thinking honestly about life and faith
In recent weeks I have been thinking that too much of the discussion in ministry and theological circles is about forms of church, worship styles and models of mission, without the primary focus on what Jesus sent his followers to … Read More »
The Spirit nurtures the fruit of faith, to produce faithfulness, or shall we say, 'faith-full-ness'. To understand faithfulness, we need to think about what faith is. There's a lot of confusion here, but if we can get some handles on … Read More »
It's taken me a long time to get to goodness. Is that somehow significant? Maybe I just never wanted to be good! But this is not an individual thing. The Spirit grows goodness, in individuals and communities. There is a … Read More »
Recently I had a holiday at Uluru, the iconic sacred site in central Australia which used to be known as Ayer's Rock.It is a fabulous place, and we enjoyed a number of opportunities not only to see the Rock in … Read More »
In this post I will comment on some other people's ideas about kindness and the sense in which kindness is part of the harvest of God's presence and life with us.Let me emphasize what I said earlier, too: I do … Read More »
What does it mean to say the Spirit creates or produces kindness?I would like to suggest a few things I think I have learned about kindness. But I hasten to say this is not a claim to sort of moral … Read More »
From a simple net search for quotations, I found a number of insightful statements about patience. I would like to consider a few of these, in terms of how they relate to the patience the Spirit gives.
This post has been a long time coming! It has been a lesson in patience. What does it mean to say that patience is a fruit of the Spirit? This requires more than reflection on what patience is. It also … Read More »
‘Blessed are the peace makers’ is one of the ‘beatitudes’, set at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew’s Gospel, chapter 5.Peace making is a difficult thing to do, and I want to suggest is an activity … Read More »
The idea of ‘peace’ has so many different possible meanings. Popularly, it has two broad meanings: the absence of war, and a more personal and everyday sense of tranquility, or just the absence of hassle. Biblically, ‘peace’ is the translation … Read More »