Weekly Bible Reflection

In A Call to Spiritual Reformation Dr. Don Carson comments: ‘When it comes to knowing God, we are a culture of the spiritually stunted. So much of our religion is packaged to address our felt needs­­ – and these are almost uniformly anchored in our pursuit of our own...

In a world of turmoil and injustice, conflict and suffering, we long for a day when all will be put right. A scene in the public ministry of Jesus of Nazareth helps us. They arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. As he (Jesus) stepped out...

It’s often said that God is love. I suggest this is glibly said because for God to love he must have someone else to love throughout eternity. In a highly patterned and repetitive piece of writing, the first book of the Bible introduces six stages of God’s creating...

With disturbing events in the world such as the invasion of Ukraine and the shooting at the school in Uvalde, Texas, we feel the pain of the suffering and wonder where we can find help. At the beginning of John chapter 14 a dark cloud was hanging over Jesus’...

Over the last twenty years or so God’s people have been increasingly put on the defensive about their faith. In a climate where people of faith are dismissed as intellectually inept, many are fearful of speaking up about what they believe. Come with me to a very...

Sometimes one person’s life has a great and lasting impact for good. This is certainly true of the man who made an extraordinary impact on his immediate world in the three short years of his public life. The effects of Jesus’ life didn’t cease when he was put to...

Have you ever wondered why you sometimes feel God is distant and doesn’t seem to care? Come with me to John chapter 14. The chapter forms part of the record of Jesus’ final hours before his arrest and crucifixion. The meal he had with his friends that night was the...

Occasionally someone says, ‘Show me proof that God exists and I will believe’. But will they? Frederick Buechner in The Magnificent Defeat (1966) wrote: ‘We all want to be certain, we all want proof, but the kind of proof we tend to want – scientifically and...

In this Easter Season it’s helpful to reflect on the deeper significance of Jesus’ resurrection. Indeed, so life changing is it, that it’s also useful to be equipped with answers to questions about it. Ken Handley, a retired Justice of the Court of Appeal in New South...

The story is told of an Easter dawn in a Russian prison camp in the days of the USSR. A voice called out, ‘Christ is risen!’ and, despite the command for silence, a chorus of voices responded, ‘He is risen indeed!’ The events of the first Easter Day awakened the world...

A Maundy Thursday / Good Friday Reflection Why? Why, despite all the hopes and dreams that with globalization the world would become a better place, is there an aggressive and intrusive war against a peaceful neighbor, Ukraine? Why is it that the four freedoms defined...

Eleven years ago this month the world watched William and Kate’s wedding. More than 2 billion people took time out to view this royal event with its rich pageantry and ceremony. It was all that we would expect of a royal occasion. How different was Jesus’ entry into...

In the 1989 film Dead Poets Society a young English master at a New England Prep School is portrayed pointing out photos of past students to his class. ‘They’re all dead now,’ he says. ‘Carpe diem, seize the day,’ he advises. ‘Seize the opportunities you have before...

Eugene Ionesco’s, Exit the King is a clever play about life and death. Reportedly, the Romanian-French Ionesco who died in 1994, said about the play: I told myself that one could learn to die, that I could learn to die, that one can also help other people to die. This...

With the continued missile onslaught on the cities of Ukraine we feel the pain and the suffering and the loss of life. ‘Why this evil and suffering in this 21st century?’ In his 1940s book, The Problem of Pain,CS Lewis considers the question of pain and suffering from...

In the midst of the turmoil of the West, the evil invasion of Ukraine, and the threats to a law-based world order, where is your hope for the future? Come with me to the Letter of Paul the Apostle to the Philippians, chapter 3:12 through 4:1. In verse 12 we read: But...

Human relationships on the personal and international level must rate as the greatest challenge for the world’s future. The cold-blooded invasion of Ukraine reveals an oft unspoken issue that confronts us: flawed human nature. The Russian author, Aleksandr...

The breaking news is that Russian troops have entered Russian separatist sections of Ukraine, purportedly as peace-keepers. Is this the beginning of a changing world order championed in a recent meeting between Russia and China? In the midst of divisions and...