Theology

The imbalance between the requests and the thanksgiving we bring into our worship is a topic any Christian can talk about, and not just based on other people’s experience. As long as we approach praise and thanksgiving as duties to be fulfilled, we will miss the greatest blessings that can rest upon a heart full of gratitude.

I believe that doubt is a part of faith, not its opposite. It took me quite a few years to say this without feeling guilty. I needed to have many experiences before I could accept that questions are legitimate and not a sign of spiritual decay.

While Santa Claus, his reindeer, and the various stories that add to the magic of the holidays easily capture children's imaginations, we may find that introducing them to the true story of the birth of Jesus is more difficult—or at least that it's not as easy to present a true story in as attractive a package as the fiction has been wrapped in.

Many people know the Lord’s Prayer, having learned it from a parent or grandparent. But few know that it was given as a response to the disciples’ request for Jesus to teach them how to pray.

An ordinary wooden chair is a metaphor that’s often used to talk about the key dynamics of faith. But it’s worth exploring further. Perhaps we could describe this as a process of developing the theory of a chair.

"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them" (Matthew 5:17).

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.

I’m going to be honest with you. I find prayer really hard. If I had to give reasons for all my tears over the past few years, most of them have come during conversations with God.

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!

It is convenient, but also superficial, to say that all religions lead to God. However, this attitude is pervasive, and usually lasts only until one has had a chance to see the difference the various religions make in people's lives.

When I was 20, my spiritual life felt like an exam where I had been given a topic I hadn’t prepared for.

“And Who Is My Neighbour?” asked a Jewish teacher of the Law when Jesus Christ told him that eternal life entails observing two commandments: to love God and to love one’s neighbour.

Slapped, spat in the face, insulted, falsely accused, lashed, ridiculed with a crown of thorns, passed from judge to judge and booed by the crowd, the Son of God chose the most unusual form of defence. Silence.

Far more terrifying than persecution, ideologies, and militant atheism put together may be the hidden force behind the seemingly innocuous statement: "You don't need God!"

It is the spring of 31 A.D., halfway through the 70th prophetic week of Daniel 9:24. This passage from the book of Daniel predicts that between the command to build the city of Jerusalem—in the autumn of 457 BC—and the appearance of the Anointed One (the Messiah), 69 prophetic weeks or 483 years (a prophetic day corresponding to a calendar year, according to...