What is the difference between reading the tea leaves in a cup for a message from the divine and drinking the tea with a sense of awe at the beauty of creation, as if the experience of the tea itself is a message from the divine? Because our culture (and therefore our minds) are pollutedContinue reading “The Infinite God of Finite Nature and the Underappreciated Argument of Thanfullness”
Category Archives: Theology and Life
The Personal Experience of the Person of God
The placebo effect in the medical/scientific world shows the mysterious interplay between mind and experience and therefore to a degree reality (both subjective and objective). Fake medications relive pain, experiments in managing expectations cause us to anticipate pain and therefore feel it (although no pain stimuli are physically triggered). Similarly, do you want to improveContinue reading “The Personal Experience of the Person of God”
Feeling Religious?
Feeling religious? Probably not (that word is very much out of vogue, but I say ‘bring it back’. Sorta Ol Skool, whisky and cigar style). More likely you’re feeling spiritual. That’s the good stuff because it feels so good. Apparently. Religion on the other hand doesn’t feel good at all. Apparently. How do we know?Continue reading “Feeling Religious?”
Productive Suffering
Getting into the mindset and the head of the apostle Paul is rather uncomfortable at times. It’s uncomfortable because we like ourselves the way we are. That’s to say that we are comfortable with what we’ve got now. In one sense we assume we have enough strength to do what we need to do, thatContinue reading “Productive Suffering”
Death Make Life More and Less Serious
They say that death is the ultimate equaliser. But in life, death can be a helpful reorganise.
Growing in faith out of the Pentecostal Church. Part 3.
The third and final part on my reflection series regarding Pentecostalism.
How Dark Can It Get?
In life, in our interactions with one another, we often don’t see very far into the heart, into the past, into the experience of another. We see as far as they will allow us. At times someone can be so broken it’s written all over them, it’s evident. Such is the extent of their brokennessContinue reading “How Dark Can It Get?”
Struggles with Faith
When someone says they struggle with the faith, what comes next could be a myriad of different issues. People may struggle with an intellectual aspect to the faith – perhaps it’s the reliability of the gospel, or philosophical questions regarding suffering and God’s sovereignty. Others may struggle to simply ‘feel it’ (coming from a PentecostalContinue reading “Struggles with Faith”
“The Experiment of Faith”
When John Stott became a Christian, he spoke of his initial experience as taking, “the experiment of faith” – or to paraphrase, “I just gave it a go”. It got me thinking about how I became a Christian. I remember the time when I had exhausted many of the initial questions I had and atContinue reading ““The Experiment of Faith””
Moralism – Faith alone in Christ alone by Grace Alone…. Again
At the heart of Moralism is our innate tendency to secure for ourselves some sort of favour based on our performance. There is an intrinsic mixture of fear (due to failure, doing wrong) and pride (an arrogance in our ability to do good, which is itself ironically not good, and wrong). The human compass alwaysContinue reading “Moralism – Faith alone in Christ alone by Grace Alone…. Again”
Bigvai and Shiphrah 