. 1:3). 

 It’s about the virgin birth of a child conceived miraculously by the Holy Spirit so that he is the Son of God, not the way you and I are sons of God, but in an utterly unique way (Luke 1:35). 

 It’s about the coming of a man named Jesus in whom “the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” (Col. 2:9). 

 It’s about the coming of the “fullness of time” that had been prophesied by the prophets of old that a ruler would be born in Bethlehem (Mic. 5:2); and a child would be born called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace (Isa. 9:6); and a Messiah, an anointed one, a shoot from the stem of Jesse, a Son of David, a King, would come (Isa. 11:1–4; Zech. 9:9). 

 And, according to Mark 10:45, Christmas is about the coming of the Son of Man who “came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” These words in Mark 10:45, as a brief expression of Christmas, are what I hope God will fix in your mind and heart this Advent. Open your heart to receive the best present imaginable: Jesus giving himself to die for you and to serve you all the rest of eternity. Receive this. Turn away from self-help and sin. Become like little children. Trust him. Trust him. Trust him with your life.

The Search-and-Save Mission 

The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. Luke 19:10

The word advent means “coming.” In this season of the year, we focus on the meaning of the coming of the Son of God into the world. And the spirit of our celebration should be the spirit in which he came. And the spirit of that coming is summed up in Luke 19:10: “The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

The coming of Jesus was a search-and-save mission. “The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

So Advent is a season for thinking about the mission of God to seek and to save lost people from the wrath to come. God raised him from the dead, “Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come” (1 Thess. 1:10). It’s a season for cherishing and worshiping this characteristic of God—that he is a searching and saving God, that he is a God on a mission, that he is not aloof or passive or indecisive. He is never in the maintenance mode, coasting or drifting. He is sending, pursuing, searching, saving. That’s the meaning of Advent.

The book of Acts is a celebration of this advent heart of God’s—on the move to seek and to save the lost. It’s a narration of Jesus’s ongoing advent into more and more peoples of the world. Acts is the story of how the early church understood the words, “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you” (John 20:21). It’s the story of how the vertical advent of God in the mission of Jesus bends out and becomes the horizontal advent of Jesus in the mission of the church. In us.

Jesus came into the world at the first Advent, and every Advent since is a reminder of his continual advent into more and more lives. And that advent is, in fact, our advent—our coming, our moving into the lives of those around us and into the peoples of the world.