Every Day Light with Selwyn Hughes

For Reading and Meditation:     Romans 3:21-31

Herbert Spencer, whom we quoted earlier, wrote: "The task of religion is at-one-ment: atonement. If it fails to do this it fails at the vital point." Its ritual may be beautiful, its sanctions may be ancient, its precepts may be good, but if it fails to bring men and women into correspondence with God it fails vitally...

For Reading and Meditation:     Matthew 27:32-44

What humiliation and shame our Lord endured for us on the cross of Calvary. Cicero, a Roman philosopher, said of crucifixion: "Far be the very name of a cross not only from the bodies of Roman citizens, but from their imaginations, eyes and ears." But He, our Lord, though sinless, was crucified on a cross. Although...

For Reading and Meditation:     Mark 15:16-39

I cannot believe that God would write a law of "saving by sacrifice" within our hearts and evade it Himself. The psalmist asks: "Does he who formed the eye not see?" (Psalm 94:9). And Browning said: "He that created love, shall He not love?" We might add: "He that created...

For Reading and Meditation:     Luke 9:18-27

Suppose a tiny seed had a will of its own and decided to save itself by refusing to be buried. It would abide alone. It would save itself but would not save others. When it decided to be buried and die, then the result would be a golden harvest. Take a mother: she goes down into the valley of the shadow of death to bring...

For Reading and Meditation:     1 Corinthians 15:1-11

What other world religion has at its heart such a glorious fact as our Lord's resurrection? Christianity is the only faith whose Founder died upon a cross, was buried for three days, and then returned from the dead. There are voices in today's church trying to persuade us that the resurrection of Christ never...

For Reading and Meditation:     John 20:1-18

The late Bishop John Robinson stated: "The resurrection of the body of Christ is no essential belief for Christian people, and it would make no difference to their faith if the Lord's body had been flung into the Valley of Hinnom, like those of the malefactors, to disintegrate among the rotting corpses." Such a...

For Reading and Meditation:     Acts 2:29-41

Let us pursue the question we asked yesterday: What exactly do we mean by resurrection? Some try to explain the resurrection as resuscitation - the return to life from apparent death. Those holding this view subscribe to what is called "The Swoon Theory." There are two forms of this theory. One maintains that Jesus did...

For Reading and Meditation:     2 Timothy 1:1-18

Several of the world's religions, when faced with the perplexing issue of Christ's return from the dead, explain it in terms of reincarnation. A proponent of one of the Eastern religions says: "Christ's resurrection was really a reincarnation - another soul in another body." I once heard a Christian minister declare...

For Reading and Meditation:     1 Corinthians 15:50-58

Mark';s observation "that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away" (Mark 16:4) seems a simple statement, but behind it lies a truth that is positively staggering in its implications. One is that no longer can death...

For Reading and Meditation:     Matthew 28:1-15

Was it really necessary for the stone to be rolled away before our Lord could exit the tomb? Christ's resurrection body was able to pass easily through doors, for He came to His disciples when the doors were shut. The stone was rolled away not that our Lord might come out but that the disciples might go in. It was...

For Reading and Meditation:     Acts 13:16-41

We spend one more day considering the implications arising from the rolling away of the stone. What did that rolled-away stone reveal? Well, follow the women into the tomb. It's just a large hole hewn in a rock. What do you see? Just "the place where they laid him" (Mark...

For Reading and Meditation:     Ephesians 1:15-23

Young Christians who have just come into the faith often ask: Why is the resurrection so important? How can an event which took place 2,000 years ago have any relevance for us today? Three very simple statements (not original to me) will bring us to the heart of the matter. First, the resurrection of Christ assures...

For Reading and Meditation:     Acts 1:1-11

Before we conclude our meditations on the uniqueness of Christianity, we must mention our Lord's ascension. I much prefer the word exaltation to ascension to describe Christ's return to the throne of God, for that is what it really was - an exaltation. Paul, in some verses in the passage we looked at yesterday (

For Reading and Meditation:     Ephesians 4:1-16

In his autobiography, A King's Story, the Duke of Windsor told of a strange thing that happened at the funeral of his father, King George V. He described how, as his father's body was being conveyed on a draped gun carriage through the crowded streets of London, a mishap occurred which only those closest to the scene...