Bridge of Reason

Bible translations abound in our day and age, along with thematic Bibles for men, for women, for teenagers, children, parents, for armchair archaeologists and coffee shop philosophers, for people 'who really want to go on with God,' to those special Christians among us who seem to have God sitting on their shoulder and chatting away all the live-long day. The list seems endless and as long as there is a niche market and money to be made they'll keep coming I imagine. Then there are the paraphrase Bibles, useful in their way, but surely not for the pulpit (but oh, we've seen it done). It is hard to get people to understand that they are supposed to come to the Bible, not the other way around. They are meant to sit under the teaching of the Bible, the Bible is not meant to bend itself out of shape to suit their preferences or play to their ignorance. Any good Bible translation will speak to your heart and there is no need for your Bible to talk down to you. The P...

Someone over at Quora asked this question and I was curious to know the answer. The reply on Quora, from an inactive Witness with a still faithful family, talks about video conferencing among other things. The Memorial Meal, where gathering was prohibited, took place online, with a leader giving the talk on Zoom. They made bread according to the prescribed recipe, had some wine, and afterwards threw it away in the kitchen bin I imagine. It will come as no surprise to find everyone dressed for this as though they were going to the Kingdom Hall, even though they were at home. The door-to-door work and the cart witnessing are cancelled of course. However, undaunted, they have resorted to telephone witnessing, calling back their call backs on the phone. Some are letter writing, again no surprise given the way the Society can marshal their army of members to mass produce letters of protest at the drop of a hat, clogging up the already burdened mailing system. You can r ead more here. ...

The message of salvation is wonderful. Paul writes, ‘As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive’ (1 Cor.15:22) John writes, ‘Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son does not have life’ (1 John 5:12) Jesus himself declared, ‘I came that you may have life and have it abundantly’ (John 10:10) Salvation is more than escaping eternal punishment, it is about life, abundant, full, and eternal, deliverance from sin-slavery. If we are saved, trusting in Christ for our eternity (2 Tim.1:12), that is a good thing. More, if we are made disciples, which Jesus commanded (Mt.28:16-20) and set our face towards obedience (Mt.7:21-23), that is a fruitful thing. We have looked at a possible Christian rule for life , the question of Am I Saved? and we have looked at obedience . We will go on in future posts to look at sanctification and perseverance, but now we look at purpose. Sinai Still Speaks God, through Moses, explained his purposes to the children of Isr...

Paul's letter to Titus in the New Testament contains a remarkable and disturbing observation. Paul writes: 'One of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said, "Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons." This testimony is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in faith…' (1:12/13) Titus was a Greek convert to Christianity, Paul referring to him as, 'my true child in the faith.' (1:4) He had a challenging assignment, so Paul wrote words both of encouragement and of instruction, 'as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine.' (2:1) This is a theme throughout this letter, indeed, in his whole ministry. The fact Titus was to appoint elders in every town tells us this was a new church plant. The above quote gives some insight into what Titus had to draw on to accomplish his task. It is a shocking thing to read, xenophobic one might think. Paul, of course, was making a generalisation, not implying every citizen of ...