Bridge of Reason

I sat in a church meeting in which people were encouraged to ‘share.’ There was no shortage of candidates to walk up to the front and tell what they ‘felt God was saying to me.’ Some of it was encouraging and to the point, but some ranged from puzzling to outright wacky. One stood out for me as instructional in all the ways the speaker probably hadn’t intended. What was said was sufficiently couched in Christian lingo as to sound broadly biblical but ultimately so vague as to be as applicable as the words of a fairground fortune-teller; almost anyone could have identified with them. What was striking was the failed attempt to bring biblical content into ‘what God is saying to me.’ This was because the speaker’s knowledge of the Bible was patently and woefully inadequate to the task. It is troubling when people who don’t know the Bible, God’s written Word, nevertheless feel God can and does speak through them, that they can be God’s immanent word. You hear these things where someon...

  In my latest Watch Tower Wednesday on the Reachout Facebook page I asked, ‘what is Salvation?’ On their website Jehovah’s Witnesses say salvation seems conflicted between ‘God’s gift’ of salvation and the Bible injunction to Christians to live a saved life. They write: ‘To gain salvation you must exercise faith in Jesus and demonstrate that faith by obeying his commands – Acts 4:10,12; Romans 10:9; Hebrews 5:9. You can read the Watch Tower article here . This is a struggle many have when they try and square the idea of a gift with the idea of works? How would you discuss this issue with a Jehovah's Witness? How would you reconcile Eph.2:8,9, ' By grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God,' with James 2:24-26, 'Faith without works is dead?' What hope and assurance can you bring a Jehovah's Witness? I am grateful to Dawn Llisone for providing as good and clear an answer as you will find to help resolve ...

  In Acts 17 the Bible describes the Internet in general, and social media in particular. A place where people spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing of something new. So, what do we do with that, and what can we learn from Paul? I was looking again at Paul and his journeys and trials in Acts. In Acts 16 he is imprisoned in Phillippi, along with Silas, after having been beaten with rods for preaching the gospel and, ‘turning the world upside down.’ Before the end of the chapter the jailer and his family came to a living faith in Christ, and the police and magistrate came and apologised for their treatment. They moved on from there to Thessalonica (Acts 17), preached Christ crucified, buried, and risen, only to find themselves being hunted down by a mob of jealous Jews. Not being found, and encouraged by the brothers to leave, they set out for Berea. Finding some success with Berean Jews (who were reportedly more noble than those in Thessalonica) they found the Jews...