Religion

This seemingly innocent question has probably caused more unrest in the last 2000 years than any other. It is, in fact, an echo of the concern of the ancient Jews to determine whether or not Israel was God's only people on earth. It also represents the echo of history that has witnessed wars born of the desire to legitimise a supreme deity.

Could we have a quality Christian ministry without an authentic relationship with God? Anyone can pretend in the short term, but to truly succeed in the long term you need a devotional life full of passion and a continual closeness to Jesus Christ.

Claiming justice is history’s refrain, and it has a significant echo in the Bible. We all dream of a happy ending and a fair judgement as soon as possible. Heaven itself is surprised that God has delayed His holy justice. While some wait for it, others quash even the very thought that it might come.

Growing up on the sunny east coast of Australia meant summers at the beach. I was no surfer dude but the crash of waves and unmistakable squeak of hot sand was often a soundtrack in my adolescence. It’s easy to romanticise the white sand beaches and crystal blue hues of Australia’s coastal waters but now, particularly as a parent, I am aware of the danger...

“I will stand at my watch and station myself on the ramparts; I will look to see what he will say to me” (Habakkuk 2:1).

It is not something that is written in any rules or printed on posters. However, you can see it in the way people greet each other and share their ideas, as well as in the sense of belonging they experience when they participate in church activities. The organisational culture of the church can be a source of unity, or conversely an invisible obstacle...

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.

“Forgiveness is the sweetest revenge.” (Jerome Isaac Friedman)

Regardless of the form they take, crises give rise to legitimate questions about God's providence: Where is God when we suffer? Has He forgotten us? Is He punishing us? Does He still have things under control?

After Jesus was born—that is, in the era we call Anno Domini (AD)—the history of mankind was different from that of Christianity. As it is known, the latter was not the history of a triumphant march of Christianity towards its universalization and the unification of the human race. On the contrary, this history can rather be characterised as a manifestation of “the great...

I was there, I saw him. He was coming towards me mechanically, impassively, coldly. He suddenly stopped in front of me and waited for me to speak. For a moment, I froze. He was tall, thin, his face oval and his eyes blue, slightly sunken under his eyelids. I had met such people before, but there was something special about him.

With packs and tents strapped to our backs, it took our little group of three several hours to reach the hidden valley. The lush, green rainforest was cool and damp and as we gingerly clambered over moss-covered boulders, we attempted to follow an almost non-existent track that wound its way parallel to the mountain stream.

We experience a feeling of urgency as a consequence of the fear of failure, or the fear of missing out (on people, opportunities, time, good things). Urgency is, therefore, a corollary of fear. Today’s Christianity, hailed by loud voices as near extinction, can easily fall into the trap of undue urgency to quickly regain what has been lost.

Jesus’s unpredictability is one of His most memorable traits—one that was, however, not born out of an extraordinary speculative intelligence, but out of such a different perspective on reality that even the most trained and educated thinkers could not foresee it. Therefore, Jesus’s unpredictability says more about us than about Him.

A black basalt stone found in the desert of Jordan has an inscription with the earliest known use of the name of Yahweh (one of the many names for the Old Testament God). It is one of many ancient items which confirm biblical history.