Religion

In The Legacy of John Calvin, David W. Hall divides leaders into two categories. Some predict the future, and others change it. Calvin, Hall said, is in the second category.

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.

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.

On the night when heaven descended among mortals, it was not the high priests or scholars who were the first to see God, but some lowly shepherds.

The Bible, a prophetic book par excellence, is often misinterpreted. Its prophecies can seem fatalistic, or fear-mongering. But, when understood correctly, Biblical prophecy more than unravels the future—it also provides us with a clearer perspective on the present.

Few things can pierce a parent’s heart as painfully as their children’s decision to walk away from God. Pain, guilt, shame and the feeling of failure are the crushing burdens which parents of prodigal sons carry, while still wavering between hope and discouragement.

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.

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.

Even in this secular age, the world’s largest group of religious believers—a full third of Earth’s human population—worships Jesus of Nazareth as the eternal God who appeared in human flesh. Millions more—Muslims, Baha’i, Hindus, Buddhists and others—recognise His unique connection to the Divine, His wisdom and His compassion.

Life is a stage that we enter without a script, although we are constantly influenced by forces of varying visibility: social, educational, religious, economic, and political.

Influenced by the Calvinist Presbyterian John Witherspoon, James Madison, an Anglican, collaborated with Virginia's persecuted Baptists to establish the concept of religious freedom and freedom of conscience that changed America and the world forever.

“We need a bigger vision in prayer. We need God’s vision! Let’s keep praying and daring to ask for more—for God’s glory, that the gospel may go into all the world, into all nations, that Jesus may come!”

During my adolescence, a Swiss author, Erich von Daniken, made waves with his theories about extra-terrestrial influences on early mankind. His most important book was called Memories of the Future. Of course, his ideas have no support today, but the idiom remains: memories of the future. Something from the past says something about what is to come.

As the crisis caused by the new coronavirus deepened and spread, it was to be expected that the phenomenon would be framed in apocalyptic terms. It is something that tends to occur in such contexts.

There are predictions made in the Bible. Have all the predictions of the past been fulfilled? If not, what does the failure of some of them to be fulfilled say about the credibility of the Bible?