Sunday Bible Readings to Easter 2025 - Spiritual Rewilding

Our Sunday Bible readings from now until Easter are taken from the First Letter of John.

The overall theme for our preaching, teaching, and ministry throughout 2025 is Spiritual Rewilding building on the theme of Renewal, Revival and Revitalisation. John in his first letter writes with two significant focuses for his correspondents; the first is Love, and the second is Holiness.

It was Tertullian one of the first century African theologians, and Church Fathers who commented that one of the distinctive characteristics of the Church of Jesus Christ was… “See how these Christians love one another.”

1John reminds us  that’s God’s fundamental nature and character is love, and that if we as God’s people in the world fail to live out God’s love in our relationships within the Church and in the world, then we will not be recognised as disciples of Jesus.

John’s second focus is holiness… not that we are to be “holier than thou” in the world, but we are to live in the Church and in the world as a holy people. A people who are set apart for the worship and service of God, and for the love and service of others in the world.

There is a danger that both love and holiness can be thought as other worldly values, but in John’s letter and in our application of what we read we are to be encouraged to put these values into practice in our daily lives. This love and holiness has very real implications for how we live in relationship to God, in relationship to other Christians, in relationship to other people in the world, and in our relationship with the creation and the environment.

As we continue to seek to, live life with Jesus, and share life with others, in the power of the Spirit, we pray that we may be spiritually rewilded in love and holiness, learning to live in this world as God’s dearly loved children.

1John 3:1 “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!”