Bridge of Reason

Image by  Pedro Ivo Pereira Vieira Pedin  from  Pixabay   When you are struggling with a problem, when your plans don’t seem to be working out, when you wonder, ‘why is this so intractable, have I missed something?’ there is great wisdom in going back to first principles. This is especially true of Bible understanding. Writing at some length about the priestly role of Jesus, the writer to the Hebrews goes on: ‘ About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.’ Hebrews 5:11-14 W e notice several things in this passage: T...

 8 in 10 individuals who were hospitalized by COVID-19 said they wished they had used the Bible more.’ As we begin a New Year Reachout Trust is committed to encouraging Bible reading, which is in a poor state across the church. We have more and better access to a dizzying choice of Bibles, electronic Bibles having become very popular over recent years. It is reported YouVersion’s Bible App gives us free access to 1,839 Bible versions in 1,275 languages. Christianity Today reported Bible reading in the US has fallen away during the pandemic: ‘ Between early 2019 and 2020, the percentage of US adults who say they use the Bible daily dropped from 14 percent to 9 percent, according to the State of the Bible 2020 report released by the Barna Group and the American Bible Society (ABS).’ The troubling headline above comes from that report, saying , ‘Individuals were most likely to report an increase in Bible engagement if a family member in their household or a neighbor died from C...

  Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.     2 Timothy 2:15 When I was young, I used to love nothing more than playing football with my friends. Near to where I lived was a large grass area and when we arrived, we would take our jumpers off and lay them on the ground to use as goalposts. The problem with those ‘jumper’ goalposts was that they were broad and easily relocated. The goalkeeper could move them when we weren’t looking to make the goal smaller, and a sneaky opposition player could use his foot to move the posts to make the goals bigger. These were not the only problems. I remember heated discussions regarding whether the ball had crossed the line (pretty difficult to be sure when there was no actual line to cross); or whether the ball had gone in or over the extra-large goalpost – such fun!   As fondly as all this lives in the memory, and as entertaining as it...

I am going to stick my neck out here and assume I am not by any means the only one to recognise a distinct lack of beauty and poetry in the New World Translation. I would go further and suggest utilitarianism is the guiding light of its ‘translators.’ In short, they abuse the language and the label 'translator.' Are they so incapable of appreciating the higher arts that clunky and mechanical seems to them to be art? Blessed are the Meek I am thumbing through their Examining the Scriptures Daily, 2020 edition, and verses jump out at me as I think, ‘My Bible doesn’t say that!’ Here is an example from January 17: ‘ Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.’ Mt.5:5 ESV ‘ Happy are the mild-tempered, for they shall inherit the earth.’ Mt.5:5 NWT ‘ Meek’ here is the Greek praus (prah-oos) and is variously translated ‘ meek, gentle, kind, forgiving, mild, benevolent, humane, humble, considerate.’ It identifies the positive moral quality of dealing with p...

'The Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give an account.' (Hebrews 4:12-13) Queen Elizabeth II was crowned on 2 June 1953. She would spend her life living in castles and palaces. She would sit on thrones, ride in gold carriages, and leading designers would line up to make her the best clothes, She would wear the finest jewellery, eat the finest meals, and travel first class. At her coronation in Westminster Abbey, amidst all the pomp and ceremony, lords and ladies, dignitaries both spiritual and secular, she was handed a Bible with these words: Our gracious Queen: to keep your Majesty ever mindful of the law and the Gospel of God as the Rule for the whole life and government of Christian Princes, we present you with t...

The Evangelical Alliance recently (2018) published the results of a survey of people’s attitudes to the Bible. Among Christians it was discovered: 57% believe the Bible should shape their daily lives "a great deal" 35% said they read the Bible everyday 73% said the Bible actively challenges them to live in a way which runs counter to the present culture in Britain 60% believe the Bible provides moral guidance, sets out God's rescue plan for humanity and shows God's priorities 78% believe the Bible is divinely inspired and 34% believe that it is free from error 68% say the Bible is regularly taught at their church Stop and think about that second statistic; 35% said they read the Bible daily. Perhaps because 73% said the Bible actively challenges them to live in a way which runs counter to the present culture in Britain? It is true that taking the Bible seriously today can seriously make you stand out from the crowd. But it has always been God’s purpose that his peopl...