Weekly Bible Reflection

Vindictiveness and anger are the playbook of life around us today - in the bedroom, social media and the corridors of power. How can we respond? Forty-five years ago, the historian and social critic, Christopher Lasch, published The Culture of Narcissism: There he...

Augustine of Hippo, North Africa, one of the great minds of the late Roman Empire, wrestled with the notion of God and the question of evil, before coming to believe that Jesus Christ is truly the Son of God. He writes in his Confessions that as a young adult his...

In March 1973, Pink Floyd introduced the line, ‘The dark side of the moon’. The album was a great success addressing dark questions about life. The theme of darkness arose again in the 2013 movie, Gravity where Sandra Bullock is left untethered in space. The audience...

There are times when we feel we are not spiritual enough. God seems distant. Our faith feels cold. We go to church, but we don’t read the Bible or pray from one week to the next. What’s to be done? Some of us set ourselves a rigorous program, especially during Lent –...

Today is known in the church calendar as Ash Wednesday – the first day of Lent. Traditionally it is an important time of preparation for the events that we remember and celebrate at Easter – ‘The Last Supper’, Jesus’ crucifixion (Good Friday) and his resurrection...

We’re looking at Ecclesiastes, one of the wisdom books of the Bible. The wisdom books stand apart from the main narrative of the Bible, asking questions about our experiences of life. Job asks how do we make sense of suffering, especially the suffering of the...

Back in 1989 an Australian television and radio interviewer, Caroline Jones interviewed a range of well-known Australians. A question she put to everyone was, ‘How do you find meaning and purpose in life?’ Phillip Adams, an Australian media personality responded, ‘The...

Last Wednesday, we turned to The Book of Ecclesiastes, asking the question, ‘What’s It (Life) All About?’ Today we’re looking at Ecclesiastes, chapter 3 with a further question with this theme. ‘With the passing of the years and the seasons and our experiences of...

As we begin another year, it’s a good opportunity to ask ourselves, and to ask others, what we really think life is all about. Questions about the meaning of life and the future are surely felt by everyone who reflects on life. Over the next two or three Wednesdays I...

With recent research revealing that some 40 million Americans have left church over the last 25 years, questions are being asked about what ministers should be doing. Years ago an article appeared identifying expectations that people have: a minister should be a...

How often when we pray, do we focus on what we want? Yes, when catastrophic events occur, such as the conflict in the Middle-East, we pray for God’s mercy. But, in the main when we pray, don’t we expect God to answer our personal requests so that we can enjoy life to...

With the many and varied changes around us –conflicts in Ukraine, the Middle-East and Africa, China’s aggressive acts, significant political and social divisions in the West, climate-change, gender issues, and the western disdain of Christianity – we might wonder...

The daily round of news can be so discouraging – the continued conflict in Ukraine and now the conflict in the Middle-East, the drugs and alcohol, the homelessness, the violence and rape. Furthermore, many parents are concerned about the influences that distract from...

Despite the continuing developments of science and technology, we are made aware daily of the inability of men and woman to live at peace with one another. At every level of society, there is narcissism and greed, hatred and corruption haunting the human experience....

It is commonplace for contemporary scientists and philosophers to give lip service to the principle that science decides only the how questions and leaves the why questions to religion’ (italics mine), wrote the late Phillip Johnson (The Right Questions, p.68)....

In his book, The Right Questions (2002), the late Phillip Johnson wrote that at the heart of the cultural changes today is the sharp divergence between two very different world views: the Christian view that states (as in John 1:1-4): “In the beginning was the Word…”;...

Throughout this week, ‘Happy Thanksgiving’ will echo across the land from New York City to San Francisco. The principle of ‘Thanksgiving’ has its origins in a non-sectarian thanks to a loving, merciful and generous God. While Presidential Thanksgiving Proclamations...

With the appalling atrocities in the Middle-East and the unvarnished hatred that has emerged, the unprovoked aggression in Ukraine and the terrorist attacks in Nigeria, we may be tempted to wonder what a good and just God, if he exists, is doing. Furthermore, with the...