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 …
The church is not an event run by professionals who do all the ministry while everyone else receives it. No, the Biblical model of church has everyone involved in service. We see this clearly in Ephesians 4. Ephesians 4:11-16 set up a pattern of how the church is supposed to operate. And it is so …
Have you found yourself constantly complaining about everything? Only seeing the negative, and always being angry? Those of us who know Jesus have so many reasons to see the world in a more positive light! We have so much now, and such hope for the future. My third book is being published this month through …
Christians are people who love and honour Jesus. We think that Jesus is the greatest gift and most important person ever. Jesus taught people to love God and one another; so why then are people so offended by us speaking about Jesus? Galatians 6 can help us understand this. In v12, Paul returns to the …
We live in an era of many opportunities to escape the real world. Different people will do this in different ways. Some will be physically walking through the world but absorbing none of it due to the music playing in their headphones and the mobile phone up against their face. Others will go into social …
I love to read. In theory, I like to read literary fiction, and when I am relaxed and not too tired, I still do. Give me a good Russian novelist or a Booker Prize winner and I am pretty sure I would enjoy it. Yet, if I am honest with myself, I am often not …
It is human nature to notice the things that are wrong rather than the things that are right. We complain about traffic so quickly, but don’t revel in a smooth car trip quite so much. We love to tell others about bad experiences we have had with customer service, but don’t leave positive feedback when …
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 …
The flood narrative in Genesis 6-8 is a long passage. Why? What does the writer devote the most time to? It is the time on the ark itself waiting for the flood to rise and then the waters to come down. From 8:6 we have that odd section when Noah sends out some birds to …
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 …