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...
6th March 2025
It was a day like any other for the Samaritan woman who had come to Jacob’s well to collect some water, but it soon turned into a day unlike any other. It was strange enough that as she went about...
20th February 2025
Malachi shares with us the essence of conversations between God and the people he had brought out of captivity; the people who had rejoiced at the rebuilding of the temple; the people who, in a short...
7th February 2025
Joseph, the husband of Mary, was a carpenter, a builder of things (Matthew 13:55-56). He shaped, fashioned and finished wood – and other materials – so they fitted together. Mary’s first-born...
10th January 2025
From the peace and beauty of the Garden of Eden, through the Tabernacle in the wilderness, to the various iterations of the Temple, God has always sought and created a place where he dwells with his...
16th December 2024
The word ‘Advent’ comes from the Latin adventus which means ‘arrival’ or ‘coming’1 and is closely related to the Latin word adventūra from which we get the English word ‘adventure’.2...
9th December 2024
During Advent it’s good to ask ourselves, ‘How am I waiting?’ One of the universal experiences common to human beings is that of waiting. Students take exams and then must wait for the results....
5th December 2024
The Header scripture quotation from Zephaniah pictures the Lord’s love being expressed in the same way that any loving parent among us would be with their young child. We would rejoice in them,...
2nd December 2024
The word ‘advent’ means ‘arrival’, and in Christian communities around the world, it is a season of remembering and celebrating Jesus’s arrival on earth, and the anticipation of his...
28th November 2024
Has God given you an understanding of what he wants for your life? If not, it would be good to pray for insight into his desire for you. If God has given you a vision for your life it would also be...
25th November 2024
It is as though Habakkuk and Christ were, at separate times, reading from the same script. Habakkuk cries out to God, at the beginning of his book, ‘How long, Lord, must I call for help, but you do...
21st November 2024
Isaiah wrote these words after an encounter with God, seeing ‘…him high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple.’ (Isaiah 6:1). The setting was so...
14th November 2024
Waiting on God when he hasn’t yet answered our prayers is one of the hardest places to be. Our prayers often start out being bold and expectant but as time rolls on, and we find ourselves still...
11th November 2024
We are back in Nineveh, the chief city of Assyria. They had been warned once, by Jonah, and had avoided destruction because they repented. Nahum’s graphic prophecies, about 140 years later,...