In Depth:  Ian Hamilton

now this...

Ian Hamilton

The Bible has many ways to describe a Christian. One of the most dramatic descriptions of a Christian, however, is found in Romans 6v13, where Paul tells us that a Christian is someone who has been “brought from death to life”.

He is not highlighting a possibility but declaring a fact, an accomplished, once for all, unrepeatable and undeniable fact. If you are a Christian, you have been “brought from death to life”. You may not feel you have, but if you are a Christian you have!

now this...

Ian Hamilton

God assures us that His written Word is not only absolutely reliable, it is also profitable: “All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable” (2 Tim. 3v16). All Scripture is profitable. Not some of it, not most of it, but all of it. This is wonderfully reassuring... until you read a passage like Psalm 88. Stop reading now and read the Psalm.

From beginning to end, Ps. 88 is unremittingly bleak. The Psalmist is “full of troubles”, he is a man with “no strength”, all his companions shun him, God’s wrath has swept over him, “Your dreadful assaults destroy me. They surround me like a flood all day long”. The Psalm closes with the words, “my companions have become darkness”. What possible profit are we to gain from reading this sad and sorrowful litany? If Ps. 88 was your daily reading and you felt cast down in your soul, would it not be wise to jump to Ps. 89 with its exalted views of the covenant Lord? No!

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Ian Hamilton

Contentment is one of the great Christian graces. Paul tells Timothy that “godliness with contentment is great gain”. He tells the church in Philippi to be “anxious about nothing”.

Our Lord Jesus commanded His disciples not to worry about life. How could Jesus say this? How could He expect and even demand that His disciples not worry? Is this not sheer idealism? Is it not actually absurd to expect believers always to be content and never to be anxious? Clearly not. Our Saviour never engaged in idealism or mere wishful thinking. In fact, Jesus gives His disciples reasons why they should not worry. He makes the observation that worrying never accomplished anything of any significance. But more importantly, Jesus tells His disciples that their lives are cared for, watched over by and dearly loved by their heavenly Father. It is the fatherly love and care of God that is the bedrock of the Christian’s contentment.

now this...

Ian Hamilton

The Bible, at times, makes for very uncomfortable reading.

Consider these opening verses of 1 Kings 11: “Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, ‘You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.’ Solomon clung to these in love … So Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and did not wholly follow the Lord, as David His father had done.”