It is easy to be impressed by the giants of the Christian faith. We read in the Bible of people like Elijah who stood up to evil kings, of Moses who stood before Pharaoh, and of Paul who testified before rulers and hostile Jewish governments. We know of people like Martin Luther and John Knox …
Many Christians are terrified of evangelism. It is the kind of thing we know we should be doing but we don’t get around to, like flossing or exercise. It is easy to come up with all kinds of excuses not to tell other people about Jesus. Maybe they will reject me or be mean to …
I often come across a complaint non-Christians have about the church: it brainwashes people. Many see the church as being the same as a cult, forcing people to believe things. For those who see themselves as enlightened and free thinkers, equating the church to a cult explains why so many people would hold to views …
It can seem that becoming a Christian requires a great deal of knowledge. If you are interested in knowing about Jesus and the church, the new material can be a little overwhelming. Church is so strange culturally with singing and praying and listening to sermons. And the Bible is a very big book, much bigger …
There are few more important questions that Christians face from their friends and colleagues than the relationship between science and Christianity. Many dismiss Christianity thinking that science has explained it away, especially when it comes to the issue of the origin of the universe. The standard theory of evolution is accepted as adequately explaining everything; …
Have you ever slammed your finger in a door? If you have, just reading that last sentence might have made you flinch. The pain is immediate and terrible. You would likely scream for help. At the time, it dominated your thinking. You were unable to remember whatever it was you were thinking about before, and …
We all want to belong somewhere. There is something comforting about being with the people we love in a place where we know we are welcome. There is something special about home. The apostle Peter wrote his first letter to Christians scattered through the world. Peter described his readers as “elect exiles”. To be elect …
Like a significant number of people in my city and the world, I spent most of the past two weeks in isolation. My wife and I and two of our children contracted COVID. While the children recovered very quickly, it was a rougher few days for the adults of the house, worse than I expected. …
I recently wrote some documents for our church annual general meeting. I know, that sounds boring, right? Most of us hate going to meetings, and we usually have a series of drawn-out unnecessary meetings in our past that have made us feel that way. Yet preparing these documents were a great reminder of God’s kindness …
All of will wonder at some time or other if God might have more important things to do than to pay attention to us. There are always big problems in the world. Right now it might be COVID and the Ukraine; next year it will be something else. And who are we? Small people with …