The Narrow Path

  Monday, 1 September, 2025 Psalms 1; 2 1 Kings 2:28-46 Acts 23:12-24 Blessed (Psalm 1:1; 2:12) Blessed is the man     who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners,     nor sits in the seat of scoffers; Kiss the Son,     lest he be angry, and you perish in the way,     for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him. As any studious Bible reader will tell you, every page of every book within it speaks something of Christ, as he is the perfect revelation and fulfilment of God to us. Some have taken this idea and had it in mind while leafing through the book of Psalms, and have come to the conclusion that this book of sacred poetry does indeed contain the Gospel of Jesus Christ, if one has the spiritual eyes to see. The first two Psalms give us, in wonderful poetic flow, the state of the universe, and God’s acti...

  Saturday, 30 August, 2025 Psalms 148; 149 1 Kings 2:13-27 Acts 23:1-11 A New Song (Psalm 149:1) Praise the Lord ! Sing to the Lord a new song,     his praise in the assembly of the godly! As an unofficially certified church music curmudgeon, my first reading of this line from the Psalms made me do a double-take. We all know that the height of church music was in the late 6 th century with Pope Gregory the Great and his promotion of what later became known as Gregorian Chant in the 9 th century. Sing a new song? What’s wrong the old one? Perhaps it is because that, while “there is nothing new under the sun”, we also each live a unique life that is new for us every day. Every morning we wake up having lost something old and gained something new. Simply by virtue of breathing we experience change, and I don’t need to look up the exact numbers, but I think we are all aware of the fact that the cells in our bodies reproduce at ...

  Friday, 29 August, 2025 Psalm 145 1 Kings 2:1-12 Acts 22:17-30 Observance: Beheading of John the Baptist The Real Reason (Acts 22:30) But on the next day, desiring to know the real reason why he was being accused by the Jews, [the tribune] unbound him and commanded the chief priests and all the council to meet, and he brought Paul down and set him before them. One the whole, Christians seem to be very good at living the Christian life in public, more or less. We are generally more likely to be generous, kind, brave and aloof from petty concerns. More often than not, we live like this not just to please our Saviour, but to encourage those around us to come close to the Lord as well. But how often do we feel impotent, desperately wanting people to be like the tribune, desiring to know the real reason for why we are the way we are? Last week I gathered with my fellow clergy and one of the topics we discussed was why public evangelism seems so d...

  Thursday, 28 August, 2025 Psalms 143; 146 1 Kings 1:32-53 Acts 21:40-22:16 Observance: Augustine of Hippo, bishop and teacher (d. 430) Why Do You Wait? (Acts 22:16) And now why do you wait? Rise and be baptised and wash away your sins, calling on his name. Pondering the mind of God can get pretty overwhelming. Consider our situation with the church here in Brisbane. Once upon a time we were opening five new churches a year. Now we close them faster than that. What is God saying to us? Should we be content with “managing decline”? There is a sense of confident urgency in the early church that should rouse us into action. St Paul did not care that it had been prophesied he would be chained should he continue to Jerusalem. And when he was attacked by the mob, he probably just shrugged his shoulders and thought “here we go again”. How many action movies finish with a big fight scene, where the hero seems to be losing until finally he discovers s...

  Wednesday, 27 August, 2025 Psalm 140 1 Kings 1:1-31 Acts 21:27-39 Observance: Monica, mother of Augustine (d. 387) Sharp Tongues (Psalm 140:3) They make their tongue sharp as a serpent's,     and under their lips is the venom of asps. There is a certain phrase in French that describes the sense one has when they have a really good comeback, but too late to say it. I think this particular frustration is something most of us have experience with. But I wonder if there is a phrase in a language somewhere that describes the opposite? The sense of having soothing and comfortable words, but only thinking of them when it is too late? As a fan of movies and television, I have to admit I love a scene with good writing, with plenty of witty banter between characters. (English mobsters seem to be especially gifted at this.) Yet real life experience seems to prove that it is in fact more difficult to come up with conversation that i...

  Tuesday, 26 August, 2025 Psalm 137; 138 2 Samuel 24:15-25 Acts 21:15-26 Your Name Above All (Psalm 138:2) I bow down toward your holy temple     and give thanks to your name for your steadfast love and your faithfulness,     for you have exalted above all things     your name and your word. As traffic around the city gets worse and worse, I wonder how it will affect the way we interact with one another when outside our cars. There is a very great opportunity for traffic woes to spill out into a general nastiness between people. But there is also a very great opportunity for us as a group of people to learn how to get along. Because if we want to be able to navigate these very busy roads, we would do well to follow not only the road rules, but conventions of social etiquette. Particularly in the sense of allowing other cars to come in front of us when it makes moral sense to do so. Havi...

  Monday, 25 August, 2025 Psalm 135 2 Samuel 24:1-14 Acts 21:1-14 The Great Mercy Of The Lord (2 Samuel 24:14) Then David said to Gad, “I am in great distress. Let us fall into the hand of the Lord , for his mercy is great; but let me not fall into the hand of man.” Both here in today’s first lesson, as well as with St Paul in our second, we read about men of God who feared God more than people. It is very noble and encouraging to read when other people are like this; but how would we be in the same situation? We can see other people, we can hear them and smell them and feel the weight of chains and the cut of weapons. But God is invisible spirit, and can seem further away. To have courage in the face of danger we can see through faith in what we cannot is both a Christian privilege as well as our challenge. Maybe our perception of distance plays into this – even just now I spoke of the physical being closer than the spiritual. Yet this is not how...

  Saturday, 23 August, 2025 Psalms 124; 125; 126 2 Samuel 23:1-23 Acts 20:17-38 Obtained With His Own Blood (Acts 20:28) Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. Something I personally find admirable about St Paul is his single-minded focus. While he is human like the rest of us, he still manages to keep focused on the really important things. His exhortation to the church at Ephesus is one example. He gives us a wonderful definition of the Gospel (which is helpful, because sometimes it feels like the word “gospel” can mean any number of things). St Paul’s definition is this: “ repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ” (v. 21). How wonderfully simple and beautifully concise! And, at the same time, so widely applicable that whether we are a bishop at Ephesus or a 21 st Century Brisbanite, it can...

  Friday, 22 August, 2025 Psalm 118:1-18 2 Samuel 22:31-51 Acts 20:1-16 Not A Little Comforted (Acts 20:12)   And they took the youth away alive, and were not a little comforted. This event today’s lesson from Acts should probably be more widely taught in seminaries – if you like to preach long sermons, you better know how to perform resurrections! A thought that popped up while reading it today, though, was how it occurred “on the first day, when we were gathered to break bread.” That is, even back in the time of the apostles, the Church gathered on Sunday to celebrate Holy Communion. And I have to wonder about how we approach the idea of miracles during worship in our day. St Paul had an actual bodily resurrection happen at his service. During ours, we have talking, singing, listening, and times of silence. If we trust God’s promise that he will minister to us in our gathering (and we can), then why wouldn’t anything supernatural hap...

  Thursday, 21 August, 2025 Psalms 121; 122; 123 2 Samuel 22:17-31 Acts 19:21-41 Disreputable Trade (Acts 19:27) [Demetrius the silversmith said] “And there is danger not only that this trade of ours may come into disrepute but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis may be counted as nothing, and that she may even be deposed from her magnificence, she whom all Asia and the world worship.” There is a certain concept being discussed in some parts of the internet, as a response to discussions in other parts of the internet. It concerns the fact that, while information has become greatly democratised, at the same time it has been weaponised. How can we know that what we read or hear is true, free from nefarious editorial biases? I find it wonderfully reassuring that this is not some new phenomenon. The riot at Ephesus swept up the whole city, and we read that many of the rioters did not even know why they were there. Making this incident e...

  Wednesday, 20 August, 2025 Psalms 114; 115 2 Samuel 22:1-16 Acts 19:1-20 Observance: Bernard of Clairvaux abbot and teacher (d. 1153) We Will Bless Forever (Psalm 115:18) But we will bless the Lord     from this time forth and forevermore. Praise the Lord ! There is a certain conceptualisation of heaven that I have heard from children of non-Christians wanting to learn about God. And if you’ve ever spent any amount of time in children’s ministry you’ll know that they have the best questions. This particular question concerned the afterlife. The child was worried that their only two options were either the flames of hell, or floating on a cloud singing hymns for eternity. To be fair, it did sound pretty bleak, even for me, and I love hymns. So what does it mean that we will praise God for eternity? Today’s Psalmist seems to think it is not so bad, pointing out that, since the dead cannot praise, and he wants to praise...

  Tuesday, 19 August, 2025 Psalms 110; 111 2 Samuel 21:1-22 Acts 18:18-28 Eloquent and Competent (Acts 18:24) Now a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was an eloquent man, competent in the Scriptures. Ah, good old Apollos! Digging around the texts of the primitive church, it is fun to find names that we recognise from elsewhere. Our friend Apollos is mentioned by St Paul in his first letter to the church at Corinth, which is in Achaea – the very we place we have just read about here in Acts 24. Apollos spoke with eloquence, and was competent in the scriptures. What a deadly combination to make the forces of evil tremble! On top of this, he was humble, too. Or, shall we say, he had a teachable spirit. Priscilla and Aquila saw what he was doing, knew what gospel dynamite God had placed in their path, and offered to help Apollos get even better – and he accepted. We read in 1 Corinthians 1 that Apollos was so chari...

  Monday, 18 August, 2025 Psalm 107:1-22 2 Samuel 20:14-26 Acts 18:1-17 Gathered In (Psalm 107:3) [The people God] gathered in from the lands,     from the east and from the west,     from the north and from the south. One of the Lord’s special skills (if I may use such a vulgar term) is making saints out of the least likely people. We only need remember our own state from which he saved us – and looking out at our fellow saints only reinforces the point further. The Psalmist sings of people being gathered in from the four points of the compass. And we can have a sensible chuckle in appreciation of the prophetic nature of this. We can look at our own Anglican Communion, originally started by Mediterranean missionaries travelling to the British Isles, who then sent out missionaries of their own, and can now boast of a global geographical centre somewhere in Africa. God is really good at gathering people in...

  Saturday, August 16, 2025 Psalm 105:1-22 2 Samuel 19:41-20:13 Acts 17:22-34 Actually Not Far (Acts 17:27b) Yet [God] is actually not far from each one of us. St Paul’s preaching at the Areopagus is a masterclass in Christian apologetics. He manages to hold together both a point of connection between the Christian and the unbeliever, as well as a plain presentation of the core of the gospel message. It is this point of connection that is so encouraging for us today, many of us who live in social groupings filled with non-Christians. The apostle has perceived that the men of Athens are very religious. It is as true in ancient Athens as it is in every place and every time. Look at where he starts: with Genesis 1, of God forming everything from nothing, followed by the one man (Adam), from whom came every other human being. Instead of this being a point of scientific contention (and there were plenty of competing scientific theories they could have arg...

  Friday, August 15, 2025 Psalm 104:1-25 2 Samuel 19:24-40 Acts 17:15-21 Observance: Mary, Mother Of Our Lord Something New (Acts 17:21) Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new. The journey of discipleship which we are all making means that, as we live, we learn. It is a natural part of growing as Christians, that as God exposes us to different life events, we learn more about who God is, how he would have us live, and how much he loves us. Yet we must also be growing our sense of discernment: specifically, discerning between what is a deeper understanding of God, and what is just a fun fact or interesting idea invented in someone’s head. Fun facts and interesting ideas invented in people’s heads can be an amusing way to pass one’s time, but the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing somet...

  Thursday, August 14, 2025 Psalm 108; 109:20-30 2 Samuel 19:8b-23 Acts 17:1-14 Observance: Twentieth century martyrs More Noble (Acts 17:11) Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so. Today we get a contrast between two different receptions of Paul’s gospel presentation. One happened at Thessalonica, the other at Berea. One was negative, the other positive. Consider the two different ways they are described: those at Thessalonica were jealous, as opposed to the Bereans, who were noble. I wonder how the word “noble” sounds to our modern, egalitarian ears. I don’t think those at Berea were consider noble because of their family tree; it seems more that they had a noble attitude. Perhaps “noble” as an attitude is something we could get behind; particularly as it is contrasted against an attitude of jealousy, which no-one like...

  Wednesday, August 13, 2025 Psalms 101; 102:1-22 2 Samuel 18:19-19:8a Acts 16:25-40 Observance: Jeremy Taylor, bishop and spiritual writer (d. 1667) Listening To Them (Acts 16:25) About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Being in a difficult place in life is tough. I’m sure we would all like to have the courage of Paul and Silas, who had been publicly beaten and shamed and thrown into prison, and spent the night praying and singing hymns. It makes me wonder, what gave them this ability to cut through the noise of their trials and be up at midnight praying and singing? They must have had some depth to their relationship with God, for starters. It was to him that they were praying and singing. In their dark moment, both literally and emotionally, they turned to God and spent time with him in the way they knew best: praying and singing. There was also a side-effect of this. ...

  Tuesday, August 12, 2025 Psalms 99; 100 2 Samuel 18:5-18 Acts 16:11-24 Holy Is He! (Psalm 99:5) Exalt the Lord our God;     worship at his footstool!     Holy is he! A quick note on how our readings through the Psalms are set: we begin at Psalm 1, and work our way through the entire Psalter during morning and evening prayer until we get to the end; and then we go back to the start again. Some Psalms are longer than others, and so we break them up over the course of the two office services. Other Psalms are shorter, and so we might get a few in a row, such as this morning. And so, through the quirks of the cycle of readings, we have this wonderful picture of God’s multi-faceted holiness. There is the immense power of his holiness, causing the earth to quake and shudder. We hear mention of his great forgiveness, held together with his righteous judgement. Following closely on the heels of this comes t...

  Monday, August 11, 2025 Psalms 95; 96 2 Samuel 17:15-18:4 Acts 15:36-16:10 Observances: Clare of Assisi (d. 1252); John Henry Newman, cardinal and theologian (d. 1890) Trees Singing For Joy (Psalm 96:12)   Let the field exult, and everything in it! Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy. Having dipped my toe into the world of volunteer bush care, I have discovered the great enemy of the flora of South East Queensland: the dreaded Cat’s Claw vine. Raised as I was with the romance of the bush in poetry and paintings, of great gum trees reaching up towards the stars, with the eyes of mysterious marsupials glowing at their base, the reality is somewhat different. If there are any glowing eyes, they are hidden behind the leaves of this pest, and the trees reach not so much towards the stars as pull away from the vine that is growing up their trunks. But there is plenty of good work being done all around the place reclaiming our green...

  Saturday, August 9, 2025 Psalm 89:39-53 2 Samuel 16:20-17:14 John 12:36b-50 Observance: Mary Sumner, founder of the Mothers’ Union (d. 1921) Jesus Cried Out (John 12:44) And Jesus cried out and said, “Whoever believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me.” Against the backdrop of the prophet’s call of hard hearts and stubborn wills, Jesus cries out to the world. He knows the terrible difficulty of his mission, to bring people out of the darkness into the light of his kingdom. And yet he still cries out. Our Lord wants only one thing: for humanity to come into loving fellowship with their Father. All of his life boils down to this one thing; even calling for people to believe in him is only so that people will believe in he who sent him. Jesus knows the love of the Father for humanity, and he cried out to the world about this love. Our Father is not a stern taskmaster; he is not a mean overlord or tyrant demanding people bow an...

  Friday, August 8, 2025 Psalm 89:1-18 2 Samuel 16:5-19 John 12:12-36a Observance: Dominic, priest and friar (d. 1221) The Festal Shout (Psalm 89:15) Blessed are the people who know the festal shout,     who walk, O Lord , in the light of your face I’ve never been in an English soccer crowd, but I’ve seen videos of them. It almost makes me willing to drop my rugby chauvinism when I hear their brilliantly creative team chants and songs. And I have heard the legends (as I am sure we all have) about the loyalty Englishmen hold towards their local soccer team. This is what came to mind when I came across this verse in today’s Psalm, about the blessing on those “who know the festal shout”. A group of people who know the special words, because they are the people who walk in the light of the Lord’s face. If we could take the Psalmist’s poetic license and suggest a “festal shout” might not only be spoken words, but an inner movem...

  Thursday, August 7, 2025 Psalm 90 2 Samuel 15:24-16:4 John 11:55-12:11 Seeking For Jesus (John 11:56) They were looking for Jesus and saying to one another as they stood in the temple, “What do you think? That he will not come to the feast at all?” I need to make a confession: I love Holy Communion. But then again, who doesn’t? It is the great feast of the Lord, a token of his love for us, a seal on our souls of his possession of us. The people of God gather to receive the gifts of God, the sweet sacrament of peace. When we gather weekly to celebrate this feast, how often do we stop and think about who we expect to be there with us? In John’s Gospel we are almost at Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem. The Passover to end all Passovers is about to begin. And the Jews were looking for Jesus and saying to one another as they stood in the temple, “What do you think? That he will not come to the feast at all?” Do we ever have that worry as we...

  Wednesday, August 6, 2025 Psalm 86 2 Samuel 15:7-23 John 11:38-54 Observance: The Transfiguration Of Our Lord Slow To Anger (Psalm 86:15) But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious,     slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. The fact that God is “slow to anger” is claimed many times in many books throughout the Bible. It is a promise that we hold onto tightly, to reassure our souls that in spite of our many stumblings, our Creator still loves us. So let us take this opportunity to remind ourselves once again of what it means for God to be “slow to anger”. It suggests, very strongly, that God’s usual demeanour is to not be angry. If God is slow to get angry, then that means he is slow to move to that place of anger, which means he starts in a place where he is not angry. How often do we need to be reminded of this! God’s natural and comfortable disposition towards us, his creatures, is one o...