Who needs missionaries? 12 June 11
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- Written by: Dale
- Category: Weekly Reflections
Who needs missionaries?
In a famous column in The Times in 2008 atheist Matthew Parris wrote “... I've become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa...”. His article gives a number of examples in which he claims that it is not just Christian aid work, but the living faith of Christians that transforms lives. He concludes his article:
“Those who want Africa to walk tall amid 21st-century global competition must not kid themselves that providing the material means or even the knowhow that accompanies what we call development will make the change. A whole belief system must first be supplanted.
And I'm afraid it has to be supplanted by another. Removing Christian evangelism from the African equation may leave the continent at the mercy of a malign fusion of Nike, the witch doctor, the mobile phone and the machete.”
The issue has been debated for a long time.
5. Two brothers: Choosing Good Genesis 4
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- Written by: Dale
- Category: Genesis 2011
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5. Two brothers: Choosing Good Genesis 4
Sermon preached at Christ the King Willetton on 5 June 2011
Bible Readings: Genesis 4.1-16; Psalm 116; 1 John 3.1-18; Matthew 5.21-26
Choosing what is good according to God, why Cain's offering was not accepted and how it relates to our serving of Jesus
4. Voices in the Garden Genesis 3
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- Written by: Dale
- Category: Genesis 2011
{podcast id=179}
4. Voices in the Garden Genesis 3
Sermon preached at Christ the King Willetton on 29 May 2011
Bible readings: Genesis 3.1-24; Psalm 139.1-12; Revealtion 12.1-17; Luke 4.1-13
Humans becoming the ones who decide good and evil; judgments and promises of blessing and the fulfilment in the death of Christ; and the message for the nations of life instead of death
A church full of mandarins 29 May 11
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- Written by: Dale
- Category: Weekly Reflections
A church full of mandarins
I have just been eating a couple of mandarins given to us by our local mandarin grower whose wife told me that this particular mandarin tree only produced fruit every two years until recently. Until, that is, her husband, the mandarin grower, got to it with a pruning saw and cut it right back – to almost nothing. Since then it has been fruiting with enthusiasm – as an energetic mandarin tree should.
After meditating on these two mandarins, I wondered whether that would work with churches. But churches are not really like inanimate fruit trees, are they? Although Jesus did think his bunch of disciples was like the branches of a grape vine – that is similar isn’t it?
And he talked about cutting back the vine. Although he said there were two different kinds of cutting. The branches that produced no fruit were removed by his Father and burnt in the fire. The ones that did bear fruit were pruned so they could produce more.
A bit radical don’t you think?
What is marriage? 22 May 11
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- Written by: Dale
- Category: Weekly Reflections
What is marriage?
“Mawwidge,” said the Very Impressive Clergyman in that great Romance about True Love, The Princess Bride, “Mawwidge, that bwessed state, that dweam wiffin a dweam ...” That is one view, although not one that the Evil Prince agreed with.
What about this: “’marriage’ means the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life.” Not very romantic, but from the Australian Marriage Act 1961. Although it forms the basis of all legal marriages conducted in Australia in the last 50 years this idea has been under revision for some time.
Eulogies 15 May 11
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- Written by: Dale
- Category: Weekly Reflections
Eulogies
As I write this I am preparing a eulogy for my father. I don’t like the term eulogy, although it has a good ancestry (Paul uses it in 2 Cor 1, and Ephesians 1 and so does Peter in 1 Peter 1). It sometimes sounds like whitewashing, especially at funerals. Sometimes they are just opportunities to talk about ourselves (I have heard some terrible ones).
But most of us want to say something about a friend or father who has died. Of course there are far too many things that could be said, and many that probably should not be said. Many are anecdotes, memories, recollections, views from different angles. In the same family people have different memories and views – sometimes radically different.
So what to say? And who to say it to?
In the Beginning: Studies in Genesis 2011
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- Written by: Dale
- Category: Reading Guides to Bible Books
In the Beginning: Studies in Genesis
These studies are meant to help us read and understand better the book of Genesis.
| "In the beginning" is available as a downloadable pdf file, ready to be printed as a small booklet. Click here to view, right click to save to your computer |
It is difficult to hear Genesis speak to us in its own right because there are many other voices shouting at us or at Genesis, demanding to be heard, demanding to answer questions that are not the concern of Genesis, and wanting to set their own agendas for our reading of the book.
Some of these voices are our own of course. Genesis has been caught up in debates about the origins of the universe and we want to have a clear idea what views we should have in the debate. However the debates about science and origins can hijack our reading of Genesis so that the book only becomes a source of ammunition in the debate.
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