31 March – 6 April 2019. Numbers 35–36 (click to read). A few years ago a big business leader in Taipei angrily told me that churches should stay out of economic discussions and just focus on teaching people about life in heaven. We had been debating economic reforms, the need to care for the poor, […]
24–30 March 2019. Numbers 24–25 (click to read). In Numbers 24–25, the story of Balaam continues. Balak, the king of Moab is afraid of the Israelites and their military power, and so he hires Balaam (a non-Israelite diviner from Syria) to come over and curse the Israelites. In this way King Balak hopes that he […]
17–23 March 2019. Number 15 (click to read). No matter which country or culture we come from, sadly one thing all people are good at is making divisions. We divide up our societies in so many ways. We divide between men and women, young and old, rich and poor, city and country, educated and uneducated, […]
10–16 March 2019. Numbers 4 (click to read). The Bible tells us that in the years when the Israelites wandered through the wilderness, they carried a tabernacle with them. The tabernacle was the place where Israel’s priests and leaders could meet with God and serve him. Because the people were mobile, the tabernacle had to […]
3–9 March 2019. Leviticus 21–22 (click to read). One day a good Jewish friend and I were chatting together about our faiths. As we chatted he casually mentioned that “Judaism isn’t a religion of thinking, it’s a religion of doing.” At first his words really surprised me. In our Christian traditions we spend so much […]
24 February – 2 March 2019. Leviticus 11–12 (click to read). Even if we don’t know the Old Testament laws very well, one thing we probably do know is that the ancient Jews divided many things into “clean” and “unclean” categories. This was the case for animals and food, but also for people. We see many […]
17–23 February 2019. Leviticus 3. Thank God! (click to read). Many cultures and religions around the world have had the idea that their gods needed to be fed. Food is important to us, and we like to feed the ones we love. It’s not surprising then that people also wanted to feed the gods they […]
10–16 February 2019. Matthew 26:57–75 (click to read). A friend once told me how when she was back in school she decided to find a new church to attend. One Sunday morning she visited a church nearby, and during the service she noticed that one of her classmates was there, too. After worship her classmate […]
3–9 February 2019. Matthew 23 (click to read). We all know about Jesus’s incredible love, his graciousness, mercy, and gentleness. But in today’s reading we see a very different side of Jesus. We see him truly furious. Matthew 23 is unique in all the gospels, because it’s in this chapter that we hear Jesus’s harshest, […]
27 January – 2 February 2019. Matthew 18 (click to read). One of Jesus’s most difficult teachings is his command to forgive. It isn’t difficult because it’s hard to understand – after all we have all heard this teaching before, we all know that Jesus commands us to forgive others “seventy times seven” times (v. […]