Monasteries were known (and are still known) as places of prayer. In Latin, prayer is ora. The monasteries were also places of work, labora. The life of the monks, then, was ora et labora, prayer and work. If we know anything about prayer, it is often the case that the...

Australia has been gripped in the last two weeks by reports that sewing needles have been found in punnets of strawberries sold at supermarkets. One person has been hospitalised as a result of ingesting one of these booby-trapped berries. As the story has come up in conversation, I’ve noticed the...

In Matthew 24 and 25, Jesus sits down with his disciples on the Mount of Olives, opposite the temple in Jerusalem. The disciples start asking him questions about the ‘last days’ – that time of urgency before Jesus ushers in the end of the age. Jesus answers their questions, and...

“All Scripture is breathed out by God…”  – 2 Timothy 3:16 (ESV) Last week I saw a video applauding the example set by a particular church. [1] The church looked like many, many other evangelical churches, who faithfully proclaim the gospel Sunday by Sunday. What was being applauded was a...

Last Thursday evening, a few of us from the music ministry team went to an event at another local church The event’s theme was how we approach singing as the body of Christ. We sang, we prayed, and then we heard the Bible taught. The text the speaker taught from...

For those of us who’ve been Christians for a long time, we can sometimes come to the Bible as though it’s got nothing new to teach us. A few weeks ago, I was preparing to preach on Rahab and the spies in Joshua 2. It’s a Sunday School favourite. I’ve...

This week the morning light gathered to the strains of Reveille on another ANZAC Day, as we gathered to remember the fallen and honour their sacrifice for our peace and freedom. I’ve experienced Remembrance Day events in South Africa and England, but there is something quite unique about the sense...

“But when the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered themselves together.  One of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your...

In this devotional for the last week of 2017 we turn the pen over to Thomas Watson, the English Puritan cleric and theologian. Watson has lots of useful, practical material available today, thanks to the internet. In his A Body of Divinity, he deals with the subject of God’s infinite...

Matthew 7:7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. (ESV) Beloved Congregation, we are blessed to now be with you in Australia, after what seems to us a long wait (almost six months!), but in the Lord’s...