Religion

Dr Carlton Byrd is the director and main speaker of Breath of Life, a television broadcast dedicated to the urban colored population in the U.S. and the Pastor of the Oakwood University Church.

What does it take to be the best? Most people will tell you it’s a combination of hard work and talent. Ask Australian high jumper Nicola McDermott, however, and you’ll quickly realise it’s a mental thing. It’s absolute belief that you can achieve whatever you set your mind to.

With Jesus, it was always different. For most of my life, I could only see God the Father through a legalistic filter. But with Jesus, it was always different.

“Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you” (Isaiah 46:4).

When prayers go unanswered, faith can turn to disbelief and hope to scepticism. On the other hand, God can intervene at unexpected moments, providing unexpected answers, as happened in Zechariah's life.

The Bible has 66 books written by different authors over about 1,500 years. Is there a common theme, a leitmotif? If so, which is it? Is there an Old Testament God and a New Testament God?

I once heard a Christian warn his community: "God only has children, He does not have grandchildren!" In the postmodern context of relativising values and truths, diverse, strange or syncretic religious forms have emerged and continue to emerge. This is happening to a large extent within Christianity.

Over the centuries, strong but artificial tensions have been created between the Gospel of Paul (proclaimed especially by Augustine and many Protestants) and the "legalism" of the biblical writers James, Peter, Jude, and so on, which Catholic and Orthodox theologians have usually defended. What is at stake in these tensions is the authority of God's commandments and thus the duty or obligation to...

Jesus's words could not have been foreign to the Jewish people of His day. In an eminently oral culture, narratives, stories, parables and metaphors occupied an important place.

What image comes to mind when you hear the word success? A blue-suited CEO? Internet billionaire Mark Zuckerberg? Perhaps Mother Teresa or Nelson Mandela? But if you’re like me, you probably didn’t think of a person living an unglamorous, day-to-day, ordinary life.

Much of the Bible was written by prophets, so it is full of prophetic revelation. Most of these revelations are about mysteries of the past and present that we would not otherwise have access to.

From an early age, we are bombarded with messages telling us to stand out, to make something of ourselves, to do something great with our lives. Many times the voices are religious in nature: God has great plans for us, He will do truly remarkable things with our lives.

Any religion’s popularity depends on the rewards it promises. While people are interested in the immediate benefits of this life, they are mostly interested in the future, the hope their religion brings, and how solid it is.

Forgiveness is the central idea in Christianity that sets it apart from other religions.

Two thousand years ago, Jesus asked us to remember the Lord's supper. What made it so special?