By Not Known The ‘fool‘ has a mixed history. In ancient royal courts the fool was an insightful outsider who made penetrating comments. For some, the fool is a playful person who wastes his time and that of others. For others, a fool is a person of low mental ability. The Bible’s fool is something…

By Not Known Our region is stunned as the funerals, damage assessment, clean up and rebuilding continues after last Sunday's terrible earthquake and tsunami. The accounts of lives lost and property damaged draw our horrified fascination. What do we make of this as Christians? For one thing, we identify with those who suffer. Many of…

By Not Known As we have seen in recent weeks, the gospel is God’s message to us about his Son Jesus Some of the messages we receive are‘for your information‘. That is, we don’t need to do anything in response to this message; we just need to know it. Other messages demand action by their…

By Not Known Today's services of Lessons and Carols follow a well-established traditional pattern. It is a good pattern, for it sets the coming of Jesus into a wide Biblical perspective. Let's think about today's Scripture lessons. We start with a passage that reminds us why Jesus had to come (Gen 3:22,24). Our rebellion against…

By Not Known The Christian message is about Jesus – pure and simple. Jesus is the theme of the Bible (Lk 24:27,44-45), the ‘yes‘ to all God’s promises (2 Cor 1:18-20) and the highest form of God’s self-disclosure to humanity (Heb 1:1-3). The two greatest festivals in the Christian calendar respectively celebrate his birth and…

By Not Known This is a day for celebration as we receive new members by Baptism, Confirmation and Transfer. It is also a day that links together the Advent season, Missions Sunday and the membership service. How do these three things link together? Let’s start with Advent. As explained last Sunday, Advent is the time…

By Not Known Today is the first Sunday of Advent. ‘Advent‘ is an old word that means ‘coming‘. In Christian use, it refers to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ The coming of Jesus has two time frames. The first is his past coming. As John records it: ‘The Word became flesh and tabernacled…

By Not Known The balance between humanity and the physical earth is a pressing issue. Thus we hear warnings about irreversible environmental damage and witness the emergence of the Greens as a significant force. The Bible speaks with balance and practicality on this issue. On the one hand, humanity and the physical earth are united.…

By Not Known Our focus today is on the physicality of God’s creation. God made a world of dirt, rocks, water, plants, animals and people who are physical in nature. Some have a problem with this physicality of the creation and oppose it to the spiritual. This is not Biblical, but it is very common.…

By Not Known Today we begin a series of sermons and Bible studies from the early chapters of Genesis. These haven a battleground ever since the 1859 publication of Charles Darwin’s book, The Origin of the Species. Perhaps these chapters confuse some of us. Perhaps some still think that the whole Bible is debunked because…