Episodes

How 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. Further, the story of Jesus is woven around miraculous events – a virgin birth and a resurrection. And it all happened more than two thousand years ago. In John chapter 17 we find the record of a prayer Jesus prayed on the night he was betrayed and arr...

Our 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 bedtime prayers, prayed that God would bless his parents as well as himself? Or do your prayers reflect the shape of the honest and humble yet bold petitionary prayers of people such as Moses, David and Daniel or the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples? In John chapter 17 we read Jesus’ prayer on the eve of his arrest. It’s a prayer that tells us a great deal...

I have a question: how often are your prayers prompted by your meditation on God’s Word? In Daniel chapter 9 we read: In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, by birth a Mede, who became king over the realm of the Chaldeans – in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, perceived in the books the number of years that, according to the word of the Lord to the prophet Jeremiah, must be fulfilled for the devastation of Jerusalem, namely, seventy years. Then I turned to the Lord God, to seek...

Let me ask, do you have any regrets? You may regret words you let rip and can’t take back, or a relationship you should never have started. Second Samuel, chapter 11 tells us of the occasion when King David was relaxing on the roof of the palace when he saw a woman bathing. Attracted by her beauty he invited her over. But she was the wife of one of his officers. He’s away, he may have thought. And after all, I am the king. But Bathsheba became pregnant, and David’s attempts to arrange for her ...

Many of us are concerned with the issues of justice and peace, divisions and conflict. Is there anything we can do that might make a difference in our world where daily the news seems to get worse? Come with me to a prayer of Moses that we find in Numbers, chapter 14. A little over three millennia ago, God’s people were on the southern border of ancient Canaan – a land peopled from different regions. Moses had sent twelve spies to bring a report on the land. And, in their report they were all ...

One of the ironies of today’s highly connected world is the personal isolation that many feel. Indeed, an extreme sense of personal isolation can lead to despair and even suicide. And there are times when a sense of isolation can overwhelm God’s people: prayer is difficult, and any talk of joy and peace seems empty. God feels more like a distant relative than a heavenly Father. Psalm 42 begins: As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for t...

Is there anything that can shake us out of our apathy and fear and make us an intrepid people? That can inject enthusiasm and joy, confidence, and courage into our lives as God’s people? Come with me to the events of Pentecost that we read about in Acts chapter 2. It was six-weeks after Jesus’ resurrection. Let me identify three questions that emerge. What happened? When the day of Pentecost came, the disciples were together in an upper room in Jerusalem. ‘Suddenly a sound like the blowing of ...

Almost everything around us contains pores – the timber floor under our feet, the paperback in our hand, and the cotton sheets on our bed. Our skin and our brain are porous. Pores are a necessary part of our health and well-being. For example, blood in our skin opens and closes the pores in our skin enabling us to cope with temperature changes. Pores are a necessary part of the material world. On one occasion walking through the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, AZ, I learned that in line wit...

Writing in The Australian (April 23, 2024), Dr Greg Sheridan observed, ‘Politics, as they say is downstream of culture, and culture is downstream of faith. Having lost faith in any transcendental truth, the West now is in a permanent crisis of meaning, which leads to political entropy, a kind of political vertigo, forever on the edge of a nervous breakdown’. In this Easter Season we’ve touched on the Gospel record of Jesus’ physical resurrection as well as some of the implications of this momen...

It is said that there are two certainties in life – death and taxes. Ironically both subjects have traditionally been off limits at dinner parties. Our death is something we don’t want to talk about, let alone think about. Woody Allen once quipped: ‘It’s not that we’re afraid to die. We just don’t want to be there when it happens’. And Malcolm Muggeridge, a former editor of the English Punch magazine, observed, ‘In earthly terms death is the only certainty’. He continued, ‘All my mortal mind ca...

The people of Bondi Junction and Sydney as a whole, are appalled at the horrific knife-attacks that took the lives of six unsuspecting people in a shopping mall last Saturday afternoon. Others, including a nine month-old baby, remain in a critical condition. The shock and the grief are palpable as loved ones lament their loss. How do we face a broken world where, any day – and I don’t want to be morbid – we might unexpectedly die? In First Corinthians, chapter 15, verses 3 through 6, we read: ...

Easter Day is truly a gala day when we celebrate Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. His resurrection underscores the validity of the Christian faith. Without it, we are lost. That said, our Easter celebration raises interesting questions: ‘Why isn’t an empty tomb the symbol of Christianity?’ ‘Why is the symbol a cross?’ In today’s age when feelings and political correctness trump facts it would surely make much more sense if we focused on the themes of new life and hope that the resurrection sy...

In an article in The Spectator UK, Justin Brierley writes of ‘The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God’ (March 30, 2024). He notes that ‘the New Atheists of the early 2000s – led by Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Daniel Dennett’ – and their bestselling books have led to ‘confusion, a mental health crisis in the young and the culture wars’. ‘It’s not surprising then,’ he continues, ‘that a movement of New Theists has sprung up.’ He notes that ‘influencers such as Joe Rogan and Douglas ...

Have you considered the legacy you would like to leave? I’m not speaking here of a material legacy for your family but a legacy or gift for the benefit of others. Writing in The Weekend Australian (March 16-17, 2024), Nicki Gemmell spoke of ‘the ultimate sacrifice’ of Alexei Navalny, the late ‘Russian opposition leader whose sacrifice was driven by a deep love of his country and of his compatriots’. ‘We’re not used to heroes in real life anymore,’ she wrote. In commenting on Navalny’s life most...

In his recent insightful and challenging book, The Word of the Cross, Jonathan Linebaugh quotes WH Auden’s, ‘For the Time Being’: Nothing can save us that is possible / we who must die demand a miracle. In First Corinthians chapter 1, verses 18 and 19 Paul the Apostle writes: For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discern...

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 wrote, ‘Our society has made lasting friendships, love affairs and marriages, increasingly difficult to achieve. Social life has become more and more warlike and personal relationships have taken on the character of combat…’ He said t...

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 prayer was, “God, give me chastity and self-control, but not yet”. One day when he was reading in a garden, he heard a young child’s voice singing, Tolle lege; tolle lege – ‘Take up, read; take up, read.’ He had been reading Paul the A...

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 feels the visceral terror of darkness and helplessness. The black hole of depression, the sense of having the light of life sucked out of us, is how many feel. In his Letter to the Colossians Paul takes us beyond the world of music...

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 – perhaps rising extra early, fasting on Fridays and following a strict code of rules. Others of us feel we need new spiritual experiences. But in Colossians, chapter 2, verses 16 through 23 Paul the Apostle makes some salutary obser...

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 (Easter Day). In the northern hemisphere it is a time of seasonal change from the darkness of winter to the delights of longer days and the new life of spring. Many of God’s people use it as a special time to reflect on what God has do...

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 seemingly innocent? The Song of Songs explores God’s gift of the joys of love and sex. Proverbs provides a framework for street-smart and successful godly living. Ecclesiastes is asking, ‘What’s the purpose of life?’ We turn this week to ...

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 universe is cold and meaningless. There’s no God, there’s nothing there; there’s no meaning. We invent our own meaning and project it on to things as we want to. The fact you believe or don’t believe in God doesn’t matter very muc...

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 life, how do we make sense of it all?’ In the 1960s The Byrds and Pete Seeger with the song Turn, Turn, Turn brought the world’s attention to the words in this chapter in Ecclesiastes. The chapter begins by focusing on the bookends 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 plan to explore these questions through the lens of the Book of Ecclesiastes. Consider how the book begins: Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. What do people gain from all the toil at which they...