Religion

"Look, I am coming soon!" (Revelation 22:12) This is a promise whose fulfilment has been awaited by generations of believers who have pinned all their hopes on Jesus's return in glory. But what does "soon" mean? And what should we do to avoid being so preoccupied with the signs that we neglect other essential aspects of our preparation?

It was the first time most Christians had heard of the Gnostics— communities of Christians who lived between the 2nd and 4th centuries and whose scriptures and spiritual beliefs bore little resemblance to what is now considered traditional Christianity.

In the heart of the most powerful man in Judea, a greater fear than any other was born: the fear of losing control. Herod's story could be our story.

An ordinary wooden chair is a metaphor that’s often used to talk about the key dynamics of faith. But it’s worth exploring further. Perhaps we could describe this as a process of developing the theory of a chair.

Mary was an ordinary person, just like us. The Gospel does not suggest that she had any particular merit, yet her obedience played a pivotal role in a story that would change the world.

One of the Bible’s most refined literary and artistic works is the Gospel of John. In recent readings, it increasingly emerges as a gospel of decisive, personal encounters between the Lord Jesus and various individuals.

I still remember it like it was yesterday: the brightness of the sun on my skin, the chill of the water, the crowds of cheering people. We had gathered that Saturday afternoon on the shores of Lake Jindabyne, a half-hour drive from Mount Kosciuszko, Australia’s tallest mountain.

In 2015, charismatic evangelical Jeremiah Johnson, who worked as a pastor and church planter in Florida, USA, made a bold claim. He announced that a voice from God had told him in a dream that Donald Trump would become the President of the United States. When this prediction came to pass, Johnson gained nationwide fame.

The metaphor of the church as a hospital is so popular in the neo-Protestant milieu that it seems to highlight the hypocrisy of those attending church services even more. That’s what I used to believe until one day when I witnessed the opposite with my very own eyes.

God uses the traits we dislike as well as our weaknesses to create something great, beyond our abilities and imagination. This is the message that pervades the pages of "The Woman with the Book", the biography of the missionary Gladys Aylward.

When I'm tired I can't love! Many times I have lived this reality and even assessed it as the exact end of love.

"When I was little, I felt that God was with me, but now I feel so lonely! I wonder if God really was with me back then".

One reason, if not the reason why the story of humanity's first wrong choice, the original failure, is vehemently denounced is the brutality with which this event—a seemingly trivial "dietary" decision that turned out to be the most costly ever made by a human being—reminds us more powerfully than any other story how painful the consequences of our mistakes can be. We do...

Far more terrifying than persecution, ideologies, and militant atheism put together may be the hidden force behind the seemingly innocuous statement: "You don't need God!"

Sometimes, life is a succession of questions that God seems to ignore—until, at the right time, His silence provides an answer that is better than any answer in the world.