When I glance around my church during the sermon, I don’t see many moving pens or pencils. I do see lots of open Bibles, and a couple of people furiously typing with their thumbs.
Romans 12:1 is often used as the go-to verse to back-up the challenge to be fully committed as a Christian. To give up my ambitions, and really make sacrifices for the sake of God. But as I was reading Romans 6 it struck me that reading 12:1 this way is probably misreading it and unhelpful.
Nothing is too trivial for me to pray about, from the common cold to parking spots. But I often forget to ask for things that really matter, from big things like the growth of God’s kingdom to little things like daily help with my anxieties and ungodliness.
I talk easily about my family, my hobbies and my job, but I’m often mute when I have an opportunity to share the gospel.
Regularly when I sit down with someone, they’ll use the phrase ‘called to ministry’. I don’t have a dislike of this phrase, it can be very useful—only when most people use it, it isn’t.
The third in this series on reading the Bible well. This time John looks at how knowing that God's word is his changes how we approach it.
Amidst all the sound and fury about same-sex marriage, it’s often hard to find a straight-forward, clear, thoughtful Christian defence of what marriage is. Sandy Grant has had a crack, and a very good one, in this recent public lecture at St Michael’s Wollongong.
I am a reluctant convert to the Swedish Method for Bible study. I read the Briefing article all of those years ago and decided to try it out in a couple of Bible study groups. It didn’t work! It didn’t seem to make group members think deeply enough about the passage, and it seemed to promote surface-level easy answers.
Richard speaks about becoming a Christian, staying refreshed, humble leadership, losing his wife, marrying again, and modern student ministry.
It was our first cell group meeting. There was Victoria, a committed student leader in her second year of university; Paula, a new person in her first year of study; and me, the missionary who had arrived to accompany and train leaders. The other people who were invited didn’t come.