Theology

Any large-scale phenomenon, such as a pandemic, activates our instinct to preserve our state of being—especially when we feel like we are losing it.

It is said that God works through people. I am convinced that the people evoked in connection with my stellar moments—and I really would have liked to name them all—each contributed, in their own way, to my reunion with Divinity.

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.

Nothing can prepare us in advance for the suffering we will experience in this life. But even knowing this, we often remember with guilt the moments of blissful ignorance we had before suffering hit us.

Western society has a fascination with cults. The word itself conjures up imagery of a seedy leader sporting dark aviator sunglasses and captivating a group of conservatively dressed people with his every syllable. The word brings a subtext of utter devotion but also absolute brainwashing or mind control.

To know God is an aspiration inherent in the rational being who recognises His existence.

In the history of salvation, few people have received a more unsettling calling than Joseph of Nazareth. After overcoming his initial hesitation, he made a series of decisions born of obedience. He remains a model of mature faith and authentic manhood.

Imagine the conversation between God and Adam after Adam had sinned, seen himself naked for the first time (in more ways than one) and hidden from God. To the piercing question, "Why did you hide?" Adam replied, "Because I was naked". Reading between the lines, we detect the subtext: "I hid myself, for one cannot come naked before God."

If there is a crossroads where both the path of faith and the path of doubt or unbelief begin, it is prayer.

When he got closer, I greeted him respectfully. Bless you, father! His holiness handed me the icon to kiss it. I apologised, saying I was not orthodox. What are you then? –I am a protestant. –Okay, good! he responded. As long as you’re not an atheist!

"Yet man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upwards" (Job 5:7).

During the COVID-19 lockdown last year, I lived with some messy people. I’d moved into a house that I shared with a wonderful couple of brothers. They were almost everything you could ask for in a set of housemates. Friendly, funny, respectful of your privacy . . . genuinely great people in almost every respect.

"I love those who love me, and those who seek me find me" (Proverbs 8:17).

More than a collection of information, beyond its role as a guide, the Bible is where we have a redemptive encounter with the One who holds the keys to eternal life.

Benjamin Solomon Carson is the famous American neurosurgeon who was the first to successfully separate conjoined twins in 1987.