Paulson Post

I had been praying for a revival in the Seminary where I teach and the church I minister for a long time. It hasn’t come yet. I got this burden for revival from my teacher. She was a Canadian missionary who taught English at the Seminary where I did my first degree in theology. She stood up in a social gathering to make an announcement. The college was about to be shifted to a new campus about 600-kilometres away in a few months. She said that she is praying for a revival and praying that we will have it before we move to the new campus. It is almost 33 years since we moved to the new campus. Revival is yet to come! Is God ignoring prayers for revivals? For that to be true we need to conclude that God is against revivals. Certainly not! God always want his people to be spiritually alive and constantly revive themselves. Holy Spirit, the spirit of newness is always with us. This is simple logic. I won't' buy my son a car until he gets the driving licence. That is when he is re...

Our language of prayer has changed dramatically over the years. When people come to us with their problems we used to assure them that we will pray for them. Sometimes, we say ‘I will pray for you’ or sometimes we say, ‘you will be in my prayers.’ In reality, we often fail to keep the promise and forget to pray for them. Still, we keep saying that; it has become part of our formal language, like ‘thank you!’ We say that even when we really don’t mean it. It is like saying ‘good morning’ to our neighbour as we step out of the house in pouring rain on a clouded, bleak morning. So meaningless. However, many people have polished this language now to be more honest and be real. It is rather popular now to say that ‘you will be in my thoughts’ than ‘in my prayers.’ That helps us to bail ourselves out of the guilt of not praying. A promise of prayer is sometimes the best way to dismiss responsibility. Many times when we approach authorities and they say that they will pray about it, yo...

Jesus looked at the world around him in a way that is quite different from that of contemporary Christians. In India, Christians are constantly intimidated by the news of persecution of Christians in various parts of the country. Laws that hinder preaching the gospel are passed in many states, pastors are attacked, churches are destroyed, etc. These pieces of news do make us view our world that is hostile to the gospel and the kingdom of God. However, there is another way of looking at the same world. That is the view of Jesus. Don’t imagine that Jesus’ world was not hostile to him. He was ridiculed, physically attacked, finally killed. Though he had his share of enemies who from the very beginning was plotting to kill him, he looked at the same world as the world ready for the rule of God. Jesus told his disciples that the world is ready for a big harvest. ‘Do you not say, There are yet four months, then comes the harvest? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields...

The Second coming of Jesus Christ is not a popular topic these days. Even preachers in premillennial or dispensational etc, also do not seem to talk about it these days.There could be various reasons for this trend. First of all, it seems the satisfaction many Christians feel now in the present world situation. The topic of second coming had served to a large extent to cope with the pain and suffering of the present day. People could live with their sufferings now since better days are coming. Secondly, it has to do with the aversion to the details that the preaching always came with. It seems that people are fed up with the lack of consensus in the identification of the Anti-Christ, number 666, the number 144,000 and such fringe elements. The irrationality and subjectivity of such interpretations are increasingly questioned. Preaching on the second coming in the days gone by focussed on details  for which there are no strong biblical warrants. So, over the years it has become th...