The author and atheist Christopher Hitchens wrote in his autobiography: ‘Everything about Christianity is contained in the pathetic image of the flock.’ I think he’s spot on. Frankly, he’s thought much harder about that metaphor than many Christians have. This sheep metaphor is no incidental part of the Bible, it’s central to it. Think…
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Mr. O, thank you for agreeing to meet up with me for a socially-distanced walk. I’ve got a few things on my mind and I’m hoping you might be able to help me. It’s a pleasure. Besides, the exercise will do me good. So let’s get down to business straightaway. What would you like…
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Qualifications There are scenarios in which there is a convincing case for churches not gathering, for example because of the severity of the health risk if they do gather or because of the vulnerability of a particular congregation as a whole. There are individuals who should not gather because doing so would be recklessly…
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The Lord’s Supper is an occasion that is both solemn and celebratory. In the Lord’s Supper we remember the suffering and death of the innocent Son of God and we confess that it was our sin that made it necessary. In the Lord’s Supper we rejoice that God made a way for us to be saved and we proclaim with confidence that…
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In his book The Most Misused Verses in the Bible, Eric Bargerhuff surveys an array of popularly botched verses – misunderstood by believers and unbelievers alike. What tops the whole list? Jesus’s statement in Matthew 7:1: ‘Do not judge, or you too will be judged.’ One could argue, Bargerhuff says, that this is ‘by far…
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The following is an excerpt from the book, ‘The Last Valley’, written by Graham Heaps and published by Evangelical Press. The book is an honest, graphic, and affectionately told account of the closing year of the life of Graham’s wife, Sue, dying of cancer. A review of the book is published in this edition…
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The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Not only that, but the fear of the Lord is the beginning of the Christian life. The Bible makes it clear that to love God, to honour God, to obey God, we must fear God. But ‘fear’ is a word with many dimensions, many…
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Have you heard of the phrase ‘moral injury’? Probably not. It is more likely you have if you are American because moral injury is a medical term used in the United States for what we have long called burnout. This occurs when someone becomes chronically exhausted and forms highly negative views about themselves and…
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How well do you know the Apocrypha? The what? The Apocrypha. The word means the ‘hidden’ works. And it’s a collection of writings that you’ll find in some Bibles, usually placed between the Old Testament and the New Testament. They were written (with one exception) in the 400 years after the Old Testament had…
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Over the years Christian friends have come to me with all sorts of questions and problems. Of all the personal problems they share with me, perhaps the one that comes up most often is the problem of assurance. And it’s also one of the most difficult problems to address. The problem of assurance What…
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‘Save me from all those who persecute me; and deliver me, lest they tear me like a lion, rending me in pieces, while there is none to deliver’ (Psalm 7:1-2). How do you react when you are criticised for who you are or what you do? Do you automatically become defensive and start screaming…
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The year 2020 has been lived in ‘darkness and the shadow of death’. The whole world has been plunged into gloom by the coronavirus pandemic. Many lives have been lost. Many more people live in fear: fear of Covid-19, or fear of its effects on their families and their finances. A second spike always…
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