Paulson Post

Most parents at least once in life have to answer this question their curious little ones toss at them: ‘Where did I come from?’ The child is too young to understand the complex biological activity that brought the child to this world. Embarrassed and bashful, parents resort to explanations that they might have got from their own parents. A white stork that flew over their roof carrying a little cute baby in a sling hanging from its long beak dropped it through the chimney! They found the cute little baby by the fire-side in the morning! The children are usually happy with that explanation and may watch for storks flying across their rooftops with babies in slings hanging from their long beaks, until they grow up to find out the truth for themselves. The storks don’t carry babies in their beaks nor deliver them to couples longing for children. It is all ...

A few kilo metres from where I live, was a farm opened for visitors. It was an rare patch of pristine countryside in the midst of a booming urban landscape. Among the many attractions there, was the workshop of a potter. In his workshop, the potter displayed making various articles from clay. I had frequented his workshop a number of times. He is very patient as he works with wet clay on his wheels. The patience of the potter and the vulnerability of the clay combined ends up in a beautiful clay object! Whenever, I visited this potter's workshop, I used picture myself as the clay on the wheels and the fingers of the potter as that of my Lord who shapes me. The Lord is like a potter, willing to work with us as long as we are willing to be shaped by his hands. He doesn't give up in the middle of the process if we are willing and vulnerable in his hands. He keeps working on us to bring to fulfilment what he has begun in us. That’s why he is called, ‘the founder and perfecter...

The psalmist has a strange complaint in Psalm 14:4 (also in Psalm 53:4). It is about those people who don’t pray to God.’ Why should another person’s prayer life bother her ? The psalmist’s worry doesn’t seem to be the fact that they don’t pray but the reason why they don’t pray. The ungodly people don’t pray to God because they don’t take God seriously. These are people who like to pretend that God doesn’t exist at all. That is why the Psalmist says, ‘The fool says in his heart, “There is no God."’ This is not a philosophical theory for them, but they have found it convenient to think that God does’nt exist or is not interested in human affairs. This can be called practical atheism. That means, for all practical purposes they tend to believe that God doesn’t exist. Practical atheism allows its adherents to do all that is evil and wicked. Acknowledging God’s existence and involvement in human affairs by punishing the guilty and rewarding the righteous is an inconvenient th...

The modern preachers (especially those ones on the TV) have popularized a particular version of ‘faith.’ According to them we need faith in order to God to do miracles. Some of them even tend to preach that the miracles are proportionate to the size of ones’ faith. This is often implied in expressions like ‘level of faith’ etc that we often hear on the TV. In this popular conception ‘faith’ is portrayed as something that triggers God’s power. Unless we exercise our faith we cannot receive God’s power through miracles. Doesn’t this imply that the omnipotent God is helpless to do a miracle for us! Certain stories in the Bible are used to support these positions. Often quoted is the faith of the woman suffering with a flow of blood who received her healing by touching Jesus’ garments secretly (Mark 5:24-34). The faith of the centurion is also often cited (Matthew 8:5-13). He received a miracle because he ‘exercised’ his faith. Often times preachers quote Jesus’ statement to the wom...

I stared at that bouquet of flowers handed over to me feeling little uneasy. It was Fathers’ Day and I was reminded of it early in the morning by my two children who had wished me already before I went to church. In my church I have made it a policy that we will pray for fathers on Fathers’ Day and mothers on Mothers’ day in the church but will not have any celebration of such days on Sundays. My reason is simple. Nowadays, almost every day is ‘some day’ and it distracts our attention from the real business that we are supposed to do on Sunday: the Lord’s Day. I don’t encourage celebration of such days to make sure these celebrations do not eclipse the day that is of paramount importance: the Lord’s Day. However, one of the youth took the initiative to buy a bouquet of flowers and when I had said the benediction at the end of the service, shot in front of the pulpit with the flowers saying, ‘today is Fathers’ Day. And we would like to honor our pastor who is our spiritual f...

We all love to tread paths that are well-trod. However, Jesus was different. He trod paths people dread to tread. In most cases Jesus healed people by his word, without touching their body or the affected area. However, there were some exceptions. in the case of the deaf and the dumb man he touched his ears and his lips (Mark 7:33). In another case be touched the eyes of a blind man to heal him (John 9:7). These except in most of the cases the people touched him and were healed or he commanded the sickness or demons to go or pronounced healing. However, he deviated from this in some cases. In the case of lepers he touched them to heal them (Mark 1:41). In the case of the dead he touched the bier or the dead body and raised them. In the case of the son of the widow who was dead and was being taken to the graveyard. He stopped them, touched the bier and the young man sprang up to life (Luke 7:14). In the case of the daughter of Jairus he held the hand of the dead body...

The synagogue is the place where the Jews worshiped their God. But do you know that the first exorcism that Jesus performed was in a synagogue? It sounds paradoxical: casting out demons in the house of God! In the first chapter of the Gospel of Mark it says that ‘ there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit’ (Mark 1:23). How can a demon-possessed survive in a religious place as a synagogue? Why nobody dealt with this evil-spirit in the synagogue until Jesus walked in? Probably he appeared perfectly normal so that nobody knew he was a demoniac? Or did they just let him be there since they were not able to do anything about it? This story tells us three things about the nature of demon-possessed people. 1. First, they may look and behave like normal people. 2. Don’t expect to find them only in weird places like grave yards, dark gullies of down town areas, or mental asylums. 3. They can look very n...