Category: Spirituality

John 18: 33 – 39; John 19: 1 – 15. The Apostle John was the only one, among the four gospel writers, who mentioned at some length the interrogation of Jesus by Pontius Pilate. The interview with the Roman Prefect or Governor of Judaea stood out as one of the

Isaiah 61. Jesus quoted a part of this well-known Messianic passage from the Book of Isaiah at the commencement of His public ministry in a Galilean synagogue (Isa 6:1-2; Luke 4:17-21). Purposefully chosen, it was indicative of God’s lovingkindness towards Jewish society’s disadvantaged in the year of Jubilee (i.e., every

Titus 2:1 – 3: 11. It was not unusual for the Apostle Paul to specify practical Christian responsibilities in the midst of expositing over weighty theological issues in his epistles, as he did so in his Letter to Titus (c.f., 1 Cor 7; Eph 5; 1 Tim 3; 1 Tim

Matthew 5: 43 – 48; Mark 12: 28 – 34. When challenged by the scribes to name the most important commandment, Jesus’ emphatic reply was, “The foremost is, Hear O Israel! The Lord, our God, is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,

Psalm 146. The Biblical narrative is replete with quotations and stories that are illustrative of both justice and unfairness. It also informs us of how God handled this critically dynamic quality. Without doubt, Yahweh expected His people to emulate His character trait when He said, “He has told you, O

God’s Sovereignty And Human Responsibility. Ephesians 1: 1 – 23. Although the Scriptural conundrum between God’s absolute sovereignty and man’s moral responsibility is one of the polarising doctrinal issues among believers, both are truths mentioned throughout the Bible, with neither stance mitigating the other (c.f., Eph 1:4-5). When his brothers

John In God’s Presence. Revelation 4. From our reading of Scripture, it becomes evident that unadorned human vocabulary miserably fails to describe Yahweh and His heavenly milieu. Nevertheless, due to the reality of His desire to communicate with us within human space-time, our intensely relational God wisely utilised a diverse

The Gravity Of Faith. Daniel 1 – 6. Our first introduction to the Book of Daniel was likely to be the stories of Hananiah, Mishael, Azariah and Daniel, respectively surviving King Nebuchadnezzar’s fiery cauldron and King Darius’ lions’ den. These identity-shaping stories of faith and courage continue to deliver relevant

Abraham’s First Steps In Faith. Genesis 11: 10 – 12: 20. The first mention of Abraham was immediately after the Babel incident where Yahweh judged and rejected a rebellious and self-willed humanity, dispersing them and confusing their language (Gen 11:7). Following Babel, Terah, Abram’s father, uprooted his family and migrated

The Character Of God’s Kingdom. Matthew 7: 13 – 29. In Matthew’s concluding segment on the Sermon on the Mount, he brought together Jesus’ elucidation of the character of the kingdom of God in His four essential commands on entering the kingdom: the two roads, the two trees, the two

Who Or What Do We Fear Most? Proverbs 9:10; Exodus 33: 12 – 23; John 14:27; Romans 3:18. What do we consciously fear most in life? Is there a basis for fearing God? If we were honest, we might discover that like most sentient beings, our most significant trepidation has

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