Sunday, 5 July 2015

Glimpses of the Messiah - Zechariah 12 & 13 - Part I

One of the final 'chunks' of Zechariah starts at 12:1 and builds momentum, reaching v10 where God says 'and I will do this ...'.

Glimpses of the Messiah - Zechariah 12 & 13 - Part II

The chunk ends in 13:7 - 9 with a poem. Curiously this poem could apply to Israel before it was attacked by Babylonians, in other words pre-dating all the stuff we have looked at in Zechariah so far. The foreign attack would then be the 'striking the shepherd', and the exile the scattering of the people.

[IN] How is God shaping us as a church?

Challenge: Pray with another for the life of the church

Sunday, 28 June 2015

Zechariah - Learning Resource Pack

Today we had a multi-format learning occasion, with different resources to help us dig into Zechariah. The full pack of those resources can be found here.

The Lord Cares - Zechariah 10

Whilst the first 6 chapters of Zechariah was essentially one big vision with clear date references, the following chapters are a collection of different visions and are harder to date.

Sunday, 14 June 2015

Sunday, 31 May 2015

The Lord Rebuilds - Zechariah 4

In these chapters we see God is active, working through the ordinary leaders of the day. Each week also seems like Christmas, with links to verses we read each year (e.g. Is 11:2 last week). Here we have another figure, Zerubbabel, who we find in a Christmas verse that we don't often read - Mt 1:12 genealogy of Jesus.

Sunday, 24 May 2015

The Lord Cleanses - Zechariah 3

Decades earlier the Israelite people had been taken into exile, because they had been unfaithful, they had not lived as God had required. From leadership down it had been a sorry story. Now Zechariah has a vision of a court room, where high priest Joshua is on trial with the Lord as judge.

[OUT] Which neighbour is God leading you to invite?

Challenge: Pray now into inviting for September Imagine

Sunday, 10 May 2015

The Lord Protects - Zechariah 2

The Old Testament prophetic visions often start with an everyday object which is used to convey a much bigger message. So chapter 2 starts with a simple measuring stick. With a slightly bizarre in-vision conversation Zechariah is told the stick is to measure the city of Jerusalem. Then the point unfolds - Jerusalem will be transformed, not just to a super-size city like we have today but to something very very special.