Paulson Post

To a large extent our behaviour is genetically conditioned. People who belong to certain ethnic groups have common physical and even emotional characteristics because of the genes that control biological and emotional aspects of their life. Certain groups of people are prone to certain diseases while other groups totally immune to these because of their particular genetic structure. This also means that human behaviour is predictable and to a large extent unchangeable unless there is genetic modification. Paul talks about another factor that overrides genetic conditioning that decides human behaviour. That is grace. Paul was intolerant, violent and possibly a psychopath too. He could not tolerate a group of Jews who considered themselves as followers of Jesus of Nazareth. He considered this new faith called Christianity something that should be destroyed. He resorted to violent means of arresting them and killing them. To achieve this aim of annihilating the all the Chris...

Terrorists who have some religious associations give religions a bad name. Recent events like the attack on Mumbai (26/11) make us think if religions promote violence only. However, the picture is far from truth. There are narratives of conflicts, violence and bloody battle accounts in the Bible. This makes some think that Bible promotes violence. However, they miss out the many visions of peace that the bible have. One such vision is found in the prophecy of Isaiah in the second chapter. Part of this vision is inscribed on the walls of the UN building in New York: "They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore" (Isaiah 2:4). This probably was a very popular vision about the future in those days since another prophet by the name Micah also has this in his book (Micah 4:3). Thus it should rather be called a shared vision of the prophets of the Bible in the eight...

As a little boy I have seen mother hens protecting their little chicks. The chicks are small balls of flesh and feather that so tender that looks like fur on them. They will be around the mother exploring their world and gobbling worms mother has found for them and chirping happily. It is a noisy scene. As soon as the mother hen detects the presence of a predator bird it makes a particular sound. It is a warning and the little chicks run to find shelter under the wings of their mother. The mother sits firmly on the ground protecting her little chicks who has sought shelter inside her wings. There is absolute silence; not a single chick dares to make a sound. Singing under the wings is dangerous! Moreover, it takes a lot of courage to do that when the predator bird is still hovering over. One of the powerful imageries of the Bible is that of God as the mother hen who protects his children under his wings in times of trouble. Boaz uses this imagery when he talks about Ruth joining th...

Faith loves to perch on scarecrows. Scarecrows are placed in farms to scare the birds away. Birds avoid the farms where they find a scarecrow, even though the scarecrows only have a very remote resemblance to human beings and are unable to do any harm. The wise birds are wise enough to know that they are just hay for the body, a broken pot for the head and stay where the farmer placed them. They also know that wherever there is a scarecrow there is something to be eaten; nobody places a scarecrow where nothing is grown. Instead of being scared away they love to land on the scarecrows and enjoy the feast. That's the difference between faith and fear. The psalmist declares that when she is afraid she will trust in God (Psalm 56:3-4). "When I am afraid, I will put my trust in you. In God, I praise his word. In God, I put my trust." However, this faith makes her to challenge the frightening situations, "What can mortals do to me?" (Psalm 56:11 and also Psalm 56:...

Jesus' question in Mark 10:51 "What do you want me to do for you?" is baffling. Jesus knows everything, moreover the man who is crying to him is obviously blind and needs healing. Why then this question; Jesus cannot be that dumb! The blind beggar in Jericho (Mark 10:46-52) was engaged in something demeaning. His name is mentioned in the Bible as Bartimaeus, which means son of honor. Though "a son of honor" he was doing the most dishonorable profession of begging in the city of Jericho. When Jesus met him he was begging. His style of begging (like all beggars do) is to catch people's attention by crying loud "have mercy on me" so that they can throw a coin in to his bowl. He did the same thing when Jesus passed by in the company of a large crowd. This time he did not just cry "have mercy on me" but was more specific because his plea was aimed at Jesus and not the crowd. He cries, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" However...

Tolerance is allowing different viewpoints to exist and thrive without causing them any harm. It comes from respect and love for the different views. Tolerance is possible even if the opposite point of view may hurt our views and may threaten the existence of ours. Often times we mistake accommodation for tolerance ignoring the subtle difference between the two. Accommodating is an outcome of tolerance but need not always be. Usually we can accommodate what we can put up with but it is difficult to accommodate anything that is not congenial. The other day while watching the National Geographic channel I came across a leopard and a young gazelle. The gazelle was just born and has just been able to stand on its feet. The leopard had it between its front legs; the young gazelle looked fearless, the leopard was unconcerned and was looking elsewhere as if he was not interested in the tender prey. It presented the picture of the peace that prophet Isaiah had prophesied about whe...

She was young, beautiful, and healthy and she had a loving husband. The car accident changed all that. She was in hospital for many months fighting for her life. She survived finally but as an invalid, paralysed waste down and limited to her wheelchair. That was the end of her marriage too as her husband walked away from her life. The marriage covenant that they made to stick to each other "until death part us" was broken. It was a test of her husband's faithfulness to the marriage promise. Marriage is most evidently the area where faithfulness is tested. Relationship outside marriage where faithfulness is divided is common these days. However, faithfulness is indivisible, it is exclusive, whether it is faithfulness in marriage or in any other areas. If we search for a perfect example of faithfulness we will arrive at the biblical image of God as the faithful God. In the Bible, God is given as the model of faithfulness. God's faithfulness is what we are ...

One of the remarkable features of the Judeo-Christian religions including Islam is the ban on idols. The Jewish scriptures prohibit the making of idols and the worship of any objects representing God. Biblical Christianity has continued the same tradition. Islam standing in the same religious traditions has the same emphasis. However, this never banned art from these religions. Christian church has a great tradition of promoting sculpture and painting. Islamic art is also rich. Nevertheless, some Christian churches have gone quite far from its original ethos of an iconoclastic religion to the veneration of the cross and praying before the images of saints. Those who use idols or images in worship argue that these help in focussing their thoughts on God. The argument is that the worship is not offered to the idols but to the deity represented by the idols. Biblical Christianity, however, advocate a spirituality that does not require crutches. Their object of worship is Jesus...

"Love your neighbour as yourself" has been a great teaching that no pious Jew ever questioned. However, the range of its meaning was certainly in doubt. That is why a lawyer once stood up in one of the teaching sessions of Jesus and asked, "Who is my neighbour?" (Luke 10:29). The story that Jesus told him was to illustrate the meaning of neighbor. He told him the story that we now call the Story of the Good Samaritan. There was a man who was attacked by the robbers who left him on the road that leads from Jerusalem to Jericho to die. All sorts of people passed by this man but no one except a Samaritan helped him and saved his life. The priest and the Levite who passed him by without lending him any help were closer to him in every way. They were from the same race (Jews) and belonged to the same religion (Judaism) and most probably lived somewhere around that area. However, as far as Jews are concerned the Samaritan was an outcast and foreigner. He must have liv...

Down through the centuries the followers of Christ have set examples of being kind through their service to humanity all over the world. Numerous hospitals, orphanages, schools and colleges in places where there was no health care and proper education are examples of kindness that is integral to the followers of Christ. Kindness is love in action. In 1 Corinthians 13:4 Saint Paul wrote, " Love is patient and is kind...." If Christian love is a coin, then patience and kindness are the two sides of that coin. A coin cannot exist unless it has two sides! This also means that the real kindness proceeds from the real love. What type of love would produce kindness? First of all, there is contemplative love, where love is a feeling. This love, seeks and cherishes all that is lovable. Human beings has the tremendous capacity to love anything even animals of different kinds. Humans are the only creatures who keep pets! It does not move beyond the thoughts or feelings of love to...

The life of and life in modern Christian churches, with all the dissensions, hatred and disunity is certainly shameful. That is not what Christians are called to, they are called to produce the fruit of the Spirit. Fruit of the Spirit is the natural outcome of a Spirit-led life. It is characterisctic of a Spirit-filled life. The foremost of this is love (Gal 5:22). Though Paul listed love in Galatians 5:22 he best exposits it in his first correspondence to the church in Corinth. Love is the hallmark of Christ-disciples: "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. Three redherrings of true love are spirituality, charity and self-sacrifice" (John 13:35). However, Christians tend to wear different masks that look like love which Paul criticizes very caustically in the great poem on love in 1 Corinthians 13. First of these masks is false spirituality. Christians who fail to love each other as Christ loved them tend to wear a mask of ...

Death speaks volumes and we tend to listen more carefully to our dear ones at the death than when they were alive. In the recent past, four deaths spoke to me powerfully. One is of my friend who died suddenly before reaching the fiftieth birthday. A man of full of plans, things lined up to do for God was suddenly called to glory. The other was the death of a two little children of my Sunday school aged eleven and nine years in a road accident. Their dad, a cousin and the cousin's granddad also died in the same accident. It was very painful to watch two kids and their dad aged just 38 lowered to the same grave in three coffins to be laid side by side. They had dreams, plans and aspirations for life, but God had different plans and none of us could question his plans nor should stop him doing what he willed for them. I had to take a serious look at my life. I have plans, most of them are certainly things that I want to do for God. However, every planning requires some assurance of t...

But before we take our journey to that side of the grave we need to make sure where we are going. Please make sure where you will end up before that transfer from this life to the other happens. A few days back, a teenager in Pune killed himself by hanging. He was from a well-to-do family happy family, got a lot of love and care from his elder sisters and brothers. However, he decided to die just to satisfy his curiosity. A lesson in his Marathi textbook about the martyrdom of India's freedom fighters made him curious about death. He used to ask his parents and teachers what happens after death. The answer his parents of this Hindu boy gave seems not to have satisfied him nor of his teacher. Finally, he decided to find out by himself. The police told the press that he committed suicide in order to find out for himself what happens after death. When he killed himself, he was not sure where he was going and what is going to happen to him. People were always fascinated by what happe...

" But you know that Timothy has proved himself, because as a son with his father he has served with me in the work of the gospel" (Philippians 2:22) Great leaders are not always born but nurtured by people whom God had blessed with grace, wisdom and experience. However, an attitude of submission, obedience and willingness to learn is what is expected of those who would like to be used by God. The house where my parents live was built long before I was born. However, I have memories of this house being renovated to add two new rooms: one on the first floor which later became my room. The carpentry team consisted of a father and his two sons; both sons were married and had small children. The father had the drawings and consulted my father occasionally and the sons just took instructions from their father and slogged. The father would take break from hammering the chisel on the wood occasionally, have a smoke and walk around the structure that is coming up. The sons worked si...

Many of the modern Christian leaders were not physically attractive nor did they come from families of high social or economic standing. They were very ordinary people, from very ordinary circumstances but God used them beyond their limitations. I can think of William Carey who was missionary, bible translator, linguist, and educator. He was an English cobbler! Pandita Ramabhai was a young widow, from a poor Brahmin family and just four-feet tall. William Seymour was a black, son of former slaves, a railway porter and blind in one eye. God used him mightily at the Azusa Street Revival. How can God use us? The answer to this question can be found in 2 Timothy 2:20-21 where Paul uses the metaphor of pots and pans in a big house. “In a large house there are articles not only of godl and silver, but also of wood and clay; some are for noble purposes and some for ignoble. If a man cleanse himself form the latter, he will be an instrument for noble purposes, made holy, useful to the M...