It’s that time of year where so many start to consider starting good habits in their lives: the time of new year’s resolutions, the upsurge in gym memberships, and the start of many Bible reading plans for Christians. The problem is that life is quieter right now and doing these things is easier. When real …
The Christian church is called a family, a household and a congregation at various points in the New Testament. The church is not a building or a service but a people. And it is a people who should function quite differently to how usual families and groups of people function. Usually, we are attracted to …
I notice the same thing every Christmas: the people who do not trust in Jesus are the ones who get most excited about the decorations, the music, the craft, the food and the whole circus that comes around this time of year. Christmas is big business. People are wearing Christmas-themed T-shirts (which means Santa/elves/tinsel/green and …
In our church, the entire congregation is in the main hall together for the first half of the service. This means that we sing and pray together with older people, young children, and everyone in between all together. There is something wonderfully encouraging about this! And then, when the time for the Bible reading and …
Singleness doesn’t often get talked up in churches. There is a lot of focus on families, on Biblical teaching on marriage, on ministries aimed at covenant children, and on pre-marriage counselling. If you are unmarried in the church, you can sometimes feel that you are a second-class citizen of some type. Add to that the …
There is something wonderful about being reminded of God’s goodness to us in Jesus. We should be told about it in sermons and sing about it in songs. The gospel is an objective truth that all Christians are built up by. However, there is something special about hearing how God has worked in the life …
In many passages in the Bible, God warns his people not to follow other gods instead of him. The word for this is ‘idolatry’, which means to worship an idol. In traditional religions, idols often took the form of little statues or carvings which were bowed down to and sacrificed to. That’s not normally how …
The title of this blog post might seem a little odd. After all, you might think, I bought my Bible for $9.99. Or perhaps it was free – it came with an app on your phone. Most people don’t own old Bibles or illuminated ones worth millions; the paper or the software is pretty inexpensive. …
When was the last time you heard a sermon where the preacher warned you of the dangers of hell? That God is angry with sin, ‘furious’ is a better way of putting it, and would one day bring such terrible judgement that we can hardly imagine it? I would guess that in many Christian circles, …
People who have never read the Bible tend to think that the people of God in the Bible were all perfect models of morality and faithfulness. The kind of people who we are glad are out there somewhere, but people who are not really like us. This couldn’t be further from the truth. The Bible …