Life under the sun, without God, is ‘habel’, which is a Hebrew word which describes what is ‘vanity’, ‘meaningless’, or ‘vaporous’ (Eccles.1:2-3). The Christian will have his moments, but the same book of Scripture says that there is nevertheless a meaningful rhythm to all of life: ‘For everything there is a season, and a time …
In John Bunyan’s classic, The Pilgrim’s Progress, there is a character Mr Facing Both Ways who lives in the village of Fair Speech. Bunyan is exposing one of the temptations in life which is to speak out of both sides of our mouth in the hope that everybody will appreciate us. Yet there is a …
All our lives we are cajoled to believe that the majority of people carry an aura of moral authority and compelling conviction. Being part of a minority makes us feel isolated and uneasy; being with the 51% and over makes us feel democratic and safe. Since no man has a monopoly on wisdom, there is …
Christians read of Jesus Christ: ‘Him we proclaim’ (Col.1:28), but what do Australians, and many in the Western world, think of Him? Of course, they think many and various things. John Dickson cites some statistics from the National Church Life Survey in 2021 which suggests that 51% of Australians are not convinced that Jesus ever …
The King James Version of the Bible in Mark 2:4 says that the people could not get near (or ‘come nigh to’) Jesus because of ‘the press’, which, of course, was referring to the crowd (as in the ESV). Nevertheless, the KJV translation provided a good introduction for C. S. Lewis to venture some cogent …
Calvin begins his Institutes of the Christian Religion with the comment that ‘Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.’ If we start with Socrates’ ‘Know thyself’, we soon run into three obvious problems with all of us. …
Ministering the gospel in a godly way is not just difficult but impossible. To the Thessalonian Christians, Paul spoke of himself as like a nursing mother (1 Thess.2:7) and also like a father (1 Thess.2:11). His language was very strong: ‘So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only …
How to give ourselves without preaching ourselves Read More »
It is a startling and counter-intuitive thought that Christ Jesus came into the world to usher in hostility and trouble and controversy. Surely we have enough of that already. Yet He tells us clearly that we are not to think that He came to bring peace on earth, but, no, He came to bring division …
Presbyterian Church of Australia, Church and Nation Committee The Federal government will almost certainly seek to amend Anti-Discrimination Legislation so that religious schools lose current exemptions which allow them to have enrolment and employment policies that promote their mission and enable them to develop an educational community that reflects their religious convictions. In particular, the …
Every pastor has been asked “will I know my loved ones on the other side?” The intermediate state is the time between our death and the day when Jesus Christ returns and we receive our new body. In that time we are disembodied souls, will we be able to recognise loved ones? We cannot be …