Weekly Bible Reflection

Hippocrates, the 5th century Greek physician, identified four kinds of temperament: the sociable extroverts – the sanguine; the driven leaders – the choleric; the analytical and reflective – the melancholic; and the relaxed and inward looking – the phlegmatic. While medicine today has much more sophisticated models identifying the complexity of personality, certain characteristics may dominate.

Was C.S. Lewis right? Is there real joy in our lives? I am not talking about a manufactured, false kind of joy – putting on a brave face when we are anxious or when things go wrong in life. I am talking about, and I am sure Lewis was talking about, the deep joy that springs from a clear conscience.

Writing in The Spectator magazine in 2013, Dr Jonathan Sachs, former Chief Rabbi in the UK, said, “I love the remark made by one Oxford don about another: ‘On the surface, he’s profound, but deep down, he’s superficial.’ That sentence has more than once come to mind when reading the new atheists….

‘If God is great and good why is there so much suffering?’ A question we regularly hear, especially when the topic of Christianity comes up. Certainly this is one of life’s tough questions that we all want answered.

Why would an unbeliever say that ‘Jesus Christ is easily the most dominant figure in all history?’ Is it the power of his words, the magnetism of his personality, the integrity of his life even in the face of the gross injustice perpetrated against him? Or is it his extraordinary feats, noted by 1st century historians such as Josephus? Or is there something more?

The reality is that when we declare the message of Jesus the responses vary enormously. In the end they depend, not so much on how we preach, but upon the attitudes of the people present.

The question of meaning has plagued humanity through the ages. In his recent book, Pagans and Christians in the City: Culture Wars from the Tiber to the Potomac (Eerdmans: 2018), Steven D. Smith helps us to see links between the culture wars of today and questions that arose in the ancient world.

Easter Reflections (4) – May 15, 2019Grand Design... Voices around us insist that we exist by chance and that our experience of life now is all there is. And many of these voices want to shut down any opposing view, no matter whether it is grounded in history or makes...

A popular view in the culture today is that Christianity denigrates women. When we hear such views expressed it’s worth having a creative response at our fingertips – such as sensitively opening a way to take our interlocutors to the biblical narrative.

May 1, 2019 The Cross…!  Easter Day is truly a gala day as we celebrate Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. His resurrection underscores the validity of the Christian faith. Without it, we are lost. That said, our Easter celebration raises interesting questions: ‘Why...

Twelve months ago I drew attention to Robert Letham’s observations in his book, The Holy Trinity (P&R Publishing: 2004), concerning the impact of postmodernism on society. He comments that since the 1970s the western world has developed ‘a generally pessimistic...

Fifteen months ago I drew attention to an article, ‘Faith’s Implacable Enemies’ in The Weekend Australian (November 4-5, 2017). Dyson Heydon, a former justice of the High Court of Australia, wrote of the significant shift by society’s elites today away from...

There are so many things in life we either tend to ignore or simply take for granted – leaders, for example. We may not always respect leaders at a personal level, but Paul in his First Letter to Timothy writes: First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers,...