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52 Reflections on Faith - Paul: enthusiast for faith
52 Reflections on Faith - Paul: enthusiast for faith
by BRF - Stephen W. Need
Paul:enthusiast for faith If you get a chance to travel across Turkey or Greece ‘in the footsteps of St Paul’, you’ll learn a great deal about the man who spread Christianity around the Mediterranean world in the early years after Jesus…
52 Reflections on Faith - Justification by faith: Computer studies
52 Reflections on Faith - Justification by faith: Computer studies
by BRF - Stephen W. Need
Justification by faith: Computer studies Sometime back in the late 1980s, I took an adventurous step and bought an Amstrad computer. Thinking of it now, it feels like a computer dinosaur. Actually, mine was only a word processor and I bought it partly, at least, under the sad ill…
52 Reflections on Faith - God and the world: Separate or together
52 Reflections on Faith - God and the world: Separate or together
by BRF - Stephen W. Need
God and the world:Separate or together? William Blake’s best-known painting is probably The Ancient of Days. Originally done in 1794 as the frontispiece for one of his illustrated books, it’s now in the British Museum. Often reproduced as a popular art poster in recent decades, t…
52 Reflections on Faith - Growth and renewal: good soil
52 Reflections on Faith - Growth and renewal: good soil
by BRF - Stephen W. Need
Growth and renewal: Good soil: It’s amazing how things grow, isn’t it? The story is told of a young couple who bought a house with a large garden, including a lawn and an apple tree at the front. They decided they needed to ‘clear the garden’ and, in the process, chopped down the…
52 Reflections on Faith - Trinity Sunday: The circle of life
52 Reflections on Faith - Trinity Sunday: The circle of life
by BRF - Stephen W. Need
Trinity Sunday:The circle of life Probably the most popular icon of the Holy Trinity these days is the one by the Russian iconographer Andrei Rublev, which is displayed in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. Reproduced widely, it has become very well known in recent years outside th…
52 Reflections on Faith - Mary, mother of Jesus: pointing to God
52 Reflections on Faith - Mary, mother of Jesus: pointing to God
by BRF - Stephen W. Need
Mary, mother of Jesus: pointing to God Michelangelo’s Pietà is one of the most beautiful and famous pieces of art in the world. It stands just inside St Peter’s Basilica in Rome. In glorious white marble, sculpted in the 15th century when the artist was only 24, the statue depict…
52 Reflections on Faith - The body of Christ: respecting difference
52 Reflections on Faith - The body of Christ: respecting difference
by BRF - Stephen W. Need
The body of Christ: respecting difference On a recent visit to the concert hall at Snape Maltings in Suffolk, I became particularly aware of the need to respect differences. The concert hall at Snape is widely known as the music centre founded by the composer Benjamin Britten (19…
52 Reflections on Faith - Jesus and the Poor
52 Reflections on Faith - Jesus and the Poor
by BRF - Stephen W. Need
11 Jesus and the Poor It’s striking, isn’t it, that God often comes to us in times of deprivation and loss, at times when we’re most down and depressed, at our weakest and most vulnerable, and perhaps feeling least religious? It’s true, of course, that we feel God’s presence at t…
52 Reflections on Faith - Corpus Christi: Sanctifying Matter
52 Reflections on Faith - Corpus Christi: Sanctifying Matter
by BRF - Stephen W. Need
Corpus Christi: Sanctifying matter A lot of people are familiar with the name of the French Jesuit scientist-priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955), but few know in any detail what he had to say. Teilhard, as he is often known, was born in the Auvergne region of France and…
52 Reflections on Faith - John the Baptist: pointing to Jesus
52 Reflections on Faith - John the Baptist: pointing to Jesus
by BRF - Stephen W. Need
John the Baptist: pointing to Jesus The bones of John the Baptist have been discovered in Bulgaria, or so some newspapers have implied. A number of remains, including a knuckle bone, have been found in a sarcophagus in the grounds of a monastery on an island called Sveti Ivan, of…
52 Reflections on Faith - Jesus and Healing: The New Creation
52 Reflections on Faith - Jesus and Healing: The New Creation
by BRF - Stephen W. Need
10 Jesus and Healing I wonder if you’ve ever played any part in healing somebody. Have you ever had a role in helping somebody become whole? I don’t mean ‘Have you ever performed a miracle?’ as much as ‘Do you think in terms of healing and behave as if healing were possible?’ Do …
52 Reflections on Faith - Pentecost: a deep fire inside
52 Reflections on Faith - Pentecost: a deep fire inside
by BRF - Stephen W. Need
Pentecost: A deep fire inside One of the most moving songs in the popular musical Billy Elliot by Lee Hall and Elton John is ‘Electricity’, sung by Billy at his audition at the Royal Ballet School in London. Set during the 1984 miners’ strike in England, the musical is about a yo…
Mark The People's Bible Commentary - The Arrival of the King
Mark The People's Bible Commentary - The Arrival of the King
by BRF - Dick France
The ARRIVAL of the KING Passover time It is important to remember that in the week or two leading up to Passover large numbers of pilgrims would be arriving in Jerusalem, which at this time of the year had to accommodate something like six times its normal population. Jesus and h…
52 Reflections on Faith - Ascension day: Presence not absence
52 Reflections on Faith - Ascension day: Presence not absence
by BRF - Stephen W. Need
Ascension Day: Presence, not absence Ascension Day is one of the most important days in the Church’s calendar. It has been celebrated since the fourth century and has played a significant part in the life and culture of many Christian countries. It forms a fundamental part of the…
52 Reflections on Faith - Maundy Thursday: washing the feet
52 Reflections on Faith - Maundy Thursday: washing the feet
by BRF - Stephen W. Need
Maundy Thursday: washing the feet Maundy Thursday is the first of the three holy days leading up to Easter. Christians usually think of it as the day when the Eucharist was instituted. Jesus ate a meal with his disciples in Jerusalem the night before he died, thereby inaugurating…
52 Reflections on Faith - Seeing God: a way of life
52 Reflections on Faith - Seeing God: a way of life
by BRF - Stephen W. Need
Seeing God: a way of life Where do you ‘see God’? Where do you experience God? Where is God most real to you? There are probably particular times in your life when you sense God’s presence more than you normally do—special places where you feel close to God. You might have had a …
52 Reflections on Faith - The big picture: God and evil
52 Reflections on Faith - The big picture: God and evil
by BRF - Stephen W. Need
The big picture:God and evil I think most people know the expression ‘Keep your eye on the big picture’. Sometimes, when we’re getting bogged down in minutiae and arguing about detail, someone says, ‘OK, keep your eye on the big picture.’…
Mark The People's Bible Commentary - A Demonstration in the Temple