On this site, you can read about, comment on and contribute to my ongoing reflections as I wrestle with questions about God, Faith, Life, The Bible, Church and Theology.
All in Archive
The key to enjoying the Bible is to find something that captures your imagination and encourages you to read further. Happily, I think there are several different starting points that can be adopted by anyone at any time that can help do just that…
I often find that when I ask people how their walk with God is going, they shuffle a bit awkwardly before mumbling that they don’t pray and read the bible enough. What I find so funny and tragic about this statement is - if you think about it - its ridiculous…
Jeremiah 29:11 is one of the most well known and memorable versus in the bible. It also has to be one of the most misunderstood and misapplied…
So here’s the problem with our thinking about God’s plan and will for us, and basing our understanding on this particularly well known verse.
I’ve recently been wondering why Christians so readily describe themselves as being ‘saved’. When we say these things or talk about salvation (a word that means ‘to be saved or delivered’), what do we actually feel or believe we have been saved from…?
I recently produced a teaching session for Youth For Christ resources around the idea of Entitlement which posed two fundamental questions I think everyone needs to ask themselves: “What am I entitled to” and, perhaps the better, more hard hitting rephrasing “Am I entitled to anything!?”
There is a growing trend amongst some Christians and churches to try and make themselves more acceptable to others by stating that they aren’t religious, and/or they dislike Christians or even Christianity itself! To a certain extent, I can understand why they do it, but I’m not sure how helpful or how biblical it is...
Recently I’ve been thinking about how our relationship with God is a whole new category of relationship. But this leave us with the difficult task of trying to explain or define it…
I have been mulling over my understanding of the Gospel for a while now. Without a firm grasp of what the gospel is, how can living a life in response to it ever make sense or ever have meaning? I wonder whether a lack of depth in their gospel understanding is the reason why thousands of young people leave the church dissatisfied. Is it just that they’ve not been helped to properly see it as, not just “good news”, but the best news?
Theology is not simple. But what use is studying it, and how on earth can we build our lives on it, if we cannot at least make it tangible to ourselves or other people. We have to be able to name it to a certain extent!
A couple of weeks ago I read a really interesting article written by a catholic lesbian. It was a very honest and vulnerable account. Here, I want to reflect on one particular point the author raised: the church’s (so-called) preoccupation with marital love.
The amazing thing about God is that, He never expects us to get it in one go but instead step by step, lesson by lesson, experience by experience, He gently ushers us forwards.
“God shows himself not by leading Christians out of suffering, but actually in the suffering itself.”
This sentence is short and simple. I’ve heard it before. What it’s saying isn’t new and yet I don’t think I’ve properly understood at all.
I’ve been having many conversations with young people recently about my thoughts on the first few chapters of Genesis and what they tell us about our beginnings. So here is a brief outline of what I believe, the gaps in my thinking, and what challenges the youth have given me...
Questions are great. I love to question, and disagree, and suggest different ideas. Sometimes people think I question too much...
My name is Michael, and I am an avid (amature, wannabe) theologian.
