WelshRev's Podcast

How do you know you’ll be alright? When the winters come, when the health goes, when the work dries up or the market turns? In Mark 10:17-31 a good, respectable, wealthy man runs up to Jesus, kneels in the dust, and asks what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus looked at him, loved him, and said one thing that sent him grieving away. In this Word for the Week we look at what was really holding that man back, what the camel and the needle’s eye actually mean, why Jesus says salvation is

What do you lean on when real pressure comes? In this Super Short Thought, Ezekiel’s warning about Egypt’s broken reed staff meets the rich young man of Mark 10:21-22. Both leaned on something that looked solid. Both found it gave way under weight and stabbed them ... not even in the back but in the front! Ezekiel told Israel that trusting Egypt’s military alliance was like leaning on a walking stick made of reed. It cannot bear your weight, it snaps, and the sharp end goes into your shoulde

Where is your safety net? A rich man came to Jesus full of questions about his own insecurity. Jesus loved him, then named the one thing he was leaning on. Why did Jesus tell the rich young ruler to sell what he owned? Not because money is evil, but because this man was treating his wealth as proof that he was OK, and he secretly doubted it. Jesus challenged what he was leaning on. The short answer: leaning on a person with the love and power to take care of you is safer than anything you can

Why does a man with wealth, a clean record and the respect of his community kneel in front of Jesus and ask what he still lacks? He had property, a clean moral record and public respect, yet still sensed something missing. Comfort and status cannot give security, and that unmet need is what drives him to Jesus. In Mark 10:17, the rich man (often called the rich young ruler) shows us that money buys comfort but never makes us safe, and that whatever we can get never seems to be enough. This

Who do you say Jesus is? In this Word for the Week, recorded on Mynydd Illtud in the Breacon Beacons range in South Wales, we walk through Mark 8:27-38: Peter’s confession at pagan Caesarea Philippi, Jesus’s first prediction of his suffering, and the call to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow him. You will find out why the setting matters, why Jesus silenced the news that he was the Christ, what “Get behind me” may really mean, and what a cross meant to the people who first heard th

What is the point of a bridge? A bridge connects two places that would otherwise stay separated. Sitting quietly by the rebuilt Old Bridge (Stari Most) in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina, I was struck by how well this matches what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:18-20: Christ has reconciled us to God, and the bridge he built is cross shaped. In this Super Short Thought: How the Neretva River has long divided the east and west of Mostar and why rebuilding the bridge after the conflict matters.