Weekly Bible Reflection

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...

In his post, ‘Unherd’, on September 24, 2023, Peter Franklin comments on a new book, The Great Dechurching, by Jim Davis and Michael Graham (August, 2023). They observe that in recent years some 40 million Americans have stopped attending church. Now it’s easy to say...

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely…" wrote Lord Acton, in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton in 1887. Human institutions and governments don’t give us grounds for optimism, for none is perfect. No matter how good or well intentioned, all...

Many in the West follow the mantra: ‘All religions are the same’. This popular form of pluralism seems to make sense, but it fails to account for the many significant differences between the world’s great religions. A more sophisticated form of pluralism argues that...

Most of us find ourselves in situations where the name of God is mocked. This was happening at Belshazzar’s great feast described in the Book of Daniel, chapter 5. Persia, under the military leadership of Cyrus at the time, was threatening Babylonia’s hegemony....

It takes courage to stand up for what you believe to be the truth. In the sixth century BC, leading lights in Jewish society: Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were, with Daniel, exiles in Babylon at the time of Nebuchadnezzar. Like Daniel they enjoyed the privilege of...

Dreams fascinate us. They can tease us with hopes that they may come true, but they can also terrify. In the past, as in some cultures today, dreams were often treated as portents of the future. So people called on the ‘wise’ and fortune-tellers to interpret their...

In our changing world the words, ‘In God we trust’ are fading into the mists of time. We’re now living in a brave new world where, in the west, powerful and influential voices believe they can chart a path to a secure future, even though it may mean silencing freedom...

‘Count your blessings, name them one by one, and it will surprise you what the Lord has done,’ are the words of an old Christian song. How easily we forget to thank God for the countless good things he provides for us. We take it all for granted. But there is...

CS Lewis once observed, ‘I think we all sin by needlessly disobeying the apostolic injunction to "rejoice" as much as by anything else’. Yet, rejoicing is not just an apostolic injunction. Various psalms in the Old Testament Psalter pulsate with exhortations to sing...

One of the things I love about the Bible is its earthy realism. It understands the world we live in – the good and the bad, the grief and the joys. It also understands how we feel about life’s injustices especially when we see people who mock the notion of God,...

In his Screwtape Letters CS Lewis says that there are two equal and opposite errors that people fall into regarding the dark powers. One mistake is to disbelieve in their existence, the other is to believe in them to excess. In Ephesians chapter 6, verses 10 through...

Every day we make decisions. It’s part of being human. We can choose. But we know that there are some decisions in life where we have a sense of obligation – a sense of duty. But such obligations need to be awakened. Children obey your parents in the Lord, for this is...

In ‘What Are People For’, an essay in his 2002 The Art of the Commonplace, Wendell Berry writes, “Marriage, in what is evidently its most popular version, is now on the one hand an intimate ‘relationship’ involving (ideally) two successful careerists in the same bed,...

How are we to reach a world where voices in the media and social media criticizing Christianity have morphed from constructive conversation into emotive smearing? Paul’s words in Ephesians chapter 5, verses 1and 2 are key to the life God calls us to: Be imitators of...