A number of years ago I spent a couple of days with a hiking club in the rural Eastern Cape province of South Africa.  

On the first night of the back-breaking, blister-producing trip, a few of us sat around the fire and a sangomajoined us – one of SA’s few white...

I know a Christian family who were really struggling.

The wife’s job did not pay very well and the husband’s employer went bankrupt.

With two small children, the expenses just kept growing and they started living off their credit card.

The husband found another job, but not that...

Can you think of a mismatched partnership?

Perhaps Helen Zille and Julius Malema (very different South African politicians) meeting for a cup of tea and a cucumber sandwich?  A Sumo wrestler partnering with petite, ballet dancer on Strictly Come Dancing? A Stormers rugby fan going out with a...

Arnold Schwarzenegger is a famous actor, businessman, politician, and former professional bodybuilder.

He grew up in Austria in humble circumstances and in his teens committed himself to bodybuilding – and to be the best bodybuilder.

At age 20 he won the Mr. Universe title.

Arnold would train...

Die Kerkbode, the official newspaper of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa (DRC/NGK), published an article on 18 February 2019 entitled, “Congregation chooses ‘love instead of fear’ with the appointing of gay minister”.

The article’s title...

For our boast is this, the testimony of our conscience, that we behaved in the world with simplicity and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God, and supremely so toward you.

2 Corinthians 1:12 ESV

South Africans have been angered the last couple of months by the shocking...

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

2 Corinthians 1:3-4

Affliction...

For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough. Indeed, I consider that I am not in the least inferior to...

For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.

You may have...

You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you. Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until...

Article 6 of the 39 Articles of Religion on the “The sufficiency of Holy Scripture for our salvation” says,

Holy Scripture sets forth everything that is necessary for our salvation. Consequently, nobody should be required to believe as an article of the Christian faith, or to regard as...

You have wearied the Lord with your words. But you say, “How have we wearied him?” By saying, “Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delights in them.” Or by asking, “Where is the God of justice?”

Where is the God of...

1. Why the Prosperity Gospel is so poisonous
2. The dangerous theology of Spiritual Breakthrough
3. Lord, deliver us from deliverance ministries
4. What are the greater workers Jesus promised we would do?
5. The (unintentional) battle royal
6. Why Christians eat pork
7. A thought and a prayer about land expropriation
8. Why we...

Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

Genesis 2.24

The Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant.

Malachi 2.24

God’s...

“And now, O priests, this command (warning) is for you. If you will not listen, if you will not take it to heart to give honour to my name, says the Lord of hosts, then I will send the curse upon you and I will curse your blessings.

Malachi 2:1-2

Unfaithful leaders have...

Oh that there were one among you who would shut the doors (of the temple), that you might not kindle fire on my altar in vain! I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord of hosts…  (Malachi 1:10)

The attitude of the people and priests towards God in Malachi’s day was, “Lukewarm...

This week was the start of the international campaign of “16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence” (focussing on violence against women and children).

“Police statistics indicate that the murder rate of women in South Africa has increased by 16% in the past five years and...

Leviticus ch. 11 is all about clean and unclean animals and what the Israelites in Old Testament times could and couldn’t eat.

Therefore, every time someone hunted, ate a meal, went to a petting zoo, or came across roadkill, they had to ask themselves, “Is this clean or unclean?”

Lan...

We are familiar with the concept of mediators.  Someone who represents us or goes in our place.

I can’t argue my case at the Constitutional Court.  I need an advocate, with the necessary qualifications, who will represent me.

The Springbok rugby team represents South Africa when they...

The Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa voted in 2015 to permit those in same-sex relationships to serve as ministers.  The synod also voted to permit same-sex unions to be blessed in Dutch Reformed churches. That decision was then appealed in 2016.

At present the DRC is...

Many years ago, there were relatively very few issues around sexuality and gender.

It was largely accepted that there were only two genders and you were either one or the other.

It was largely accepted that males’ anatomy was designed for sexual intimacy with females, vice versa.

It was largely...

God is holy.

The Bible describes God as a consuming fire residing in unapproachable light.

To approach God our own way is like approaching the surface of the sun – we will simply be extinguished.

God’s radiant holiness will kill us as sin-full and sin-prone people.

However, in the Old...

In the previous installment, I argued that Jesus has tasked his church to take the verbal message of repentance and forgiveness of sins to the nations.

The central mission of the church, therefore, is to take God’s Word to God’s world.

The church’s chief task is to bear witness to...

What has been your most difficult trial in the last couple of years?

Sickness, strained relationships, persecution, isolation, financial difficulties, family problems?

Today, as all through the ages, people have different responses to trials, suffering and hardship.

They may think, “God...

This past weekend I had the privilege of officiating at a wedding in a township church in South Africa.  The marriage ceremony took place as an addition to the Sunday morning service.

The vibrancy of the singing was contagious and the warmth of hospitality humbling.

In African culture there is...