Posts from July 2014

Questions about God’s existence and questions about my own salvation have rarely bothered me. I’m blessed that on both counts the Lord has gifted me with confident assurance. But there is one question that has periodically troubled me over the years. Why do some people seem to get much more than their fair share of pain and suffering in life? I must have been barely out of my teenage years when that question hit with particular force. The friend of…

One thing about these cold winter mornings is that the spider-webs in the garden look very pretty. The droplets of dew make them seem like tiny strands of sparkly diamonds glistening in the early morning sun. When the weather is warmer you don’t notice the spider webs until you walk into them but the droplets of winter dew make them highly visible. Examining one of them last week made me do a little thinking about what we call “fellowship” among…

It’s with reluctance that I write this week’s bulletin blurb. That reluctance was motivated by some serious questions. Why drag up unpleasant things that have caused lots of people much pain? And why focus on someone else’s sin when we’ve all got our own faults and foibles? And yet… there are some important lessons to be learnt. I’m talking about the iconic Aussie entertainer, Rolf Harris. Like many of you I watched the unfolding saga of the famous and now…

Sometimes when I listen to news and current affairs programs I get the feeling that our Western culture is moving, at a great rate of knots, away from its Judaeo-Christian roots. The list of concerns is endless: from gratuitous violence in movies to the sexualising of children and from same-sex marriage to corporal punishment. Already forty years ago, when I was at our theological college we talked about the coming of a post-Christian era. Well, I don’t want to be…