WelshRev's Podcast

When Jesus told the crowd in Mark 8 to "take up their cross," nobody there pictured a piece of jewellery. In the first century, a cross meant one thing only: Roman state execution, public, shameful, and slow, reserved for rebels and slaves. This short video asks what it actually meant for Jesus to choose that image, and what it might mean for us today to follow a crucified Jesus ... worth thinking about before we settle too comfortably for what it doesn't mean. This is part of the Discovering

In Mark chapter 8, Peter gets the biggest question in the Gospel right: "Who do you say I am?" "You are the Christ." Full marks. Then Jesus starts talking about suffering, rejection, and death, and Peter grabs Him and tells Him to stop. Peter had the right words and the wrong expectations. He wanted a Christ who conquered his way, not a Christ who ended up on a Roman execution device. It's worth asking whether we do the same thing. We can say all the right things about Jesus, know all the ri

In this Word for the Week we do not spend most of our time in John 3 on the famous verse, John 3:16. That's because the chapter doesn't stress that, but both ends and places the emphasis on verse 36. And that's where this whole conversation with Nicodemus gets resolved. In this Word for the Week we look closely at one Greek word, ἀπειθῶν (apeithōn), the word John chooses at the climax of the chapter instead of the simpler "does not believe" he had already used just a few verses earlier, and we

We've already looked at "refuse" and "receive" in John 3:36. There's a third word hiding in that verse, it's easy to miss, but it opens up a really relevant thread in John's Gospel. The Greek word is μένω (menō), meaning "to remain" or "to abide." John uses it again and again: the Spirit remains on Jesus at His baptism, believers are told to remain in Him like a branch in a vine, and yes, wrath remains on those who reject the Son. Notice the tense. It's not "wrath will come." It's "wrath tha

Last time we looked at apeitheō, the original word in John's account here for refusing Jesus, like a beast that sees the gate but won't come to it. This time it's the other half of John 3:36: "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life." And that means something far more specific than you might think at first. Think of the difference between a farmer saying "I believe that gate's gonna be alright" and a farmer actually putting the heifers in, closing the gate, and walking away confident the

There's a word in John's Gospel that gets flattened every time it's translated into English. John 3:36 says whoever does not believe in the Son will not see life, but the word John actually uses isn't the ordinary word for belief. It's much more about refusing to be persuaded. Picture 'that' heifer, that knows exactly where the gate is, knows the voice calling it in, and simply will not come in ... not because it doesn't understand, but because it won't. That's the sort of picture John is pa