21st October 2025
The New Testament word for ‘church’ is ekklesia, which means ‘a calling out’, ‘an assembly or ‘a gathering’.1 In classical Greek it was used almost exclusively for political...
14th October 2025
The Nicene Creed of 325 AD ended with a single phrase on the Holy Spirit – ‘We believe in the Holy Spirit’. However, following the Second Ecumenical Council in Constantinople in 381 AD a further...
7th October 2025
Many of us, when we think of God, picture the Creator: God the Father, the Maker of heaven and earth, or we remember Jesus Christ, who walked among us, taught and healed, suffered and rose again. The...
2nd October 2025
Recently when we visited our daughter in the U.S., she introduced us to sourdough bread. (Yes! You read that right; I didn’t know about it before.) She said it was a healthier option than the...
30th September 2025
The Filioque 1 controversy stands as one of the most significant and enduring sources of theological division between the Christian church in the East and West. It revolves around a single Latin term...
26th September 2025
It is the psalm that most people have heard of, in one form or another. It is sung at funerals and weddings. It is used as a heartfelt prayer when people find themselves facing trials. It is sung in...
23rd Septemer 2025
The Council of Nicaea (325 AD) primarily addressed Christ’s divinity against Arian heresy: a belief that taught that Jesus Christ was not co-eternal with the Father but was a created being. The...
19th September 2025
Throughout history kingdoms and empires have risen to greatness and then faded into memory. Babylon with its hanging gardens, Rome with its grand columns, the mighty dynasties and pyramids of Egypt,...
16th September 2025
When you consider the kingdom of God, what do you imagine it is like? What images come to mind? What hopes? In the Gospels, we are gifted with several accounts of Jesus talking about the kingdom of...
11th September 2025
Jesus Christ is not only the Saviour, the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world, he is also the Judge before whom all humanity will one day stand. The roots of Jesus’s role as judge are firmly...
5th September 2025
Here the gospel writer, Luke, is recounting the Apostle Paul’s address to people gathered in the synagogue in Antioch, now Antakya, located in southern Turkey. He is writing of King David. The...
2nd September 2025
The creed’s reference to the return of Jesus, often referred to as the Second Coming or Parousia, 1 is one of the most significant themes in Christian theology. One theologian goes as far as saying,...
26th August 2025
Luke tells the story of Jesus Christ’s ascension twice (Luke 24:51; Acts 1:9-11), and the longer ending of Mark also mentions it, adding that at his ascension ‘he sat at the right hand of...
21st August 2025
On the road to Emmaus Jesus said to Cleopas and another disciple, ‘How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Messiah have to suffer these...
14th August 2025
The crucifixion of Jesus stands at the centre of the gospel we are to proclaim (1 Corinthians 15:1-2). It is of first importance; it is the crux (Latin for cross 1) of the Christian message, and the...
7th August 2025
The Psalms are replete with pleas for God to come down and save human beings (Psalm 14:7; 80:1-3; 144:5), because there is an acknowledgement that our sin is great and always with us (Psalm 51:1-3)....
31st July 2025
Before the Nicene Creed was written there was a long tradition, both from scripture and the Church Fathers teaching that Jesus is God. John begins his gospel with ‘the Word was God’ (John 1:1) and...
24th July 2025
The title ‘Son of God’ is used in many different ways in the Old Testament, and could refer to a king (Psalm 2:6-7 NIVUK), angels (Job 1:6; 2:1 NIVUK; footnote: hebrew the sons of God) or the...
22nd July 2025
Did God leave us anything to do? Have you ever volunteered and shown up to the job ready with gloves and tools in hand, only to find out that the work was already completed? You’ve set aside time to...
17th July 2025
The second article of the Creed turns to the second person of the Trinity and addresses the Lord Jesus Christ. This title holds great significance in the Christian faith and is laden with theological...
11th July 2025
Creation is the act by which the Bible introduces us to God, and ‘Creator’ is the first name God reveals about himself in scripture. He is not a creator, or simply someone who creates, God is the...
3rd July 2025
The fatherhood of God is rarely mentioned in the Old Testament, but when it is, it often relates to God’s corporate relationship with his people. God’s fatherhood is usually expressed in...
27th June 2025
If you had to try to describe God, where would you start? It’s a rather daunting task. The Nicene Creed will go on to describe many aspects of God, but it begins by affirming that God is one. The...
24th June 2025
Not many of us in the Western world live in an agrarian society. For instance, although I’m surrounded by farms in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, I am an urban dweller. As a result, we may...
18th June 2025
The beginning of the Nicene Creed was originally written in Greek in the first-person plural: ‘We believe’. When translated into Latin, it became ‘I believe’. There isn’t a right or...
10th June 2025
2025 is the 1700th anniversary of the Nicene Creed and was marked in May by special services in London and Jerusalem. Brendon Metcalfe, from Friends of the Holy Land, said of the First Council of...
3rd June 2025
Isaiah described the Holy Spirit as ‘the Spirit of fire’ (Isaiah 4:4 margin) or ‘spirit of burning’ (ESVUK), which is a particularly significant symbol of the Holy Spirit representing the...
27th May 2025
One of the pivotal roles attributed to the Holy Spirit is that of a seal, marking believers as God’s own and guaranteeing their inheritance in Christ. This concept, deeply rooted in Scripture,...
20th May 2025
The Bible is replete with references to water symbolising the Holy Spirit, each instance unveiling and describing his different attributes. In the Old Testament, water often symbolises life and...
13th May 2025
One of the most evocative symbols of the Holy Spirit is that of wind, illustrating his dynamic, invisible, and omnipresent nature. The Hebrew words ruach and nishmat together with the Greek word...
6th May 2025
The use of oil as a symbol of the Holy Spirit is deeply embedded in the Bible. In the Old Testament oil was used for anointing kings and priests, signifying their consecration to God’s service. When...
29th April 2025
Throughout scripture, the biblical authors use different symbols to represent the Holy Spirit, portraying his office and the great variety of his work. A symbol is an image which has the power to give...
14th April 2025
There is no easy way of saying it, crucifixion was bloody and horrific; it was an excruciatingly painful and gruesome way to die, which is why the Romans used it to punish criminals and rebels. In...
8th April 2025
Jesus forgives. Which is just as well because I messed up yesterday and will undoubtedly mess up in some way or other today and tomorrow. I can make all sorts of excuses: I was tired, the person in...
1st April 2025
Every human being struggles with temptation, so much so it led Oscar Wilde to quip ‘I can resist anything but temptation’ 1 and ‘The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.’ 2...
26th March 2025
Have you ever been to church and after a few minutes of the sermon found yourself nodding off? On the night Jesus was arrested he went to the Garden of Gethsemane with his disciples, sat most of them...
21st March 2025
For 400 years the prophets had been silent. Since Malachi there had been no word from God, through an appointed prophet, recorded in scripture. God had promised that there would be a faithful remnant,...
18th March 2025
All of us have experienced, or will at some point in our lives experience, shared or personal grief. It might be the loss of a loved one, losing a job that you thought would last, or hearing that you...
11th March 2025
The header scripture implies that the Jews were saying that Jesus was just one of us. Although they were questioning his divinity they were, in a very real sense, right in saying that he was human....
7th March 2025
We acknowledge that there are shadows of Jesus throughout the Old Testament. He is seen through kings, a shepherd, prophets, priests, a warrior, a leader, a provider, a protector, a sacrifice, and a...