Religion

My brother and I were thrashing through the bush en-route to a peak overlooking Airlie Beach in far North Queensland. A short hike that was only meant to be 800 metres seemed to go on forever. We stopped every person returning from the lookout to enquire about how much longer it would take for us to get there. “Oh just another 10 minutes,”...

When I was four years old, my younger brother was born. My parents focused on my brother and spent less time with me. It was only 40 years later that I discovered how this had affected me.

For some, it is an old-fashioned tradition, fanaticism or bizarre practice. For others, a talisman to attract divine favour. Is there anything more to the Bible than an intimidating jumble of genealogies, symbols, and instructions?

Whether we are cooking, repairing things, or solving life's problems, we are always learning from each other. However, when it comes to certain areas, including church life, the interchange of experiences is lacking. Communities often keep their ideas, and especially their mistakes, to themselves. Can we rediscover the deeply biblical nature of knowledge sharing?

Pliny the Elder wrote, in Naturalis Historia, a well-known adage: "Among [mortals] the only certainty there is is that nothing is certain."[1] Few know that Pliny made this statement in a chapter on the gods.

What do you imagine heaven will be like? American science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov famously said, “For whatever the tortures of hell, I think the boredom of heaven would be even worse.” Although I love Jesus, I think I am a bit afraid of getting bored there too. There’s a prevailing picture of heaven as being some sort of suspended animation, which may play into this.

I have read the Parable of the Talents many times, and have understood it in different ways at different times in my life. During my last read, I came across a commentary concerning the man who was given only one talent, which he chose to bury. Author Ellen White writes: The Lord desires His people to reach the highest round of the ladder...

As intimidating as the Bible may sometimes be, especially because of its size and its sometimes difficult passages, many who have read it from cover to cover say that it has changed their lives for the better—the spiritual resources the whole Bible can provide are not found elsewhere.

God gave Christians a message to spread. The whole Bible talks about creation, about the fall of the world into sin, but also about the existence of a Saviour, in the person of Jesus Christ.

Whether you're a practising believer, a casual believer or, conversely, an atheist, you cannot help but be taken aback by the fact that one of the earliest images of God we have in Scripture is an unexpected one for those times: the image of God writing (Exodus 31:18).

When I read how a non-religious mother felt she needed to calm herself down at the thought that her child might begin to believe in God, I was surprised and almost offended.

Of the hundreds of carols composed and sung at Christmas, one has managed not only to survive for more than two centuries, but also to spread its message of hope to all corners of the world.

We have become so accustomed to authors and researchers being highly specialised in niche fields, that we are tempted to be skeptical of works they produce outside of their accepted field of expertise. It seems bizarre therefore that an author of children's literature could also be a professor at Oxford and Cambridge and an expert on the medieval era.

Born of a virgin, brought up in humble conditions with phenomenal dignity, poor all throughout his life but desired as king by thousands, famous for healing the sick and raising the dead, the target of conspiracies of the highest officials, killed by crucifixion and resurrected after three days—Jesus Christ is at the centre of the most fabulous script ever to fall into the...

Richard Dawkins is arguably the world’s best-known atheist. His 2006 book The God Delusion was a runaway success and widely influential. That’s why theologian Alister McGrath was surprised when a young man told him he became a Christian after reading The God Delusion.