Jul 9, 2025 | EXPLORING THE BIBLE, NEWS
The parable of the Good Samaritan. The parable of the Good Samaritan is oft retold. The Samaritans were northern neighbours of the Jews, and claimed descendancy from Israel’s northern tribes, but were regarded by the Jews as impure, with great hostility between the...
Jul 1, 2025 | EXPLORING THE BIBLE, NEWS
Jesus sends out the 70 (or 72) in pairs to spread the gospel and instructs them along the lines of ‘Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals, stay at the first house you are welcome’. Not my idea of travel instructions; is it a place where I will get a decent sleep, food...
Jun 25, 2025 | EXPLORING THE BIBLE, NEWS
Thinking of the Apostle Paul, I find I regard him in similar terms as Sir Winston Churchill’s description of Russia: “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma”. On the one hand, Paul provides us with such wonderfully insightful statements as his hymn to love in...
Jun 16, 2025 | EXPLORING THE BIBLE, NEWS
I’m often uncomfortable attending services on the Sunday marking the anniversary of the inauguration of the UCA. I often find them laden with an unhelpful sense of “God, we thank you that we are not like other churches …” (see Luke 18:11). I believe the lesson from...
Jun 4, 2025 | EXPLORING THE BIBLE, NEWS
The link between the lesson from Genesis (the Tower of Babel) and the lesson from Acts (the first Christian Pentecost) should be obvious. The Acts lesson is a mirror image of the Genesis lesson. With the old story from the Hebrew Dreaming about the Tower of Babel, we...
