You can’t put Jesus on lockdown.
He healed the sick, still does. He raised the dead! Remember his friend Lazarus? How he called him out of the graveyard by name, because if he hadn’t been specific everybody would have come back to life at his command there and then!
We have prayed that we would be like the church in the Book of Acts – you have to be careful what you pray for!
I can’t imagine how anyone could get through this without knowing what John 3:16 tells us – that God loves the world. He loves it so much he gave his Son to save anyone who puts their trust in Him. Jesus Christ is God.
The Church in the west has tried, tried and tried again – and by and large been found wanting – because people don’t want it. We’ve offered a God who people don’t desire, a community where they don’t belong, an institution they distrust.
It’s time for a REFRAME.
How often when we are talking with others do egos get in the way because we are trying to prove or disprove a point? Someone sees it one way, someone else another way, and someone else can’t see it at all!
Steady progress over time will not only build a great organisation, but a great life.
hope is not up front – the way the world sees it. It may not even be what you have with you at the beginning. It’s what you’re holding onto, at the end.
If I am one with the One ‘through whom all things were made’ – all the things he made must matter to me too. Reconciliation, climate change.
Our world has been described as VUCA. Volatile Uncertain – we don’t know what tomorrow will bring Complex A = Anxious or Angry Have we ever known a more divided time? When we are trying to make the divisions even greater. ‘Age of anxiety’ may be suppressing the anger? Pressure and stress Coldplay ‘Everyday life’ Chris Martin wants to express more anger’ https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/chris-martin-coldplay-interview-singer-everyday-life-new-album-god-is-the-answer-children-apple-moses-hxzp8h625 St Augustine “Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are.” People are facing the realities. The story we live is lived according to the back story of this uncertainty which is the prevailing narrative of the world. Look at Coca Cola ads over the years. They capture the zeitgeist of where we are. We are living in the post-realworld. Reality is becoming blurred. VR, AR. What is the real world? ‘Taste the feeling’ is the latest ad. They are merging categories. We are called to describe reality in the light of God (David Ford). So what will an […]
David Ford is Regus Professor of Theology at Cambridge and I was just privileged to hear him speak on ‘The Gospel of John – Abundant meaning, Abundant love.’ Here are my unedited notes. John’s is a gospel of abundance. He’s studied it for 19 years and still feels he has had a cup from a huge barrel. John 3:16 sums up the gospel – it’s all about love! It’s the latest to be written, and we think John knew the synoptics. So we can make connections with them. He may have written it in Ephesus, and even knew the Pauline tradition so here you have the gospel narrative and the theology so he was known as ‘ho theologos’in the Eastern church. Hans Urs von Balthasar “Most saint’s lives can be summed up as the exegesis of one scripture.” John wants you to think in terms of abundance. How many fish? How much wine? How much glory! He wants us to think differently about big concepts, about time, and about love. 1 John is the first commentary on John – a Johannine community […]