Luke 13:1-17 Some have argued that suffering is incompatible with belief in a God of love. This talk examines how suffering is explained by some of the world’s leading philosophies…
Isaiah 42:1-12There are times when we may feel God has forgotten us, or we feel failures because of sin, or we feel despair looking at the state of the world. What does God say to us at such times? “Behold my servant”.
Daniel 1:3-21 Sometimes churches or individuals face crisis moments where they have to choose between denying God or suffering persecution. At other times the threat is much more subtle: just…
Daniel 1:1-2 If Christianity were true why is it so pathetic? Whatever place Christianity once had in our public life, it is now more likely to be seen as part…
Most modern people don’t quite get the Bible’s obsession with idolatry. We think of idolatry as an ancient problem for backward people who bowed down to statues, not a relevant one for sophisticated folks like us. But we aren’t beyond idolatry. We simply dress it up in different clothes.
Matthew 21:33-46 As we look around the world it seems obvious that Christians do not have a monopoly on doing good. In many cases Christians are put to shame by…
Matthew 21:33-46 Christians are often put to shame by the superior kindness and integrity of those who don’t share their faith. Is it not then arrogant to suggest that people have to be Christian to be acceptable to God? Here Jesus’ teaching on whether good is good enough for God.
I wonder how would you react if you saw a church leader having lunch with a group of people who were guilty of fraud? Or maybe a Bible study leader hanging out with known drug addicts? Would you be a bit shocked, perhaps even judgmental, that they would even consider associating with such people? This is how Jesus was treated by the religious people of his day. We can distance ourselves from God not only in obvious rejection of him, but also in our religious morality – and this can be the more dangerous if it goes undetected…
2 Peter 1:1-11 We can’t become Jesus’ followers by trying to be good but does becoming a follower of Jesus Christ make us better people? How important is it for…