Changing your Religion
By Not Known Some people say that we are stuck with the religion into which we were born and cannot change. The Bible tell us otherwise. it gives us many stories of people who left the faith of their families and started believing in Jesus. As we read these stories, they help us to see that we too can change our religion and become Christians. One of these stories is…
Guan Xi with God
By Not Known Connections are very important in many cultures. Chinese culture is well known for the sense of 'guan xi‘ and the sense of individual lives being conducted within an invisible and all-powerful set of relationships that starts with the family and extends through the whole life. The idea of guan xi can also be used to sum up the wisdom theme that is…
A Word for All
By Not Known It doesn’t really matter whether the author in 1 John 2: 12- 14 is addressing people at various stages of their chronological age or at various stages of their spiritual maturity. What really matters is that God’s word has this ability to speak individually and address human needs in a most personal way and we do well to take heed. The symmetrical…
Wisdom For Life
By Not Known To us, wisdom tends to be intellectual erudition. ON this model, the wise person is someone who thinks deep thoughts about deep matters and perhaps expresses them in incomprehensible prose. Biblical wisdom is about life. It is practical, Biblical wisdom is a road map to a life that is happy and successful because it is lived with God. The practical nature of…
The Fool
By Not Known The ‘fool‘ has a mixed history. In ancient royal courts the fool was an insightful outsider who made penetrating comments. For some, the fool is a playful person who wastes his time and that of others. For others, a fool is a person of low mental ability. The Bible’s fool is something different. He is a person who denies God. The classic…
The Earthquake and Tsunami
By Not Known Our region is stunned as the funerals, damage assessment, clean up and rebuilding continues after last Sunday's terrible earthquake and tsunami. The accounts of lives lost and property damaged draw our horrified fascination. What do we make of this as Christians? For one thing, we identify with those who suffer. Many of us have taken holidays in the…
Responding to the Gospel
By Not Known As we have seen in recent weeks, the gospel is God’s message to us about his Son Jesus Some of the messages we receive are‘for your information‘. That is, we don’t need to do anything in response to this message; we just need to know it. Other messages demand action by their very nature The message about Jesus demands action. The Greek…
Christmas in Story and Song
The Gospel about Jesus
By Not Known The Christian message is about Jesus – pure and simple. Jesus is the theme of the Bible (Lk 24:27,44-45), the ‘yes‘ to all God’s promises (2 Cor 1:18-20) and the highest form of God’s self-disclosure to humanity (Heb 1:1-3). The two greatest festivals in the Christian calendar respectively celebrate his birth and his dying and…
Advent, Missions and Members
By Not Known This is a day for celebration as we receive new members by Baptism, Confirmation and Transfer. It is also a day that links together the Advent season, Missions Sunday and the membership service. How do these three things link together? Let’s start with Advent. As explained last Sunday, Advent is the time when we remember the first coming of Jesus and…