RSS FeedALL SAINTS DAY
Jonathan Swift in Gulliver’s Travels invented the immortal Stuldbrugs of the flying island of Laputa. Gulliver supposed they would be wise, serene and knowledgeable because of their great age, and instead found them the most miserable of creatures, excruciatingly...
THE MOST MAGNIFICENT NOVEL EVER WRITTEN
I have recently reread Fyodor Dostoevsky’s (1821-1881) masterpiece and longest novel The Brothers Karamazov, translated from the Russian by Michael R. Katz (2023). Sigmund Freud called it “the most magnificent novel ever written”. This is the third time I have read...
REVELATION 14 & 15
REVELATION 14:1-5 John now offers a sevenfold description of the 144,000. “They did not defile themselves with women” (v.4) does not mean that the redeemed are men only. It needs to be read here in three contexts: 1. The use of sexual imagery as a metaphor for worship...
YOUR MIND MATTERS
Two books I have read recently have helped me to discipline my mind so that it does not afflict me with negative and unwanted thinking. It is so easy to lay awake at night or to wake up in the morning and find your thoughts swimming in your head into uncharted waters....
REVELATION 12 & 13
We now come to what commentators universally agree is the central and pivotal chapter in the book. The shape of the chapter and of the one that follows is also distinctive. Together, Revelation 12 and 13 form the longest continuous narrative within the whole book....
REVELATION 10 & 11
REVELATION 10 Three of the most important theological questions to ask are: ‘What time is it?’, ‘Where are we?’ and ‘Who am I?’ In this interlude, through complex allusions to a wide range of Old Testament texts, this part of John’s vision report addresses these...
REVELATION 8 & 9
REVELATION 8 John’s readers live in a violent, chaotic and frightening world, one in which the sometimes terrifying events that they saw around them were often interpreted as portents of doom and disaster. John’s accounts of the first four trumpets effects a...
REVELATION 6 & 7
REVELATION 6 These vivid images of chaos and destruction have gripped the imaginations of readers down all the generations, and have continued to shape contemporary culture. This is in part due to the nature of the language John uses, with its direct and powerful...
A GREAT SPIRITUAL CLASSIC FOR SELF-EXAMINATION
I want to recommend THIRTY STEPS TO HEAVEN, The Ladder of Divine Ascent for All Walks of Life, by Vassilios Papavassiliou. He takes the great spiritual classic, The Ladder of Divine Ascent by John Climacus and adapts it for the modern world and the contemporary...
REVELATION 4 & 5
REVELATION 4 John here offers a dazzling vision of God which pushes the boundaries of human imagination in its metaphorical description. John’s own language reflects this; in contrast with what has gone before, he now repeatedly reaches for ‘as’ and ‘ was like’ and...
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