Jesus vs Paul?
(January 22, 2016)Difficult issues series It doesn’t take a lot of reading in the New Testament before you notice that Paul seems to have a different emphasis to Jesus. Can we learn something from these apparent differences?
Tag: Bible interpretation
The shocking behaviour of God!
(January 10, 2016)Spiritual principles series We don’t know much about the prophet Habakkuk, but he probably lived around 600 BCE when the Babylonians were becoming powerful and a threat to Jerusalem. Habakkuk is shocked by the violence around him, and asks God how long he will tolerate it. He gets a shocking and surprising answer, but one […]
A "revelation of God’s true nature"?
(December 29, 2015)I concluded my previous post on DNA and evolution with this comment: “DNA is fundamental to all life. As christians we can see it as part of the way God has set up the universe. So we should be willing and interested to learn what it tells us about life. I think what we learn […]
DNA – a challenge to believers and unbelievers
(December 20, 2015)Difficult Issues series I have been researching family history for several years now, and have recently had my DNA tested to identify possible genetic matches – people who are related to me, perhaps as distant as 5th cousins – to try to make some breakthroughs in a difficult search. This has opened up an interesting […]
Why did Jesus have to die?
(December 9, 2015)Difficult issues series It is one of the most central teachings of christianity that Jesus died to save us from our sins. But it has come under scrutiny in recent years – from believers, who want to understand and explain it better, and from non-believers who attack it as barbaric and illogical. There are many […]
Conserving the old vs welcoming the new
(November 8, 2015)Difficult issues series Christians are often seen as conservative – about their beliefs, about politics and about ethics. The old joke asks “How many christians does it take to change a light bulb?” And of course the answer is: “Change???” So how do we know when to hold on to what we’ve got, and when […]
Close to misunderstanding Jesus?
(November 1, 2015)Difficult issues series On the first Counting Crows album, Adam Duritz sang about Maria, who said she was “close to understanding Jesus”. But I can’t help feeling that modern western christianity has covered Jesus in layers of theology and convenience, and is close to misunderstanding Jesus. If you think that’s harsh, please read on.
Truly a great alternative
(October 15, 2015)Book review I wonder what comes into your mind when you read the word “Anabaptist”? Or the word “Mennonite”? Perhaps, like me until a few years ago, you might remember these words from the time of the Reformation, when Anabaptists were a loose collection of idealistic “fringe” christians persecuted by Catholics and Protestants alike for […]
Who were the first human beings?
(September 3, 2015)Difficult issues series Last post (Why the fuss about evolution?) we looked at how the science of biological evolution impacts on christianity. We saw that the DNA evidence indicates that there was never a single Adam and Eve style couple as the ancestors of the human race. This then raises the interesting question – who […]
Why the fuss about evolution?
(August 26, 2015)Difficult issues series When Darwin published his On the Origin of Species in 1859 it provoked a range of reactions from christians and from scientists too. Many christians were quite comfortable with the idea of evolution (though many others were not), and it wasn’t until about 60 years later that the more ‘hardline’ christian opposition […]