Wrestling with Scripture

Recently I encountered a Christian from a breakaway group who kept telling my friends that they need to be saved and all they needed to do was to proclaim Jesus as their Lord and savior. I couldn't help but think, "Is that really all one needs to do? I could clearly remember a scripture passage from Matthew 7:21 "Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven." However, most Christians still hold on to the notion that you can be saved by faith alone.  So who can enter the kingdom of heaven?  Luckily for us Jesus already answered this question in Matthew 19:16-22 when the rich man asked him what good deed he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus tells him that if he wants to enter heaven he must keep the commandments and he goes on to narrate all the commandments relating to ones neighbor. From this it is clear that good works are essential. The rich man, knew it and he kep...

  One of the objections other denominations of Christians have with Catholics is the use of the term 'father' for priests. You will find them quoting Matthew 23:9 "Call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven". For them, calling the Pope 'Holy father' is almost blasphemous.  If you take what Jesus said literally, we wouldn't be able to address even our biological father as 'father'. Forbidding it would rob the essence of God's role as Father as we would have no earthly way of understanding it. Again it cannot prevent us from calling our ancestors as fathers or addressing someone out of respect, as the Bible refers to "our father Abraham" (Acts 7:2) "our father Isacc" (Romans 9:10). Should we forget Elisha crying out " My father, my father!" to Elijah as he was taken up to heaven in 2Kings 2:12. Then again we have Job calling himself "father to the poor" (Job 29:16) ...

Our cribs during Christmas, paint a pretty picture of Jesus, Mary and Joseph smiling with joy, but we often forget the struggles they went through up to that point. Do we forget that while at one side we have shepherds, wise men, angels and parents who joyfully welcomed the child Jesus, not far away we have King Herod who wanted him dead and orders the killing of thousands of innocent children when he hears of the birth of the Messiah because he fears his own power and reputation. The situation in our world today is no different, we have those who welcome children but at the same time there are those who may view children as a burden or a disruption to their lives. For Herod, even the thought of this child gave him sleepless nights. His whole reign was filled with insecurity as he knew the people would never accept him as their rightful king, because he wasn't from the line of David. He feared the child who was called 'The King of the Jews' because this child was pro...

After the creation of the world, the second most important gift God gave humankind was marriage. It was the one covenant that stood the test of time through the Bible and Jesus uplifted it even higher making it a sacrament. While the world is busy diluting the value of marriage, its worth understanding what the Bible has to say about it. Love God first and he will teach you to love your spouse better... If you think you need someone to complete you and take away your feeling of being unloved, marriage isn't your answer. Human love is imperfect and if you place such high expectations on the shoulders of your partner, you are eventually going to be disappointed. It is God's love that heals wounds of the past and gives a sense of completion. We look at Adam in the garden, surrounded by the beauty of creation, he felt the love of God and was complete in himself, yet God sees that he needed a 'helper', an Old Testament term used to describe one who gives support or...

As I write this article, I am only a day away from undergoing an operation to remove my gallbladder. It is an operation I postponed for almost 12 years because I was too afraid. It wasn't serious until around 4 years back when I started getting severe pains and was advised surgery but I wasn't ready for it. Besides that I had to attend the very first session of the Ministry of the Word on the same day on which the operation was planned, so I decided to go for the sessions instead and to my surprise the pains went away and thankfully I never experienced them again. However, the stone didn't go anywhere and I tried homeopathy, for along time after but to no avail. I think I would try anything rather than go for an operation because, hospitals scared me so much. The bad experiences I had before, of being critical in hospital and of losing my mom due to mistakes the doctors made, had somehow affected me so badly that I was putting myself in much more danger delaying the ...

Most people often accuse Catholics of idolatry by quoting Exodus 20:4 "You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth." This verse is in the context of the first commandment 'I am the Lord your God, you shall have no other gods before me. Since the Israelites never seen God, they resorted to making images of created things and worshiped it as god which was prohibited then and still holds true for us today. However, does it mean that God prohibited the making of all statues? God himself ordered the making of statues Just 5 chapters after the prohibition on making idols, God orders the making of enormous gold cherubim on the mercy seat of the Ark of the covenant in Exodus 25. The Ark of the covenant was revered by the whole of Israel and was considered most sacred. Hence it is clear that, God did not have an issue with all statues, but only ...

We have all heard about the 'agony in the garden' but have you been there? As I meditated on Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, I received strength in my weakest moment and that is something I would like to share with you. Since I was struggling in my own life, I could imagine how heavy Jesus' heart was that night. How could he find the strength to take upon himself, sin, he who never knew sin? It would be like having to suffer, for someone else's mistakes, or being blamed for something you never did. So often we feel our suffering is undeserved just like Jesus, yet he took it upon himself so that the undeserving didn't have to suffer. It reminded me of the time when I was very ill in hospital and I heard my mom praying that she suffer and die, instead of me. That must have been how Jesus felt, when he seen how much we would have to suffer as a result of sin. The worst part about suffering is the temptations and discouragements. This hour was probably the w...

Sooner or later, in your spiritual life, you end up battling with God as I often have when faced with an illness that has no cure or a problem that seems to have no solution. It's in moments when you desperately need God that he seems to be silent and the longing for him to act gets unbearable. Where is he at such times? Does he not hear your prayers? Does he not see your tears? At such times we can easily relate to the disciples in the boat amidst a raging storm who go and find Jesus sleeping in the stern. They seem terribly upset to find him so unaffected by the chaos around and they wake him up, just as we often shout out to God for help when he doesn't seem to respond to our problems. The disciples address Jesus saying, "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?" To answer their doubts, Jesus calms the storm in an instant saying "Peace! Be still!" How can Jesus give peace when there is chaos around? The key is in the next two words, "Be...

I have been going to church ever since I was a kid and it became more of a habit as I didn't really understand what was happening during the mass. I would stand when the congregation stood, sit when they sat, I wouldn't utter a single prayer, grumble when the sermon was too long and wait for the mass to end. However, it all changed after I read Isaiah 6 which describes the 'call of Isaiah'. When I first read the passage, it didn't really affect me, but standing there during mass, the verses just shot out at me. I began to realize that what Isaiah described in the Old Testament foreshadowed the Eucharist that we celebrate today. Going to church had a whole new meaning for me ever since... What should we look forward to at mass? Isaiah went to the Temple of Jerusalem in 742 BC where he saw a vision of God on a high throne and he felt the glory of God fill the temple. There he saw the Seraphim, meaning 'fiery beings' attending to the one on the throne...

I have heard more and more people argue that there in no such thing as good and evil, right and wrong, they claim that each person can decide for themselves what is right or wrong. What I find even more alarming, is that nowdays, the line between good and evil is so blurred that we call good, evil and evil, good, the exact same thing that the Bible warns us not to do. If we gave each individual the freedom to decide for themselves what was right, even Hitler would be justified because he thought he was doing the right thing. Yet again even an alcoholic considers alcohol to be good but it might be self destructive or even worse destructive to their family and society around. We clearly need a moral law that is not man made, in order to survive in harmony and that means we need a moral law giver and that can only be the one true God. The dangers of wanting to decide for ourselves what is good and evil, goes right back to the beginning of time. God told Adam and Eve to stay away ...

Doubt is not the same as unbelief, doubt is questioning what you already believe in whereas unbelief is the refusal to believe. Unfortunately, when people have a doubt they feel like everything they believe in has come crashing down. It is human nature to doubt and often doubts are an opportunity to search for answers and deepen our faith but if we remain in doubt for too long, it begins to weigh us down, leading to despair. I should know this, because I have fallen into this trap before and it brought me much gloom. Why do we fall prey to doubt? The passage of Jesus walking on water towards his disciples threw some light on this question. I found it rather significant that the gospel of John mentions that it was dark, even Matthew says it was early morning, a time when the sun hasn't yet risen and visibility is low. It is often when we are going through dark times in our life that we are unable to see things clearly and we do not realize that God is present. It is the...

Once a self proclaimed Atheist asked me "What if Jesus was just an ordinary human being who claimed to be God much like any other god man in history?" Definitely, If God was simply to send someone without any prior notice, it would be impossible for us to identify him, also it would be very easy for an impostor to come and enjoy the limelight. Which is why God in his wisdom left us with numerous ways to identify his son. Many Jews converted to Christianity because they realized that everything that was written about the Messiah in the Old Testament was fulfilled in Jesus. Moreover it was not just the Jews but also the Gentile nations that were expecting a child who would be the king of the Jews. Remember the 3 Kings who came all the way from the East to see if there was a  fulfillment  of what they had read.  Firstly it is important to understand that a prophecy is not a mere prediction of the future. It had relevance to the generation in which it was spoken,...

I would be lying if I told you that I always believed in the changing of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. In fact it was only recently, after much reading, it all began to come together for me. I had 4 questions to which I needed answers and here is what I found: Why did Jesus need to give us his body? In order to understand this, we need to go to the very beginning, to Genesis. It was in the garden of Eden that man's obedience to God was tested, Jesus was also in a garden when his obedience to God was tested, the garden of Gethsemane. Adam failed the test and ate the fruit of the forbidden tree, Jesus chose the right tree, he chose the tree of life. The cross was also called the tree in the Bible, "cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree" (Galatians 3:13). Before sin, Adam walked with God in the garden and seen the face of God but after he sinned he hid from God's presence. Sin brought distance between God and man, it also brought death i...

Jesus said something ground breaking when he told us to 'take up our crosses and follow him'. Until then suffering was looked upon as a curse from God. Even today we see most people go to God to get rid of their problems, why would someone want to embrace their troubles? I struggled for most of my life with this because I for one hated the thought of pain and death. However, my views on suffering began to change when I found out how others were willing to suffer for me. No greater love than this.... I remembered my brush with death as a child when me and my sister suffered from severe food poisoning. I was the worse affected and I lay in hospital for days like a dead body, refusing to eat and having no strength to sit. Then one night I woke up in hospital to the sound of someone crying. It was my mother, kneeling on the floor and praying, she was telling God "Take me instead, don't take my daughter." That impacted me so powerfully, How could someone take ...

I accepted Mary as my mother for a simple reason, Jesus gave her to us when he said " Here is your mother" (John 19:26-27). If I am to be a disciple close to Jesus' heart as the beloved disciple in the book of John, I must take Jesus' advice and take Mary to my home and treat her as my mother. 26  When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.”  27  Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home. (John 19:26-27) There is so much of misunderstanding about Mary and how Catholics approach her, leading some to completely ignore her which I feel would be great loss as she is the perfect role model for any Christian. As Catholics, we do not worship her, as worship is for God alone. We honor her because God honored her. We love her because Jesus loved her. We must look to imitate her, in the way that she emptied herself so...