Weekly Bible Reflection
Good News
Many people reckon church is irrelevant. Indeed, recent research indicates that the majority of people who call themselves Christians think church is unimportant. In fact, they often attend church because of family, because they like the preacher or the music, or...
Tush . . .
No, I am not using the word ‘tush’ in its more recent use, as a reference to the human posterior. Rather I am speaking of a much earlier English usage of ‘tush’ developed from Middle English where it was an exclamation of disdain, dismissal or contempt. Interestingly,...
Forgiven . . . ?
Back in the ‘90s the pop singer Alanis Morissette came up with a song, ‘Forgiven’. She sings of her experience as a teenager at a religious high school where she and her friends had ‘no fun with no guilt feelings’. She wandered a long way from the religion she was...
Resurrection
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...
Do
‘Money can’t buy life’ were reportedly the last words of the musician Bob Marley. How can we prepare for life in the hereafter – assuming such a thing exists? In a 6th Coffee Conversation let me suggest you explore with your friend(s) the question that a young...
Resolutions
In his article in The Weekend Australian (Dec 23-24), ‘2017: West Challenged in a Spinning World’, political commentator Paul Kelly observes, ‘People now assert their rights against established norms and institutions. They seek more control. Their distrust of...
Christmas
‘Christmas…’ – December 20, 2017 ‘Christmas is all very nice’, people tell us. ‘We love the lights and the festivities, and even the music. But we know it isn’t true.’ In a fourth coffee conversation, and over Christmas, it’s worth praying for opportunities to take...
Goodness
Back in the sixties, Burt Bacharach sang: “What the world needs now is love sweet love ...” The problem is, as the 60s generation discovered, it’s one thing to sing about love but quite another to live it. Yet love and its true practice lie at the very heart of...
Greatness
Some years ago I was chatting with an acquaintance about Christianity over coffee in one of New York’s coffee shops when I noticed two women sitting in a darkened corner of the room. As the window blind had been drawn I thought it strange that one of them was wearing...
POSTMODERNISM
Our age of postmodernism arose out of the ashes of the ‘Deconstruction’ of the Age of Reason (Enlightenment). Over the last century science and mathematics pointed to the limits of logic – especially with the greater understanding of the complexity of ‘light’....
Thanksgiving
In September or October 1621 the Pilgrim Fathers enjoyed a special meal expressing their joy and thanks to God. The feast that was within a month or two of the first anniversary of the settlement in Plymouth Harbor, reflected the practice of Harvest Thanksgiving...
SILENCED?
In October 2013, The Wall Street Journal reported an interview with Alan Greenspan about his book, The Map and the Territory. Greenspan commented on a human feature he had not factored in when he was chairman of the Federal Reserve. Referring to the meltdown of the...
Intimidated?
In 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, writes of the significant shift by society’s elites today away from the humble dependence on the blessing of...
Handing On
Throughout my ministry, I have endeavored to find appropriate ways to hand on the light of God’s redeeming love to non-churchgoing people. Now at this time of aggressive and arrogant atheism, it seems to me that we need to revisit this task. The substance of the...
PARENTING
Parenting is not for the faint-hearted. A respected pediatrician was once asked by a mother when was the best time to put her children to bed. “While you still have the strength,” he replied. Parenting requires time, patience and perseverance. One is never sure from...
IRRATIONAL
In a New York Times article (October 10, 2017), David Brooks commended Richard Thaler, the recent winner of the Nobel Prize in economics. ‘Thaler,’ Brooks commented, ‘took an obvious point, that people don’t always behave rationally, and showed the ways we...
IF
How important it is that we do not lightly dismiss the wisdom of the past, thinking we know better. Yes, we do need to respect those who have a different perspective, but we also need, to use Kipling’s words, to keep our heads, holding firm to God’s commands and the trustworthiness of his promise.
SUFFERING AND GLORY
Why do appalling things happen? Why do events such as the massacre last Sunday in Las Vegas occur? Why do the seemingly innocent suffer? For the professing Christian who says that God not only exists but that he is compassionate and all-powerful, it is one of life’s...