Category: Spirituality

Looking Forward To The New Jerusalem. Matthew 6: 19 -21; Revelations 21: 1 – 22: 5. As we look towards the New Year, what ought to be our focus? An evaluation of the concluding chapters of the Revelation of John would perhaps be a start, as it sums up the

The Incarnation Of The Word Of God. John 1: 1 – 18. The prologue to the Gospel of John introduced us to his use of the “Word,” invariably Christological in context. John did not reuse the word again in the same sense in his gospel. The Greek “logos” signified an

The Divine Irony In God’s Service. Acts 16: 6 – 40. Philippi was a city in eastern Macedonia established by King Philip II and the father of Alexander the Great around 356 B.C. as a military outpost that controlled the gold mines nearby. It became a Roman colony soon after

Musings On Biblical Leadership. Psalm 90. These are a few disparate thoughts on church leadership that arose from some patchy conversations with different ones over the past weeks. It is pertinent to note that God had laid down some character traits of a faithful leader (Exodus 18:19-22; Acts 6:1-6; 1

Jacob’s Triumph Of Faith. Hebrews 11: 21; Genesis 48 – 50: 1 – 14. In the catalogue of exemplary Biblical men of faith In the Hebrew Letter, their specific recognized exploits were also mentioned. Jacob was listed as one of them: By faith Jacob, as he was dying, blessed each

Living Life WithIn God’s Narrative. Romans 15: 7 – 33; Romans 16. The church at Rome was mostly Jewish, but Gentiles formed a sizable number. As Paul did not plant the Roman church, his mode of communicating was very different from his other epistles. He was more accommodating and spared

The Significance Of The Tower Of Babel. Genesis 11: 1 – 9; Deuteronomy 32: 8 – 9. Quite apart from being a record of the dispersal of humanity across the world, the account of the Tower of Babel also focused on the decisive creation of human languages by Yahweh as

Presumptions About God’s Motives. Job. Unless it has to do explicitly with Israel’s unfaithfulness, it is not often that we hear God complain about human presumptions on His motives; although we do it all the time. But this was exactly His reaction to the speeches of Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar

The Critical Element Of Integrity. Book of Ruth. Few Biblical books feature an epic female character, but the Book of Ruth revolves around two – Naomi, a Jewess, and Ruth, a Moabitess. The Book is full of unexpected anxious surprises; where the apparent circumstantial hopelessness of differing situations was transmuted

The Examined Life. Luke 16: 19 – 31. The parable of the rich man and Lazarus illustrated the Saviour’s earlier pronouncement on ‘those who justified themselves in the sight of men, but God knows their hearts; for that which is highly esteemed among men is detestable in the sight of

Distressed But Safe. Psalm 91. This particular Psalm will always evoke fond memories of God’s unflinching faithfulness over us during the later years of our time in the Philippines in a war zone. Trapped in a village and caught between two opposing insurgent groups battling for political control over a

The End Of All Things Is Near! 1 Peter 4:7 – 5:14. The human consciousness makes it unlikely for most to satisfactorily handle the nearness of ‘the end of all things’ despite believers’ imagination of some glorified scenario (i.e., the return of Jesus Christ; 1 Peter 4:7; c.f., Titus 2:11-15),

Our Relationships And Reactions Matter A Great Deal. 1 Peter 3:1 – 4:6. Peter’s First Epistle reads like a checklist of exemplary counter-cultural behavioural norms, specifically with a Christ-like focus. The fact that he needed to address these issues publicly implied a distinct dissonance in the typical un-Christian relational patterns

Refugees On Earth. 1 Peter 1 – 2. The Apostle Peter’s First Epistle was written to believers who were part of the huge refugee Jewish diaspora living in Asia Minor, dispersed by the Roman occupiers of the Holy Land (1 Peter 1:1). Subsequently, both the Sanhedrin and Caesar persecuted them.

Faith According To Paul. Romans 4; Galatians 3; Genesis 15. Faith’s nebulous other-worldly trajectory in any believer’s life, together with its enigmatic expressions, is a compelling issue in the differentiation of our identity in Christ to that of the world. Unquestionably, faith’s genesis is in Yahweh Himself, and its presence

Community Life Through God’s Eyes. Romans 13:1 – 15:6. It is rare that we are constantly aware of our individually unique identity in Christ, and still more atypical that we discover ourselves to be misfits in this world, in our interminable attempts at times to gain its acceptance and rewards

No Man Is An Island. Romans 12. With daily indeterminate and unremitting distractions preoccupying us, it seems inevitable that the centrality of Jesus Christ applied in every circumstance in our modern lifestyles would continue to characteristically ebb and flow. This deleterious state was the Apostle Paul’s concern for the Roman

An Authentic Transformed Heart (Part 2). 3 John. The Apostle John’s last of his three Letters was to Gaius, the beloved (3 John 1), and it appears to be similar in tone to his earlier personal Epistle to the chosen lady and her children (2 John) in its focus on

An Authentic Transformed Heart (Part 1). 2 John. The Apostle John was as an Elder in the Jerusalem church at this point in time when he wrote his three short Pastoral Letters, prior to his incarceration on the island of Patmos. His second Epistle was to ‘a chosen lady and

Keeping Faith With Eternity In View. Ecclesiastes 3: 11; John 10: 10; Matthew 6: 24. The haunting question that believers consistently need to intentionally face is, can we possibly live the life that God had redeemed for us in Christ, without Him? Sounds oxymoronic, but bearing in mind the hellish

The Gospel’s Ethnic Crossover. Acts 9: 19 – 30; Acts 11:19 – 30; Acts 12:24 – 21:14. Paul’s introduction to the Jerusalem leadership, after his conversion, elicited the ire of his former zealous Jewish compatriots, who were now bent on killing him for betraying their cause. When it became too

The Gods Have Visited Men. Acts 14: 8 – 18. Luke’s perspective of the evangel’s passage following Paul’s three missionary journeys are peppered with cultural and historical observations of the day that dovetailed into its message, with some incidents detailing supernatural interventions (Acts 13 -20). The most familiar of these