Thinking about God, Jesus and The Big Questions

As I was reading the Bible, I came across a verse referencing Jesus in the future. I was a little surprised because I had not noticed before how early on in the Bible Jesus is referenced. In my head, I thought it was one of the later prophets. But no, I was reading the foretelling of Jesus in the book of Genesis.  Even at the time, to the speaker, it wouldn't have been noticeable as to why those words were spoken, they wouldn't necessarily have seemed remarkable. It's only with hindsight that we can see this. Here is the Bible verse: “Judah, your brothers will praise you; your hand will be on the neck of your enemies; your father’s sons will bow down to you. You are a lion’s cub, Judah; you return from the prey, my son. Like a lion he crouches and lies down, like a lioness—who dares to rouse him? The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he to whom it belongs shall come and the obedience of the nations...

Thermodynamics can tell you whether (under a set of physical conditions of temperature and pressure) a chemical reaction will proceed in the forward direction. But it's important to know that thermodynamics will not tell you anything about how quickly or slowly a reaction will happen,  only whether or not it will happen.  In a different field, the study of chemical kinetics examines the speed of reactions, but makes no statement about whether it's possible thermodynamically or not. One example of a thermodynamically favorable reaction is the conversion of carbon in coal form to carbon in diamond form (again, under a specific set of temperatures and pressures). However, kinetically, it is a very slow reaction. It can take many, many years for this reaction to happen. Just because a reaction is thermodynamically favorable tells you nothing about how fast or slow it may be. The Bible, and God, can be thought of as more akin to thermodynamics than kinetics. By reading the Bible an...

The events of the last day of Earth are described in several books of the Bible. The most in-depth is the book of Revelation, where most of it is about end times. I don't know how I overlooked this before, but reading through the Bible I saw that the book of Joel, which is quite brief, also contains information about end times: I will show portents in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. Joel 2: 30-31 Therefore, on the last day when the Lord comes, it is clear that it will be an event similar to an astronomical phenomenon, affecting both outer space and Earth. It may resemble a meteor strike or may even involve a meteor strike. It will certainly have a massive magnitude. Let's see how this compares with what's written in the books of Mark and Revelation: But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened, and the moo...

I had never noticed this before, but on my yearly read through of the Bible, I noticed that the word "Understanding" comes up a lot in the book of Proverbs. This indicates that it is something important. Here are just a few examples: My child, if you accept my words  and treasure up my commandments within you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding; if you indeed cry out for insight, and raise your voice for understanding; if you seek it like silver, and search for it as for hidden treasures - then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom;  from his mouth come knowledge and understanding; Proverbs 2: 1-6 Happy are those who find wisdom, and those who get understanding, for her income is better than silver, and her revenue better than gold. Proverbs 3: 13-14 Wisdom is at home in the mind of one who has understanding, but it is not known in the heart of fools. Proverbs 14: 33 How...

I was considering what was the biggest problem that was getting in the way of people accepting being saved by Jesus. At first, I thought it was selfishness, but then realized that it couldn't be just that, because it's in our own self-interest to be saved!  Certainly there is an element of selfishly wanting to live life on our own terms which might not involve reading the Bible or praying. But still, there must be something other than selfishness - because even with selfishness alone, people would still realize that being saved is in their interests. Eventually, I realized the biggest problem getting in the way of being saved is actually hubris, which means pride. People who don't accept being saved by Jesus may have various reasons or motivations for that. Some might not believe Jesus existed and/or that He was not capable of saving people. Other people might believe they don't need to be saved because they think they're a "good person" - but the pitfall ...

The words of the prophet Malachi predicted the arrival of Jesus and John the Baptist. We can see this in the Bible verse below. See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight - indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. Malachi 3:1 The messenger mentioned in the verse is John the Baptist, while the Lord is Jesus Christ. Another Old Testament prophet, Zechariah, also predicted Jesus and his piercing, which in hindsight we know happened on the cross. And I will pour out a spirit of compassion and supplication on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that, when they look on the one whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn. Zechariah 12:10 At the time, without the benefit of hindsight, these words from both prophets must have seemed puzzling and c...

The expectations of society, of the local community, can be a very powerful force. People who do something different to the usual customs in the local area may experience prejudice, criticism and negativity from others around them.  In the case of a new Christian in areas where Christianity is not readily accepted, these new Christians are exposed to a very challenging set of circumstances. Some may have family members who no longer wish to have a relationship with them. Others may experience discrimination in the workplace, socially or in other parts of their lives. As extremely difficult as this is, it can be encouraging to remind ourselves that surely Noah (who was a Jew, the same as everyone else back then) had even more societal pressure. Why? He heard God's call for him to build an ark. His friends and neighbors must have thought he was crazy. And his ark was a very public thing. Even if he had desired to hide it from strangers and just let a few trusted people know about t...

The Bible is strongly supportive of charitable giving. The effective altruism movement, or EA, is focused on charitable giving. But that is where their similarities end. EA is not in line with how the Bible says we should donate our money or time.  I am not saying that EA is intrinsically unethical - I'm simply saying that its aims are in conflict with what the Bible says we should do. So it's therefore a very secular approach to giving - which may not be a problem for you if you're an unbeliever. But for believers, it simply doesn't line up with the Bible.  Here we will take a look at what the Bible says we should do with regards to donating time or money. Then we will look briefly at EA. Disclaimer : Although I have done some research on EA for the purposes of this blog post, I am by  no means an expert on it. It's entirely possible I have missed some of its nuances. Nonetheless, even with those caveats, I still don't see how EA is compatible with Christianit...

There is much written in the Bible about false prophets. These are people who claim to be prophets but they are not getting their information from God - instead they are spreading things that they made up. Today, we also have false prophets in Christianity. These people spread misinformation. Often this misinformation is poorly interpreted Bible readings, but sometimes it can spread outside the sphere of the spiritual and into political things.  This is why it's very important that each person, whether a Christian or questioning, should read the Bible for themselves and compare it to what is being said by someone else. As a concrete example, some false prophets will claim to be Christian but they say racist things. Racism is not compatible with Christianity (I have written more about that here ). It is made abundantly clear in the Bible that salvation is made available for all people who choose to take this free gift of Jesus's sacrifice - not just certain people or certain ra...

After Jesus died on the cross and before He rose again, what might it have felt like to the women such as Mary his mother, and his disciples? This year at Easter I pondered this question.  The women went to the tomb early in the morning with the intent of preparing the body for burial. As they went, was there any doubt creeping into their heads about Jesus? If I was one of them, I would have surely been tempted to wonder if He was really the son of God. If He was killed, what was the point of this?  Of course, his mother Mary had the advantage of knowing the entire time that Jesus truly was the son of God - an angel had come to her to tell her when she was pregnant. An angel had visited her husband Joseph too, to give him the same information. But even knowing that Jesus was the son of God, did Mary wonder at any point whether God's plan had gone awry somewhere at the end? Or was she confident about the way things happened? And how about the disciples? The disciples had seen m...

There are many examples in the Bible of God punishing people when they did not listen to Him. So it can be easy to fall into the trap of thinking God is always looking for reasons to punish us.  The more I have been reading the Bible and praying, the more I see that in fact, it's exactly the other way around - God by default wants to bless us. We are His children. He wants us to have good things for us spiritually. Again, this is different to giving us the equivalent of a bunch of candy, which I have written about before .  Even in the book of Job, where Job suffered an incredible series of calamities, none of these came from God. They all came from Satan. This is not to say that God didn't punish people - there are plenty of examples of that in the Bible too. The message I'm trying to get across here is that God by default wants to bless us. Again, blessings are things which are good for us. Often these may take the form of spiritual gifts, such as wisdom, but can take the...

We are well equipped for detecting things in our 3 dimensions of space and 1 of time, but poorly equipped for detecting things in the spiritual dimension, even though the spiritual dimension is more real and solid than the physical one .  In other words, our God detection sensors are bad. In the book of Hebrews, the meaning of faith is clearly described for us: Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible. Hebrews 11: 1-3 In particular, the last part of it is what we need to remember: what is seen was made from things that are not visible. This means that what we so easily detect with our eyes (the physical dimension) is made from things which are not visible (the spiritual dimension). The spiritual dimension clearly exists, and came first before the physical di...

As the son of God, there were many things Jesus could have been doing at any one time. Yet he kept His focus on the ministry He was there to do. The temptation to get sidetracked would have been incredible, since He was around other people all the time who asked Him to do things.  He did always find time to help people on the way to what He was doing. But he never lost his focus of the main thing. Here is an example in the book of Mark: In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. And Simon and his companions hunted for him. When they found him, they said to him, “Everyone is searching for you.” He answered, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also, for that is what I came out to do.” And he went throughout all Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons. Mark 1: 35-39 As you can see, His priority was to first pray, in solitude. He needed th...

Each year, I read the Bible all the way through. Each year, I always find it almost surprising how much of the Bible is the Old Testament. In fact, the New Testament is only about a quarter of the Bible.  This means if we want to learn as much as we can about Jesus, it will still be a fraction of what is written in the Bible. But it makes sense, if we think about it. There are many signposts in the Old Testament pointing to Jesus. We can't just ignore the signposts and focus purely on Jesus, even if we kind of want to. The signpost are part of the journey. We can't just say "let's skip ahead to the good stuff" - because all of it hangs together. It's a history - that points to Jesus. Indeed, right now, we are living a part of time where the Bible has shown that in the future are signposts to the end of the days. It is fairly specific about some of these. For example, take a look at these 2 very specific events which are in our future . Just as the Old Testamen...

I was reading the passage of Mary and Martha again. While I have talked before about it , an additional angle on it was revealed during the most recent reading. This is the Bible passage where Jesus visits Mary and Martha: Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.’ But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.’ Luke 10: 38-42 It is clear from the message that if we have a choice between ministering to Jesus or hearing what he has to say, we should pick hearing what he has to say (which I covered in...

It's easy to get caught up in the busy day to day things that we need to do and forget what is literally the most valuable thing in the universe. It's the Kingdom of Heaven. Its value is spelled out clearly in the Bible, and we will take a look at this passage below.  The Kingdom of Heaven not just a nice-to-have; it's a must-have. It's to the point that we should be willing to trade anything else for it. As a reminder, if God exists and is the ruler of the Universe, and if He guided the writing of the Bible, then the writings of the Bible should be more significant than any other writing in this world. Let's take a look at what Jesus himself told people about the value of Heaven: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. ‘Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls;  on finding one pearl of great value, he went and so...

It is clear from the Bible that Jesus came to save all people. In Revelation it says there will be people from all nations, tongues and tribes in heaven.  Far right ideology is not compatible with the Bible and with Christianity. Here I'm talking about the far right ideology of white supremacy where its adherents believe that white people are superior to other races. This belief is clearly shown to be wrong in the Bible. After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. Revelation 7:9 We can see from the verse above that people from all nations, tribes and languages will know God.  Furthermore, if there was to be one race that is deemed special in God's eyes, it would be the Jewish people. They are God's chosen people. Jesus still came for all people - first for the Jews, then for the ...

In Isaiah 19, there is a reference to the "language of Canaan" being spoken in Egypt in the future. From what Bible scholars say, the language of Canaan is a type of Hebrew language (see reference 1). It's the language that the Hebrews spoke in the land of Canaan. Let's take a look at what is actually said in Isaiah. In it, there is a clear prophecy of a time in the future where the Nile is dried up: The waters of the Nile will be dried up, and the river will be parched and dry; its canals will become foul, and the branches of Egypt’s Nile will diminish and dry up; reeds and rushes will rot away. There will be bare places by the Nile, on the brink of the Nile; and all that is sown by the Nile will dry up, be driven away, and be no more. Those who fish will mourn; all who cast hooks in the Nile will lament, and those who spread nets on the water will languish. The workers in flax will be in despair, and the carders and those at the loom ...

The Bible makes many consistent prophecies about the end of the world. It will not end peacefully with a reverse Adam and Eve, no matter how much I want it to.  By "reverse Adam and Eve", I mean a gradual decline in population until only 1 man and 1 woman are left, both of which do not procreate. I used to wish for this type of ending of the human race because it seemed peaceful. But this wouldn't even be a peaceful ending anyway, because a constant long-term aging population results in all kinds of demographic problems - they're just different problems than a young population would have. So, no matter how good it sounds to have the human race dwindle away until no-one is left, it a) is clear from the Bible this isn't the way the human race ends on Earth, and b) it wouldn't really be a peaceful way for the human race to go anyway because there would be a lot of social problems with such a top-heavy demographic composition. How does the human race on Earth end ...

Most of the book of Proverbs was thought to be written by King Solomon, who was the wisest man who ever was or will be. The rest of its authorship is thought to be from other Jewish people as the accumulated wisdom of the people.  This book is very valuable. Not only does it contain wisdom that is available to all of us today, but also, the more I read it the more I see it as perhaps the most subversive book of the Bible, which I have written about here .  Many people don't always avail themselves of this source of wisdom, even in instances when they are seeking wisdom from other sources (e.g. self-help books, financial savviness books, etc).  The book of Proverbs does not need to be the only book we read to gain wisdom, but it should certainly be one of them! For where else can we get the words of the wisest man who ever lived, in addition to the accumulated wisdom of others? There are several things which are repeated multiple times in Proverbs. Since they are repeate...