Weekly Bible Reflection

The numbers continue to come in: the traditional denominations are shrinking. Yet many new, independent, gospel-centered churches are growing. That said, many in the wider community, especially on the east coast from DC to Maine and on the west coast from LA through...

How often, when we pray, do we mainly focus on what we want? Yes, when catastrophic events occur, such as the current bushfires in drought-stricken Australia, we pray for God’s mercy that he might send drenching rain. That said, don’t we expect God to answer our...

With the many and varied changes around us – secular materialism, the disdain for Christianity, the changed attitudes to sexuality, the political divisions in the West, the issues of climate, and the rise of China – we might wonder about the future. Indeed, The...

The world around us seems to be growing more selfish and corrupt. The values that spring from a general acknowledgment that we are the special creation of a personal God are gathering dust on the shelf of history. Parents are concerned about the influences of social...

Despite the significant developments of science and technology, we are made aware daily of the inability of men and woman to live at peace with one another. At every level of society, there is narcissism and greed, hatred and corruption haunting the human experience....

‘It is commonplace for contemporary scientists and philosophers to give lip service to the principle that science decides only the how questions and leaves the why questions to religion’ (italics mine), writes Phillip Johnson (The Right Questions, p.68). However, he...

In his insightful and challenging book, The Right Questions (2002), Phillip Johnson (who died last month) wrote that at the heart of the cultural changes today is the sharp divergence between two very different world views: the Christian view that states (as in John...

Throughout this week, ‘Happy Thanksgiving’ will echo across the landfrom New York to San Francisco. The principle of ‘Thanksgiving’ has its origins in a non-sectarian expression of ‘thanks’ to a loving, merciful and generous God. While Presidential Thanksgiving...

Michael Connelly in The Gods of Guilt, writes these words into one of his characters: Everybody has a jury, the voices they carry inside… Those I have loved and those I have hurt. Those who bless me and those who haunt me. As every playwright knows, no one is perfect....

With the rise of secular progressivism and its antipathy towards religion we may be tempted to think that the opportunity to bring God into our conversations is a lost cause. It’s important that we remain calm and remember that God’s truth has touched the hearts of...

GK Chesterton is reputed to have said, ‘When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing anything’. In today’s changing world Christianity is often dismissed as being anti-intellectual: ‘No-one...

Last week I touched on Jesus’ words in his Sermon on the Mount as part of the Christian response to William Barr’s statement that secular society is ‘forcing their values on people of faith’. Jesus said, “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your...

An article on Monday reported a speech given by the US Attorney General, William Barr at Notre Dame Law School last Friday. Caleb Parke reported (FoxNews, 10.14.19), that the Attorney General ‘blasted “militant secularists” and their attacks on Judaeo-Christian...

Prayer is one of the essential keys to lives being transformed. So, I come back to my question: What do you really think of prayer?

It is sometimes said that the most difficult thing for the Christian church today is to get people to believe. I think the opposite is true. Most people will believe almost anything, providing that what is said is communicated with a voice of authority. GK Chesterton...

In a 6th Coffee Conversation let me suggest you explore with your friend(s) the question that a young magistrate who lived twenty-eight life spans ago (a life-span being seventy years) put to Jesus: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” (Luke 18:18)

In his Road to Character (Random Press: 2015), David Brooks writes, ‘…We have seen a broad shift from a culture of humility to the culture of what you might call the Big Me, from a culture that encouraged people to think humbly of themselves to a culture that...

Over the centuries the model of the Good Samaritan has set a pattern for compassion and care. God’s people especially have been involved, positively, sacrificially, joyfully, assisting people in pain – the hungry, the lonely and the elderly, the victims of abuse and of injustice, unemployment and poverty.