Episodes

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 first-class preacher, pastor, evangelist, administrator, leader, fund-raiser, and diplomat! Contrast what the Apostle Paul says about his ministry in his Letter to the Colossians, chapter 1, verse 25: he was called by God to make the wo...

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 the full? The quest for life in all its fullness is not new. Back in the 1960s the answer was sex, drugs and rock-n-roll. Yet the aspirations of the themes of ‘Love, sweet love,’ and ‘Lucy in the sky with diamonds’ and Woodstock, r...

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 about the future. In the course of his ministry Jesus spoke of events that would unfold (Luke 12:35-48; 17:20-37). In Luke 21 he spoke more specifically about two events – the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, and an end of time. ...

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 the formal education of their children and subvert the traditionally accepted moral values in life – values that all too often are gathering dust on the shelf of history. So, as we enter the Christmas season, it’s helpful to reflec...

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. Alienation is a word that rightly describes our plight. So, what’s life all about? It is not insignificant that in his Letter to the Colossians Paul the Apostle expresses the human dilemma this way: And you who were once estranged a...

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). However, Johnson continued, ‘the epistemic authority of science is so overwhelming and the standing of theology so precarious that “outside of science” effectively means “outside of reality”, and the premise that science is taken to enta...

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…”; and scientific materialism that says, “In the beginning were the particles” (p.136). (Phillip Johnson was Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley for over thirty years.) In an earlier chapter in his book, he obs...

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 have at times been associated with a special moment in America’s story – as when Presidents Washington, Adams, and Lincoln made their Proclamations – the principle of a day of Thanksgiving continues. For example, in 1789 the first Pr...

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 antipathy towards religion in western society we may reckon that any opportunity to bring God into our conversation is a lost cause. How important it is that we remain calm and remember that God has especially authenticated his ex...

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 this is not surprising – perhaps because of the shocking abuses perpetrated in various churches, and also the trickle-down impact of the secular liberalism of influential universities, denying the existence of the divine. However,...

“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 are flawed. Is there any hope? Daniel says, Yes! In God alone – the Ancient of Days and the Son of Man, whose kingdom will endure forever. In Daniel, chapter 7, verses 13 and 14 we read: As I watched in the night visions, I saw o...

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 there is a deeper, grander Truth made clear by all religions. This Truth, it is said, has little to do with Allah requiring 5 daily prayers, or Buddha advocating the subduing of the emotions, or Jesus dying on the cross for the sins...

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. Belshazzar was on Nebuchadnezzar’s throne. On the night of the Medo-Persian victory he was feasting, drinking from the vessels that had been brought from the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. Until a finger started writing on the wall. In Dan...

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 Babylonian education and a place in Nebuchadnezzar’s court. However, encouraged by those around him, Nebuchadnezzar had constructed a huge golden statue that he commanded everyone to worship. The three Israelites, despite certain d...

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 dreams. These days modern psychology suggests that dreams can reveal our subconscious desires and fears. However, there are well-documented occasions when individuals have some kind of premonition of the future – particularly of disa...

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 of speech and freedom of religion. Such experiences are not new. In the sixth century BC, God’s ancient people found themselves in a world of uncertainty and confusion. In 586BC Nebuchadnezzar had sent his army into Jerusalem; the ...

‘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 something else we often forget; King David wrote about it in Psalm 103. It seems he wrote this for the great choir he established in Jerusalem. It reflects his personal growth in his understanding of God. With his opening and concluding w...

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 our praise to the Lord with joy in our hearts. So, Psalm 96 begins, O sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth. Sing to the Lord, bless his name; tell of his salvation from day to day. The psalm seems to have bee...

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, enjoying success. Nothing ever seems to go wrong for them. And as well as the unfairness we often feel, there are the realities of droughts and famines, floods and fires, earthquakes and ruthless autocratic rulers. Why doesn’t God step in...

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 12, Paul the Apostle writes: Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power… For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of ...

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 right, writes the Apostle Paul in Ephesians chapter 6, verse 1. In chapter 6 of his Letter Paul continues the theme of family relationships. Significantly, he speaks of obedience in the Lord in a child’s relationship with their pa...

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, and on the other hand a sort of private political system in which rights and interests must be asserted and defended”. In today’s climate of cultural change what is the future for marriage? Today’s views contrast sharply with the j...

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 God… and live a life of love just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us… Love is the model and framework for our lives. Paul illustrates this by pointing us to the way Christ loved us and gave himself up for us. When he was ...

In Christians: The Urgent Case for Jesus in Our World (2021), Dr Greg Sheridan, Australian foreign affairs journalist and writer, comments: ‘In the West… religious belief has been in serious decline in recent years. The loss of faith is part of a broad movement in the culture. It is also partly, … related to a shocking loss of knowledge’. He continues, ‘The West is a culture willing itself into amnesia and ignorance, like a patient carefully requesting their medical records and then burning the...