The greatest extraterrestrial message
Astronomers have been searching for messages from extra-terrestrial (ET) beings for many years without success. And E. T. was a popular science fiction movie released in 1982. Meanwhile, two special messages from the greatest ET have been available for thousands of years. (more…)
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Love your neighbor as yourself
As a mental health counsellor I have the privilege of joining with people in their deepest struggles. I hear harrowing stories of neglect, abuse, self-loathing, loneliness. At the heart of these varying stories there is a common tragedy: the profoundly painful experience of not being loved. (more…)
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How were the books of the Bible decided?
How do we know that we have the right books in the Bible – the Old and New Testaments?
Most people believe that the early Catholic Church decided which books were authentic. This is not true; it is a myth. The Church did not authorize Scripture, it just accepted it. It merely recognized and accepted the books God Himself had inspired and authorized. (more…)
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The best terms and conditions you have ever read
Terms and conditions (T&Cs) are inescapable these days. When you sign up for insurance, join a sports group, attend an event, make a purchase, visit a website….almost everything we do comes with a little asterisk indicating pages and pages of fine print.
There are so many T&Cs in our life it would take hours out of our week to read them all before ticking every little box of agreement (the average time it takes to read one T&C is half an hour). So we don’t. A Deloitte survey found that over 90% of consumers do not read the online legal terms they agree to. (more…)
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Give all your anxiety to God
Anxiety. Worry. Concern that something will go wrong. Heart palpitations. Feeling hot. A pit in the stomach. Restlessness. Racing thoughts. Sweaty palms. What does anxiety feel like for you? And what do you do with that experience?
All of us feel anxious at times. When we are not sure we’re safe. When something we want or care about may be in jeopardy. It can help us protect what’s important to us. But there are ways we can respond to anxiety that make it feel worse. We can sometimes get anxious about feeling anxious. We can interpret our worry as something being wrong with us. We may have even heard a “christian” message that anxiety means a lack of faith. (more…)
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How to develop resilience
Last Friday was Bastille Day – the National Day of France. It was also the day when the Tour de France climbed Grand Colombier in the Jura Mountains. This is a brutal climb of over 1,240 m in elevation over 17.4 km at a gradient of 7.1%. The final 3.4 km rises at 9.2%. When we visited there last year, they were filming a promotional video for the Tour. (more…)
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Applied mathematics
One of the courses that I took at the University of Sydney many years ago was applied mathematics. Applied mathematics is used extensively in science, engineering, technology, business and artificial intelligence (AI). And phone apps frequently utilize applied mathematics to solve real-world problems and deliver practical solutions. (more…)
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Patterns of Jesus Christ hidden in the Old Testament
Does history repeat itself? World War 2 was about 30 years after World War 1. The COVID-19 pandemic was about 100 years after the Spanish flu. And workers lost jobs in the industrial revolution, and the invention of cars, computers and probably will do so with the invention of AI (Artificial Intelligence).
There are many prophecies about Jesus in the Old Testament. They can be clear and direct or hidden and indirect. Today we are looking at the latter – patterns of people, objects and events in the Bible that relate to Jesus Christ. (more…)
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Opportunities and dangers in sport
Many people enjoy playing and watching sport. But how should a Christian be involved with sporting activities?
This post is based on a book by Stephen Liggins, “The good sporting life – Loving and playing sport as a follower of Jesus”. (more…)
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God’s love letter to you
We can not live well without love. It is a universal truth as much as it is a cliche. Love lost, love unrequited, love received – these are the real events that make our lives and mark our memories. Without true love in our lives, whether it be a parent, a child, a lover, a friend, or a pet, we limp along surviving but never thriving. And it is not a coincidence that as the oft- quoted Bible verse declares, “God is love” (1 John 4:16). God is love, and He has created us to exist, to thrive, in His love. (more…)
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Lessons from the book of Genesis
What is the purpose of the book of Genesis in the Bible? Why was it written? And why was it included in the Bible? What are the main lessons in it, both for the original readers and for us today?
When was it written? The book of Genesis was compiled and edited by Moses (Lk. 24:27; Acts 15:1) between 1446 B.C. (the date of the Exodus) and 1406 B.C. (the death of Moses). A likely possibility is during the year that Israel spent encamped in the wilderness at Sinai when Moses probably composed most, if not all, of the Books of Exodus and Leviticus. Such an assumption would place the date of composition of Genesis between 1446 and 1445 B.C. (more…)
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A brief summary of the 66 books of the Bible
This paragraph summary of each book of the Bible is from Got Questions. (more…)
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A simple summary of the Bible
This post is a summary by MissionAssist of the main message of each book in the Bible. It uses EasyEnglish which is clear and simple English. It is suitable for those whose first language is not English. (more…)
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Why is there a dragon in the nativity?
Nativity scenes usually included animals like sheep and cattle. But what about a red dragon! That would look out of place. But when John described the nativity in the book of Revelation, he included an enormous red dragon.
The structure of the book of Revelation is given in the verse, “Write, therefore, what you have seen, what is now and what will take place later” (Rev. 1:19NIV). John had seen a vision of the glory of the Lord Jesus (Ch 1). Then he wrote messages to seven churches in Asia Minor (Ch 2-3). Finally he records future events (Ch 4-22). The future events are the rapture of believers to heaven (between Ch 3 and Ch 4), the tribulation (Ch 6-18, where the church is not mentioned), the second coming of Christ to earth (Ch 19:11-21), the millennium (Ch 20), and the new heaven and earth (21:1 – 22:5). (more…)
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Todays’ weather brought to you by God
Tsunamis, floods, and bush fires are no joke. In 2021 it was estimated by Deloitte that natural disasters cost Australia over $38 billion a year and this will nearly double by 2060. The real cost, however, is more than a financial one, many people and animals lose their homes and even their lives when a major disaster strikes.
So what should we think about the weather? Is God really in control? Most of us are comfortable asking God for good weather for our next sports game or outdoor event – we may even thank God for a perfect sunny day. But when it comes to bad weather, who’s to blame – infamous weather systems like El nina or God? And who can we go to about these disasters? (more…)
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The Biblical solution for racism
Racism is discrimination or prejudice against a people group. “People group” includes grouping according to skin color, nationality, citizenship and ethnic or national origins.
Racism has justified slavery, colonialism, apartheid, forced sterilisations and annihilations of peoples. It has been the basis of the Nazi ideologies and of the programmes to exterminate Jews and other “inferior peoples”. According to Wikipedia, “Racism has played a role in genocides such as the Holocaust, the Armenian genocide, the Rwandan genocide, and the Genocide of Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia, as well as colonial projects including the European colonization of the Americas, Africa, Asia, and the population transfer in the Soviet Union including deportations of indigenous minorities.” (more…)
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Sin bin Sunday
Yesterday was called “Sin bin Sunday” by the Sydney news media. Seven players were sent to the sin bin (Appendix) in a game for the first time in Australian Rugby League history. (more…)
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Lord’s Supper rebuke
Pain is part of our body’s warning system. If you touch something hot, it hurts so you automatically pull away before it does much damage. And chest pain (angina) is the most common warning sign of a heart attack. Pain is an alarm and warning signal to the body. It indicates that something needs our attention.
In 1 Corinthians 11 there is a description of the Lord’s Supper (v.23-26), followed by a rebuke (v.27-32). (more…)
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What the Bible says about nature
Nature is made up of atoms and molecules that we can see, hear, touch, taste, and smell. It is essential for living, providing such things as air to breathe, water to drink, food to eat, and materials to use from farms, mines, forests and factories.
Nature is a part of creation. The definition of some terms used in this article is given in Appendix A. (more…)
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Repentance – turning around to follow the true God
In 2013 a friend and I walked through Glenbrook Gorge in the Blue Mountains to Lapstone Rail Station. I had a map to follow. Outside the gorge we reached a junction, but I didn’t know where we were on the map. So I didn’t know whether the station was towards the left or the right. We walked right towards the north for about 15 minutes and then repented (turned around) because we realised that the station was probably towards the south! We had to turn around 180 degrees to reach our destination. As we wasted at least half an hour because of this mistake, I decided to get a mobile [cell] phone so I could use a GPS like Google maps to show where I was on the map. (more…)
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Strangest thing – Jesus will return
The day of reckoning – it’s an exciting moment in the movie or TV show we’re watching. Finally the wrongdoers get exposed, the evil monster is overpowered and defeated, justice is served. It appears to be a universal longing played out in film and television across cultures and time. We also hope for a judgement day in the real world as we watch televised court cases about abusers, big corporations causing harm in the interest of making money, corrupt politicians using their power for personal gain and the actions of despotic dictators. But when it comes to a universal, ultimate day of reckoning we’re not so keen. The Christian doctrine of a final judgement day is often seen as archaic, incompatible with a loving God or just plain laughable. (more…)
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Nature Psalms
Nature includes the air we breathe, the water we drink, the places and wildlife we love. Nature can inspire Christians to praise and worship God. But nature can turn unbelievers from God – there is no mention of God on Earth Day. And unbelievers can see nature as a god that they can become obsessed with.
The psalms were songs used by the Hebrews to praise God. Nature psalms praise the Lord as the creator and sustainer of the physical universe (Estes, 2005). God is separate from nature because He created it. This made Jewish beliefs different to the common beliefs of ancient times that various objects in nature are divine. Just think about the gods of Egypt, Canaan, Greece and Rome. The theological description is that God is “transcendent”, which means He is independent of the creation. But the creation (nature) is also sustained by His mighty power; He sustains “all things by His powerful word” (Heb. 1:3NIV). And the creation (nature) declares (shows) God’s greatness (Ps. 19:1). (more…)
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Two scientists who left atheism for Christianity
This post is based on two articles by Dr Jay Wile.
Professor Rosalind Picard
Rosalind Picard (1962 – ) is a Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) who invented a new branch of computer science called affective computing. Picard was raised an atheist, but converted to Christianity as a young adult. When she was a school student she believed that smart children didn’t need religion. So she promoted atheism and dismissed people who believed in God as uneducated. (more…)
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Strangest thing – Jesus rose from the dead
The existence of another dimension. A character with the ability to influence and change the physical world without physical force. A powerful evil monster out to kill. These are the elements of a science fiction narrative. But what if there is truth in them?
The message of the Bible is pretty strange. It talks of a spiritual dimension – angels and demons and an all powerful, all knowing God in control of it all. This spiritual dimension is generally unseen by us ordinary humans with our physical eyes. But the Bible records a special time in history when the supernatural burst into the world in the very natural form of a new born baby. Jesus’ birth, life and even His miracles are recorded in numerous ancient historical accounts. Turning water into wine. Healing a paralysed person with only His words. Bringing a man who has been dead for four days back to life. This is not the kind of thing we see outside of science fiction and fantasy. (more…)
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