Category: Theology

Do you have any non-Christian friends?

Do you have any non-Christian friends?

The logic of evangelism is really simple. Christians have the good news, the news about Jesus the King who has died in our place and risen again to pay for our sins. This is the most important news ever. It is news that we are tasked with telling others about. And, for some of these …

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AI and the issues of sources and copyright

AI and the issues of sources and copyright

I went to university in the dark old days, when we needed to do all the research ourselves. When I studied in my honours year, I needed to scour physical journal articles stored in a compactus in the bowels of the university library (yes, I’m that old!). I even needed to use microfiche for some …

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AI and the subcontracting of our thinking

AI and the subcontracting of our thinking

Every new advance in technology has positive and negative aspects to it. We gain something, and we also lose something. That’s the reality. A new technology doesn’t mean that everything about the world is now better than it was before. This applies to all kinds of technological advances. Think about transport technologies as an example. …

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God made creation for a purpose (Genesis 1)

God made creation for a purpose (Genesis 1)

Another thing we notice in this highly structured creation account of Genesis 1 is that God does things intentionally here. God chose to create this thing here, and then that thing there.There was a reason for everything. There is a logic, some of which we can make out in Genesis 1, and some that only …

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God loves order and beauty (Genesis 1)

God loves order and beauty (Genesis 1)

When we read the creation account in Genesis 1, we are struck by a few things that are often repeated. One is the sense of order here. Yes, I know we can wonder about some of the details on certain days. How can there be light prior to the sun, for example? Did the plants …

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The Easter message is one of hope

The Easter message is one of hope

It is easy to feel kind of hopeless right now. The world is a mess. (It always is, of course; yet the prominent wars in the Middle East and Ukraine and the incredible increase in the cost of living amplify this feeling). There is a lot to legitimately complain about. Perhaps you have found yourself …

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God moves from chaos and emptiness to a blessed, complete creation (Genesis 1)

God moves from chaos and emptiness to a blessed, complete creation (Genesis 1)

Genesis 1:2 describes what the earth was like after God’s initial creative work. “Without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep”. That sounds terrifying, doesn’t it? The Hebrew of the first section is very poetic; “without form and void” in Hebrew is “bohu and tohu”. The earth was a dark …

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The fairness of the flood

The fairness of the flood

In Genesis 6:6, we’re told that God regretted that he made man on the earth. This is a difficult thing for us to understand, and I don’t know if we can fully. God, of course, knew this would happen. Yet God, in a sense, wished it had not. This is trying to explain to us …

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God saves people using an ‘ark’

God saves people using an ‘ark’

In the famous flood narrative from Genesis 6-8, God instructs Noah to build an ‘ark’. Many of us are so used to that word that we don’t realise it is an odd choice to label the giant boat. There are several words for ‘boat’ that God could have used to describe this vessel, but he …

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