Weekly Bible Reflection

Happiness is something we long for. But how can we achieve it? It’s elusive: one moment we can be feeling happy, but the next we’re not. Like moonlight it has slipped through our fingers. In fact ‘happiness’ can’t be a goal in the strict sense of the word. For a goal...

How can we weather the challenges of our messy and conflicted world? Come with me to Ephesians chapter 3, verses 14 through 21 where we find one of the great prayers of the Bible. The curtain over Paul the Apostle is drawn aside and we are given a glimpse of him at...

A question we rarely think about is this: ‘What does Jesus expect of everyone who believes?’ A third part of the prayer Jesus prayed on the night of his arrest provides a vital part of the answer. In John chapter 17, verse 21 we read: “I ask … that they may all be...

How can we be sure about God? Christianity makes claims that can be hard to believe in the 21st century – for example, its exclusiveness, its supernaturalism and its age.  To say that Jesus is the only way to God appears to be very narrow-minded. Further, the story of...

Our prayers say a great deal about us. Are your prayers like that of AA Milne’s, Christopher Robin who, in the midst of his child-like bedtime prayers, prayed that God would bless his parents as well as himself? Or do your prayers reflect the shape of the honest and...

I have a question: how often are your prayers prompted by your meditation on God’s Word? In Daniel chapter 9 we read: In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, by birth a Mede, who became king over the realm of the Chaldeans – in the first year of his reign,...

Let me ask, do you have any regrets? You may regret words you let rip and can’t take back, or a relationship you should never have started. Second Samuel, chapter 11 tells us of the occasion when King David was relaxing on the roof of the palace when he saw a woman...

Many of us are concerned with the issues of justice and peace, divisions and conflict. Is there anything we can do that might make a difference in our world where daily the news seems to get worse? Come with me to a prayer of Moses that we find in Numbers, chapter 14....

One of the ironies of today’s highly connected world is the personal isolation that many feel. Indeed, an extreme sense of personal isolation can lead to despair and even suicide. And there are times when a sense of isolation can overwhelm God’s people: prayer is...

Is there anything that can shake us out of our apathy and fear and make us an intrepid people? That can inject enthusiasm and joy, confidence, and courage into our lives as God’s people? Come with me to the events of Pentecost that we read about in Acts chapter 2. It...

Almost everything around us contains pores – the timber floor under our feet, the paperback in our hand, and the cotton sheets on our bed. Our skin and our brain are porous. Pores are a necessary part of our health and well-being. For example, blood in our skin opens...

Writing in The Australian (April 23, 2024), Dr Greg Sheridan observed, ‘Politics, as they say is downstream of culture, and culture is downstream of faith. Having lost faith in any transcendental truth, the West now is in a permanent crisis of meaning, which leads to...

It is said that there are two certainties in life – death and taxes. Ironically both subjects have traditionally been off limits at dinner parties. Our death is something we don’t want to talk about, let alone think about. Woody Allen once quipped: ‘It’s not that...

The people of Bondi Junction and Sydney as a whole, are appalled at the horrific knife-attacks that took the lives of six unsuspecting people in a shopping mall last Saturday afternoon. Others, including a nine month-old baby, remain in a critical condition. The shock...

Easter Day is truly a gala day when 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 isn’t an empty tomb the...

In an article in The Spectator UK, Justin Brierley writes of ‘The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God’ (March 30, 2024). He notes that ‘the New Atheists of the early 2000s – led by Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Daniel Dennett’ – and their bestselling books...

Have you considered the legacy you would like to leave? I’m not speaking here of a material legacy for your family but a legacy or gift for the benefit of others. Writing in The Weekend Australian (March 16-17, 2024), Nicki Gemmell spoke of ‘the ultimate sacrifice’ of...

In his recent insightful and challenging book, The Word of the Cross, Jonathan Linebaugh quotes WH Auden’s, ‘For the Time Being’: Nothing can save us that is possible / we who must die demand a miracle. In First Corinthians chapter 1, verses 18 and 19 Paul the Apostle...