A shed in Yatala in SE Queensland seems like an unlikely place from which greatness can grow. And yet it has. 3 women Aussie boxers are now world title contenders. The shed in Yatala and the seed in the Kingdom of Heaven have a lot in common.
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Taylor Sheridan of Yellowstone fame is carving up our screens. I recently devoured the blood soaked Western 1883. Here's my reflections on it. This reflection is 100% spoiler because of the story telling arc of 1883 and the message behind it: freedom.
The world seems more dangerous than ever. One thing we can do is pray. This is a short and simple prayer.
There are two different ways of thinking about God (primarily). One of them is 100% wrong. That’s the bad news. But the good news is that the other is 100% correct. Understand these two different ways and you have the key to understanding God, the great news of Jesus and the Bible.
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If you’re a Christian believer or a mission organisation, how do you evaluate risk? Or put another way, do you have a theology of risk?
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Search up ‘Is Jesus God?’ and you’ll discover Islam online. The claim is that not only was Jesus not God, but that he asserted he was not God. Jesus was a rabbi. Devout, learned but just a rabbi who taught and followed the Mosaic Law. The author’s proof all comes from the Bible. Is he right? Far from it.
In this blog post I examine the author’s claims and the Bible passages he references and show that Jesus thought he was in fact God.
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Was it the church councils of the 4th Century that finally established the authority of the New Testament documents and declare them Scripture? No, there is very good historical evidence that the New Testament documents were considered authoritative by the start of the 2nd century.
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AC Grayling’s essential argument is that the various good things of Western civilisation that we consider quite wonderful didn’t proceed from Christianity. They were already there in classical culture (Greek and Roman culture) and preceded Christianity. They aren’t Christian ideas at all. But on the issue of slavery his evidence doesn’t support his position at all.
Scholar Bart Ehrman proposes that term are a lot of contradictions in the Bible. He is very enthusiastic about us reading the Bible horizontally. However, when we take the time to read the text carefully, as he suggests, many of the contradictions are very fragile. And some are not contradictions at all. Here I work through some of the contradictions he proposes. Why don’t you be the judge?
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This might be a surprising twist to you. Celebrating Christmas because of Jesus is not celebrating myths, rumours and half-forgotten folklore. Rather, it is a celebration of events that unfolded in history. It seems again, that people worshipping Jesus are on the right side of history.
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Have you ever met one of those Christians who just seems so sure about their salvation? What’s with that? Are they so sure they’ve kept all God’s rules and laws? Is that it? No, not at all. A Christian’s confidence comes from the fact that the laws have been fulfilled for them by someone else.
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Shiny shekels seem to be upsetting a lot of people. They read just a handful of sentences from the book of Leviticus and have concluded that women are less valuable in the Bible. It’s all part of the Christian patriarchal agenda. And that theory holds up until you read just a couple more sentences in the very same chapter. And then you have a problem because you see its about women being more valuable.
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Easter - the most important Christian event of the calendar. So important that without Easter Christmas has no point. For Easter is all about Jesus’ death to take away sin for humanity. But is this all just a myth? Can we have any confidence in the historical details? Yes we can. We can know what Christians believed about Jesus as early as 35 AD even from sceptical scholarship.
When we hear the word dogma we get worried. It just sounds bad! But before we race to reject Christian dogma we need to consider things a little more deeply. I want to suggest that there is even - good dogma.
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How can a good God create evil?
The problem with this argument is easily exposed. It is not the concept of God that is logically inconsistent. It is something else.
The article claims that evolution makes more sense but that isn’t the heart of their issue. Their issue is that religion offers no good answers or rather, ‘answers that sound like they’re making up excuses.’ I think that perspective can be challenged.
The writer’s experience from religion classes was that Christianity is about instilling values with the ultimate goal of eternal reward and avoiding suffering. This isn’t the Christian message but a misunderstanding and a very significant one.
It’s a bold claim, ‘all arguments for God are ridiculously weak’. Is that really the case?
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God is just Santa Claus for adults. Witty? Yep. Snarky? Maybe? But does it hold up… I don’t think so.
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A big scholar claims that Jesus never claimed to be God. Is he right? Nope he’s wrong. Let me show you from the Bible.
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A friend sent me a meme on Leviticus 19:19. The meme was confrontational and deliberately offensive. Since Christians wear polyester and cotton socks which are a blend of two materials – they break Leviticus 19:19. ‘Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material.’ So, how can Christians say anything about sexual ethics or anything else that might spring from Leviticus as a standard since they break the rules themselves?
