How Jesus used the Hebrew Scriptures
When we read the Gospels, we may be put off by the way Jesus Christ interprets the Hebrew Scriptures.
I will say it again: Rejoice!
Although we experience more positive than negative elements in life, we are still more intensely and more quickly affected by the unpleasant ones. How can we protect our joy of living despite the problems that beset us?
Trust in God and the great small step
Trust in God gives clarity to our thinking, so God asks us not to be obsessed with justice, but to be concerned with and delighted by grace.
Daniel: on the pedestal of history
On the pedestal of history, holding the flame of freedom—that's how the Book of Daniel has stood since it first appeared, more than 2500 years ago, and how it continues to stand today. It is a divinely inspired introduction to the book of Revelation, and together they represent the extension of the gospel beyond the apostolic generation up until the return of Christ,...
What is the link between religion and conspiracy?
In the famous realist novel A Journal of the Plague Year, Daniel Defoe blends the factual with the imaginary, describing the social context just before the great plague struck London in 1665. Among the reactions described, two straddle the line between religion and conspiracy.
Christ in them
I notice people, and passionately collect their stories. My favourite stories include those small cracks that allow one to peek inside another soul, those moments when their voice is almost imperceptibly altered, the eyes light up for a reason I do not know, and their gestures are unexpected.
When faith falters, and couples drift apart
Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. – Rainer Maria Rilke
Camping at the end of the world
I still remember May 21, 2011, like it was yesterday. Thousands of kilometres away in Boulder, USA, an evangelist named Harold Camping, president of the popular ministry Family Radio, was in the news spotlight. He had predicted that on May 21, more than 200 million Christians all around the world would be raptured away to heaven and that five months later, the world would end.
Staring loss in the eye | Lessons from life’s disasters
In the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, Max Lucado wrote an article summarising the spiritual lessons we can learn from an event that the news described as a "once in a thousand year flood".
The wounds of believers that hurt the churches
“I’ve left the church, but not my faith.” This phrase has become increasingly common in today’s secularised society. Millennials are often the first to express this sentiment, but they are not the only ones. A letter sent to a church that someone has abandoned is both poignant and powerful, serving as a heartfelt plea for churches everywhere to take this message seriously.
What do we do with our guilt?
Nothing else on earth judges a person as ruthlessly as their own conscience, and truthfully, nothing else should. The painful process happens before and after the harm has been done.
COVID-19: Life in the shadow of death
I am not an expert on the phenomenon of death. But like all of us, I have to live in its shadow, and watch the restlessness and greed it causes. The same gloomy reports that circle the planet also reach me. I feel especially conscious of this as COVID-19 claims its first victims in my country.
Are science and religion compatible?
In recent weeks, the results of a Fermilab scientific experiment have caused quite a stir in the scientific community. The experiment, which dealt with some of the fundamental particles of the universe, has the potential to change humanity’s understanding of modern science. As a result, it is also raising questions about what science is, and if it can be wrong.
A meaningful Christmas
Christmas involves a financial and, at the same time, an emotional expense. Even in times of crisis, the spending season lasts longer than the holiday itself.
Why do bad things happen to good people?
The question in the title is a protest which expresses a fair amount of suspicion towards God. It is a barely concealed condemnation of God and His actions, the strange rebellion of a world that sees itself as morally superior to God. People forget Scripture's words in the book of Job: Beware lest wrath entice you into scoffing (Job 36:18, RSV).


























