Weekly Bible Reflection
NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE WITH GOD
ast Thursday (May 28) The Wall Street Journal reviewed The Soul of the Marionette by John Gray, an emeritus professor at the London School of Economics. The reviewer, Thomas Meaney, comments that Mr. Gray ‘has been at odds with the easy assumptions...
GOD IS PASSIONATE
he author, Roald Dahl in, My Uncle Oswald, once wrote, I began to realize how important it was to be an enthusiast in life. He taught me that if you are interested in something, no matter what it is, go at it at full speed ahead. Embrace it with...
EASTER: PENTECOST
s there anything that can really make us different – that can shake us out of our apathy and anxiety, that can inject enthusiasm and joy into our lives? The poet, Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “Every great and commanding movement in the annals of...
CHANGE
ost of us long for a better world –a world free from conflict and war, lying and cheating, corruption and injustice. We long for a world where there is justice and peace. But the reality is that in various ways and to various degrees, we become...
REAL GOD
esterday’s New York Times (May 5, 2015) carried an article by Nicholas Wade, ‘A New Order to Life’s Origins’. The article focuses on a hypothesis of Dr John Sutherland, a chemist at the University of Cambridge, England, that life on earth has its...
EASTER: GOODNESS
riting in the New York Times yesterday (April 28), David Brooks asked, ‘Can bad people be good leaders – people who, by implication, have power?’ “People who are dishonest, unkind and inconsiderate have trouble attracting and retaining good people...
EASTER: HOPE
ccasionally op-ed pieces attempt to bridge the divide between the culture and faith. In 1998, Hugh McKay, a Sydney commentator opined: ‘The historical, literal truth about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus has little connection with the...
EASTER: FEEDING
ack in 1985 Christianity Today carried an article by Marshall Shelley entitled: The Problem of Battered Pastors”. He observed: “the modern preacher has to make as many visits as a country doctor, shake as many hands as a politician, prepare as many...
EASTER: BELIEVING
he world was appalled to learn last Thursday of yet another atrocity carried out by al Shabab terrorists in Kenya: 147 students at Garissa University were shot and killed because they indicated they were Christians. In recent years al Shabab has...
LENT: RESURRECTION
n recent years ‘new atheists’ such as Richard Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens have dismissed the miracles of the New Testament as fabrications. And when we think about it, to discredit the New Testament miracles is to discredit, for...
LENT: SIGHT
ur eyesight is something most of us simply take for granted. Yet, when we stop to think about it, sight really is quite remarkable. Our ability not only to touch and taste, hear and feel, but to see our surroundings is astonishing. To observe the...
LENT: FOOD
ne of the interesting things that modern science has shown is that the universe fits into a single huge pattern. The same laws that control the fall of an apple, control the orbit of the moon. The same equation that describes the behaviour of an...
LENT: WELLBEING
ave you ever found that someone has misinterpreted something you have said? You say one thing and they hear you say something different. Often we are misunderstood because others haven’t listened carefully or because they have come to the...
LENT: TRUSTWORTHY
he New York author, Madeleine L'Engle, once commented: ‘I will have nothing to do with a God who cares only occasionally. I need a God who is with us always, everywhere, in the deepest depths as well as the highest heights. It is when things go...
LENT: WINE
he call by extremists within Islam for individual terrorist acts against the West gives us pause. ‘Is it safe to go anywhere these days – even shopping?’ we ask. Rightly, governments charged with the responsibility of ensuring the security of their...
LENT
oday is known in the church calendar as Ash Wednesday – the first day of Lent. Traditionally, it is an important time of preparation for Easter. In the northern hemisphere it is when the season changes from the darkness of winter to the delights of...
SACRAMENTS
ne of the significant disagreements within the Christian Church over the last five hundred years has been over the sacraments. The Catechism in the English (1662) Book of Common Prayer defines a sacrament as an outward and visible sign of an inward...
CHURCH
AUTHENTIC CHURCH esearch presented at the Anglican Connection Conference held at Beeson Divinity School last October revealed that average church attendance in the United States is less than twenty percent. This is less than half what research had...