Word on Wednesday with John Mason

The Apostle Paul encourages the Ephesian Christians not only to be individually growing in Christ but also to be growing in unity; and he explains how God has made this possible through the different gifts he has given each one of them. In fact, they are God's gifts to each other.

Sixty years ago the writer, M.E. Macdonald wrote: The real menace to life in the world today is not the hydrogen bomb… but the fact of proximity without community (M.E. Macdonald, The Need To Believe, 1959, p.82). And nothing has changed. We see it exemplified on the New York subway where everyone avoids one another’s gaze by focusing on their phone or reading a book. Yet the barriers fall away wh...

Paul's encouragement to the Christian congregation in Ephesus to be reflecting the unity that we have in Christ - to have an active love for one another, being patient, humble and gentle in our relationships. Tertullian in the 2nd century AD '... Look how they love one another ...'

How can we weather the challenges of our changing and uncertain world? Come with me to Ephesians chapter 3, verses 14 through 21 where we find one of the great prayers of the Bible. The curtain over Paul the Apostle is drawn aside and we are given a glimpse of him at prayer. I kneel before the Father, he begins, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name . Genesis chapter 1 tells...

Paul prays that the Ephesian believers will be changed from the inside out. And that they will see God's big picture which transcends earthly concerns.

The Fourth of July celebrations yesterday bring to mind the words of the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal” . Interestingly, Yuval Noah Harari, an Israeli historian and philosopher, observes in Sapiens: A brief History of Humankind (2015: p.109), that the equality of humanity is not self-evident: ‘The Americans got the idea of equ...

We are all created equal in God's eyes and through His Son He has made it possible for every person to know the riches of God's grace and benefit from all of God's blessings and promises.

Alienation is a word often used to describe our human plight. Everywhere relationships are broken – between or within nations, in the workplace, between friends and within families. The phrase ‘the power of love’ or ‘love is everything’ is said to be the cure-all for brokenness and division. But what do these expressions really mean? What does real love look like? Throughout the Bible, especially...

God, through the sacrifice of Jesus, the Messiah, His Son, reconciles Jewish and Gentile believers with each other and with Himself.

In an article, ‘Our politicians and media are letting us down’ in The Weekend Australian (June 17-18), Chris Kenny observes: ‘When we see the open deceit and toxicity of politics and the media in the Canberra bubble (Canberra is Australia’s DC), it is tempting to despair … We see persistent tension between truth and lies. We are informed about political systems we do not trust by media we do not b...

Paul eloquently describes the rich mercy of God, who brings us to repentance and into his kingdom, even though we've been living as though we're our own God.

AA Milne’s, Christopher Robin’s prayer, ‘Little Boy kneels at the foot of his bed…’ has touched the hearts of millions. The poem is a picture of childhood innocence, a mixture of God language and the distractions of inner thoughts: ‘Wasn’t it fun in the bath tonight?’ and, ‘If I open my fingers a little bit more, I can see Nanny’s dressing-gown on the door’. For adults it raises questions about pr...

Paul's prayer for the Ephesian believers shows us how to pray for one another and our families and friends. He also focuses on God's supremacy over all rulers in heaven and earth.

Paul's prayer for the Ephesian believers is an example of how we can pray, as he focuses on God's supremacy over all rulers for all time and into eternity.

With the anticipated arrival of summer in the northern hemisphere, the Word on Wednesday will offer a series of reflections on the Letter to the Ephesians entitled, ‘Summer Growth’. The substance of the Letter goes to the heart of quintessential Christianity and plumbs the depths of biblical truth, providing riches that shape the mind and warm the heart. The Letter was written to be read in church...

God's grace has been lavished on us. What does this look like?

‘Do you want to live forever?’ was the catchy question leading into an article, ‘From Here to Eternity’ in The Weekend Australian magazine, (May 27-28, 2023). ‘Coming back from the dead, then living as an immortal?’ the article begins. ‘It sounds like science fiction,’ the article continues, ‘but the pioneers behind this wild venture are true believers’. The article takes up personal stories of a...

Do Cryonics really offer us eternal life/ And if so, what kind of life would it be. Is there a better option?

Over the last twenty years or so God’s people have been increasingly put on the defensive about their faith. In a climate where people of faith are dismissed as intellectually inept and even as ‘terrorists’, many are fearful of speaking up about what they believe. Come with me to a significant scene that occurred on the day of Jesus’ resurrection. It’s recorded in John chapter 20, verses 19 throug...

On the day of his resurrection, Jesus appears to his disciples and breathes out the Holy Spirit, assuring them that they will not be alone.

Why don’t we pray more often than we do? And how often when we do pray, do we look to the model prayers we find in the Bible – and not least from the lips of Jesus? Dr. JI Packer once commented, ‘I believe that prayer is the measure of God’s people, spiritually, in a way that nothing else is, so that how we pray is as important a question as we can ever face’. Come with me to the prayer that Jesus...

The challenge to ask ourselves if we pray as Jesus did, that God will be glorified through our own lives as his children.

The loss of someone deeply loved awakens a profound anguish and grief within us. Even some time after a loved one has gone from us, we can unexpectedly find ourselves tearing up. In the course of his last evening with his close followers Jesus told them he was going away and that they could not come with him (John 14:3). He knew what his going would mean for them and likened their state to orphane...

Jesus promises his disciples that although he is leaving them, they will not be bereft. He will send the Holy Spirit to be their Comforter and Guide.

Glen Scrivener’s recent book, The Air We Breathe (2022) compellingly explores the way that Christianity has shaped the moral values of the West. It is a book for those who believe and those who don’t know what to believe. It especially awakens those of us who believe, to why we need God’s strength to honor him in our lives as well as promote him afresh. Yet how often are we silenced through our fe...