[This is a transcript of a sermon on Revelation 19:11-16 preached by Rod Benson at Lithgow, Australia, in May 2018] How will the world end? Will it be by means of a global zombie plague, a catastrophic asteroid collision, nuclear war with China, or the effects of climate change? Fortunately, the last book in the …
Light of the world
Have you ever been in a light-filled space, and suddenly you’re plunged into darkness? Or you’ve been out driving in a thunderstorm when the traffic signals fail? It can be frustrating; it can be frightening; it can quickly lead to chaos. Without light, Gerard Manley Hopkins would never have uttered those immortal words, “Glory be to …
Salt of the earth
When I think of salt, my mind goes to its use in seasoning foods. What would we do without salt in our cooking? Yesterday, I opened my kitchen cupboard and found cooking salt, as you might expect. But I also found rough crystals of rock salt intended for the salt cellar, flakes of Maldon salt, …
How they persecuted the prophets
Persecution for political or religious beliefs is never pleasant. I am grateful that we live in a time and place where human rights are respected and defended, and where persecution is unacceptable in law, and eschewed by the vast majority of our fellow Australians. Sadly, that is not the case generally in our world today. …
The test of true discipleship
Romanian Mircea Eliade (1907-1986) was a great twentieth-century scholar of religious history and religious experience. He is perhaps best known for his work on seeking to identify universal patterns in human history and experience, and for his theory of hierophanies, or “manifestations of the sacred.” For Eliade, persons and objects “acquire their reality, their identity, only …
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