Three of the Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) record Jesus’ witty phrase that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for the rich to enter the kingdom of God. In each case the listeners are amazed but Jesus refuses to water it down. One can surmise that…
I’ve been reading Gerhard Lohfink’s book Jesus of Nazareth: what he wanted, who he was and although I don’t find his depiction of Jesus very stimulating, there are certainly some gems of insight here and there. A section considering Jesus’ command to love our enemies is one such gem. He comments on this speech by…
While reading the First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, I paused over something he wrote about peace. This letter, written about 96 CE, is one of the very earliest documents we have (other than New Testament texts) from the young Christian movement. Clement was bishop of Rome and was writing to encourage the church…
A few years ago I stopped using the word “deserve”. The concept no longer has much value to me. Sure, there are some cases where perhaps an athlete running way out in front of a race is hit by a water bottle thrown by someone in the audience just seconds before the finish line. They…
We don’t use the word “joy” a lot these days. The Google Ngram below shows that the words “joy” and “happiness” occur with about the same frequency, but if you add “happy” and “happiness” together, then they occur about 3 times as often as “joy”. They can mean the same thing, but I think of…
In a recent conversation a friend spoke about the need to trust that God is in control. I’ve heard it before, and often in the context of a reassurance that even if your situation looks bleak, it is supposed to be comforting to know that God is in control. I don’t believe it. The God…
A recent article by Charles M. Stang (*) notes that “Thomas’s acclamation [in John 20:28] is the only place in the New Testament where Jesus is called ‘God’.” I think that’s pretty remarkable. Elsewhere Jesus is called Son of God, image of God, and other similar epithets, but only here is he plainly “God”. More…
During last week a friend and I watched The Wallat the wonderful Avoca Beach Picture Theatre, not quite knowing what we were going to see. Was it going to be a remake of the original movie or a documentary reflecting on the album that was first released 37 years ago? It turns out to be…
I know those two lines are thesame length but the knowingmakes no dent in the illusionof their difference. In the Müller-Lyer illusion two lines of equal length are made to look unequal. One explanation of the trick is that our minds interpret the lines as the corners of buildings: the one on the left as…
Although life has been hard going the last few years – well actually, because life has been hard going the last few years – I’m no longer so black and white in the way I see many things. I used to think the alternative to black and white was an unattractive gradient of grey. But…
