Weekly Bible Reflection

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 17:21a we read: “I ask … that they may all...

ow 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....

ur 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 reflections of the day, prayed that God would bless his parents as well as himself? Or do your prayers reflect...

ow often have you asked, ‘How long, O Lord?’ David asked it in Psalm 13. Daniel asked it when God’s people were in exile. DANIEL'S PRAYER In Daniel 9 we read one of the great prayers of the Bible. In fulfillment of the words of prophets such as...

ing David was relaxing on the roof of the palace when he saw her. Probably in his early fifties, he was attracted by the beauty of the young woman bathing on a nearby rooftop. He invited her over. But she was the wife of one of his army officers....

his Sunday is the fifteenth anniversary of the events of September 11, 2001. As I reflect on our experiences in New York that day I recall the way New Yorkers talked to one another, caring for and supporting one another. Churches in the city were...

ost of us don’t find it hard to imagine a better world – a safer, happier and fairer world. The question is, ‘How do we get there?’  Many see solutions in terms of politics or economics – change the leaders, fix the political and economic systems,...

ith the many and varied changes in the culture around us – the pressures of secularization, the decline in church attendance, the changed attitudes to sexuality, the rise of militant Islam we might wonder about the future. We can feel powerless....

ometimes I am asked: ‘Can I trust God to hear my prayers and answer them? It is all very well to say we can call God, Father, but we know that parents are often preoccupied with other matters and do not hear us, let alone respond. And given the...

n Sydney, Australia, churches have the opportunity to have representatives teach the Christian faith in schools. There’s a story of a boy who came home from school one day and told his mother that the Scripture Teacher had asked each the class...

hat do you think of prayer? Do you pray regularly, and if your answer is ‘Yes’, do you pray with confidence? Blaise Pascal, the 17th French philosopher and mathematician wrote in his Pensées: God instituted prayer in order to lend to His creatures...

GLORY ‘…There's glory for you!' ‘I don't know what you mean by glory,' Alice said. Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. 'Of course you don't…till I tell you. I meant, "There's a nice knock-down argument for you!" ' But glory doesn't mean "a nice knock-down argument,"'...

he old proverb, ‘Manners maketh man’ has an interesting history and meaning. It may well have been the personal motto of William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester in the 14th century. It is the motto of New College Oxford and Winchester (School)...

rticles by thoughtful opinion writers continue to focus on the critical times in which we live. In the United Kingdom articles pose questions about the future of the country in the aftermath of the ‘Brexit’ vote, the incoming Prime Minister and the...

n February 2012, David Brooks in an article in The New York Times, ‘How to Fight the Man’, related the story of Jefferson Bethke, a 22-year-old man. Bethke had ‘produced a video called “Why I Hate Religion, but Love Jesus”. Brooks noted that Bethke...

BREXIT Last Friday we all awoke to the news that a majority in the United Kingdom had voted to leave the European Union. It was totally unexpected. The news has been received with joy, shock, anger, and anxiety. It has caused concern at almost every level, political,...

ow often we encounter the words, The most important person is You!  Early last century the Scottish theologian, James Denney commented: In himself every man and woman is in a sense the most important person in the world and it always needs much...

CHALLENGES WE FACE TODAY ‘What is the biggest challenge we face today?’ It’s an age-old question, but it is being asked again with increasing frequency. And responses include: ‘terrorism’, ‘the economy’, ‘security’, ‘climate change’. It is one thing to identify the...