Theology

The book of Exodus is the second book in the Bible. It follows God’s servant Moses leading the Israelites out of slavery and through the desert towards the hoped-for Promised Land. Along the way, they stop at Mt Sinai. Moses goes up the mountain and receives from God ten commandments carved on a stone tablet. This is one of the most famous sections...

There were once two friends. One day, one of them went to the other, with a heavy heart, less than desirable thoughts in his head, and a bevy of bad behaviours. He really wanted to change them. He wanted to get better.

Mass evangelism “campaigns” have become a common phenomenon in contemporary religious culture. However, few people ask how it all started and what are its long-term effects.

How can one explain that laws attributed to revelation are found in the legislation of other ancient peoples? How can the similarities between biblical thought and ancient culture be explained? How is the biblical God compared to the gods of other peoples?

Fines, military ordinances, police and army patrolling the streets – this is the reality we have suddenly found ourselves living in. It is a tightening reality, a rigid corset-like structure of rules.

You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also” (Matthew 5:38,39). 

It is hard to remain indifferent to a life story like that of Terri Roberts, the mother of a young man who, in a still-unexplained moment of madness, stormed into an all-girls Amish school and began shooting, killing five of the students before killing himself.

If we accept that there are realities beyond our direct perception, then faith in God becomes a hypothesis worthy of serious consideration, rather than an absurdity.

This coronavirus crisis has, for me, some perplexing parallels with a well-known incident narrated in the Gospel of Matthew (14:22-33). The disciples are confined in a little boat in the middle of a terrible storm, almost as we are confined at home today by the emergency laws of our countries.

According to attachment theory, originally formulated by John Bowlby and later refined by Mary Ainsworth, adults’ relational patterns are formed according to the model of the close relationship they formed in early childhood with their primary caregiver, who is usually the mother.

No serious historian doubts that Jesus lived in first century Palestine and died by crucifixion. However, controversies arise when the resurrection is discussed.

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.

He was born in 1935 in Narvik, Norway, beyond the Arctic Circle, at a time when the clouds of war were gathering. In 1940, in the space of a few months, Narvik was controlled by Germany, conquered by the Allies, and then left to the Germans.

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

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.