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Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?

Today we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ! What a wonderful day to remember and praise, but not just because Jesus was raised to new life, but because in that moment it sealed the promise of our own hope in God. Through Jesus' death and resurrection, we can now be partakers in that new, eternal life! 1 Corinthians 15:54-55 When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” "Where, O death, is your sting?" Paul write...

He is risen!

  Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who are being protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. — 1 Peter 1:3-5...

Lent, Lament and Lockdown

Lent is a time of self denial and of giving things up, and also a period of lament in the lead up to Easter where we remember the Passion and death of Christ before we celebrated the glorious resurrection.  Often this is a personal affair on the discipline side of things, even if it's a practice shared within your church community, but this year has been so very different. With the outbreak of the coronavirus, or COVID-19, the whole world has slowly gone into lockdown country by country, creating a strange sort of global “Lent” where everyone is having to practice self control and self denial. This has been underpinned with a sense of lament at the way thi...

Debunking the Myth: The Council of Nicaea and the Formation of the Biblical Canon

A myth that never seems to fade away: the idea that the Council of Nicaea, convened in 325 AD under the authority of Roman Emperor Constantine, played a pivotal role in establishing the Biblical canon. This notion suggests a conspiracy and power play orchestrated by a select group of elite bishops; a narrative popularised by works like Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code. However, a closer examination reveals a lack of historical basis for this claim. The Council of Nicaea and the Canon Contrary to popular belief, there is no evidence that the Council of Nicaea discussed or established the Canon of Scripture, leading to the creation of the Bible. Early Christian cano...

Understanding The New Testament: Inspiration, Canonisation, And Historical Context

A common modern perception of the inspiration of Scripture often portrays it as a rigid, divine dictation of words from God to be written down verbatim. This perspective leads to concerns among some religious communities, such as Muslims, who view any alteration or addition to the text as a potential threat to the entire faith. The Islamic understanding of inspiration emphasises direct and unalterable divine dictation, contributing to their scepticism of multiple Bible translations, which they falsely label as “corruption”. In contrast, the Biblical inspiration of the Scriptures has never been viewed as a literal divine dictation, as if the apostles were un...

Understanding the Ultimate Ransom

I recently made a video doing a response to something the televangelist “prosperity gospel” preacher Jesse Duplantis said in one of his recent videos. He was using Psalm 49:16 as a proof-text to say it’s ok that he is super wealthy, but clearly missing the context of the whole Psalm as it is speaking against those who boast and trust in their riches! Here’s the video if you want to watch it, it’s only 1:57 long (don’t forget to subscribe to me on YouTube or TikTok as that’s where I’m posting a lot more of my content recently):   But this did get me thinking about something to do with what Jesus said in his ministry and how his sacrifice ful...