TRAC Chapel: Recent Episodes
Gareth Tyndall
From 2020, The Riverina Anglican College's Chapel talks will be available on your favourite podcast platforms. The 2017-2019 talk archive is available at http://bit.ly/ChapelTRAC
Find a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life. That's the saying, but where can you find a job like that outside of the Garden of Eden?
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We live in an age of autonomy, but has it seen us rise and rise, or are we merely falling into its consequences?
Listener Advice: Domestic violence is discussed within this sermon. If you or anyone needs help then please call 1800RESPECT (1800737732).
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Amidst the curses that flow from Adam and Eve's disobedience, guest preacher, Mr Mansour, drew our attention to the hope of the Gospel that glistened in the garden on that dark day.
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Guest preacher, Matt Bailey, from South Wagga Anglican Church asked us today what are we ashamed of in ourselves, and how are we trying to cover over our shame? He also reminded us that there's no hiding from the God who loves, seeks us and finds us in Jesus Christ.
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www.human.god is not a real website, but according to God there are three Ws to being human. Find out what they are as we head back into Eden
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What does this rock with a hidey-hole have to tell us about the value of human life? Find out as we begin our new series in Genesis 2-3
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How would you respond if you'd just been raised from the brink of death? I doubt you would cook everyone a meal, but that's what happens in our final scene in Luke 3-4, and it's exactly what should be on our menu as we respond to Jesus.
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Jesus has been causing a scene everywhere he goes so far in Luke's Gospel. Is he just a troublemaker or can this scene be believed because Jesus’ authority has been seen?
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Over the last two weeks we've been working through this tense scene in Jesus' hometown, where Jesus is able to move the locals from indifference, to violence, to silence. What could Jesus possibly say that would make us want to jump out of our chairs and kill him, only to then silently let him go on his way?
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Do you believe in the Devil? More importantly, what if he believes in you? What if he believes that he can easily lead you away from taking God at his word? This was the battle of beliefs that took place for Jesus, the Word of God, who took on these temptations for us in the wilderness and at the cross.
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Family likeness is an interesting thing, but sometimes we shape our expectations of people based on this likeness. These family ties can pull at us from different directions and perhaps create confusion. Jesus knows this tension all too well, and part of his ministry was to weave us into God's family as we grow in his likeness.
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One week in and we might already have begun the merry go round of comparing ourselves to others in the classroom or the playground. There is hope to break out of this negative feedback loop, but not until we've compared ourselves to Jesus, the one with whom God is well-pleased.
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Are you fearful about the year ahead? Fear can be an effective kickstarter, but it's terrible at sustaining change. How can we hope to move forward in 2024 and not be paralysed by fear? John the Baptist and Jesus the King team up in today's passage to bring us both fear and hope.
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Christmas is all about the memories, often of presents we receive! But how often we forget that Christmas never really measures up to our expectations. We need to remember that the tender mercy of our God makes Christmas something we don't want to forget.
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Behind the Scenes Christmas Dad is a mysterious figure who mows lawns, purchases batteries and assembles trampolines long into the night on Christmas Eve. But there is an even more mysterious figure whose glory is in his grunt behind the scenes at that first Christmas. Today, we meet Father God.
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Long before Paul McCartney conceived a vision of his mother, Mary, speaking words of wisdom to him, there was another mother to be, named Mary, whose mind could not conceive that the wisdom of God would be conceived in her. Let's consider how her reasoned faith could come to conclude 'Let it be'.
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We've all probably got a wacky uncle who overdoes it at Christmas and needs to take a nap by the afternoon. And we've all probably got a patient aunt who will exclaim that our uncle should've known better!
Today we meet Jesus' uncle and we'll see that he too should have known better when it comes to the promises of God at Christmas.
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As we begin the countdown to Christmas, our world seems as hectic and unpredictable as ever. As we ask 'what now?' of our world, we find that we are not so different from those of Jesus' world, especially his relatives.
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On the occasion of Year 12's Graduation–the day that they could not believe was finally here–we considered another day most people believe will never arrive. However, we will see that because of two other certain days that have come and gone, the arrival of Earth 2.0 will certainly unfold.
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We look to our new leaders to follow up their words with actions, but as we come to the Devil's end in Revelation the action is outdone by words. The Word comes riding atop a battle horse and his weapon is the word of the Gospel.
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How will you make your mark? It's a question we've all asked at times, but do we really get to make our mark or is it given to us?
This is the tension at play in Revelation 12-16 – what marks us out in this world and is it even a mark we make for ourselves?
And what exactly is the mark of the Beast...
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Trumpets decree momentous moments. Much like God's word decreed the creation of all the elements of our universe. However, today's trumpets in Revelation seem to decree de-creation! How can this be and how can any sweet hope be found amidst the bitterness? Thankfully, as we shall see, the bittersweet symphony that is this life is composed by Jesus.
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As of this week there are currently 114 uprisings, insurgencies, battles, wars raging across our globe. While we may not hear about all of them, they all have similar traits. It is the relentless nature of war that helps us realise that the figures of Revelation are not mapping out a timeline for the end of history, rather they diagnose the cause of our distress. No 4 figures have caused greater distress in interpretation than the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse, but it is all just horseplay compared to Jesus, the Lionhearted Lamb!
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Mascots matter. Choose the wrong one and your team will be forever ridiculed. The forever mascot of the Christian faith is revealed in today's portion of Revelation and it would have certainly espoused ridicule from the empires of Earth. But for Christians looking into the loaded coded language of Revelation, the lionhearted lamb who was slain is the centre of power they were waiting for.
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Churches exist in our world. That may not be your preference, but it is the reality. The reality for churches, however, is that their existence is not about their preference in this world.
The existence of the local church depends on the reality of Jesus, and the otherworldly descriptions of him that we learned of last week, which dwell amongst the church as it lives amidst the world.
We should hope to have an out of this world experience, then, when we enter a church.
That's the stern message that Jesus gives to the 7 churches of Revelation 2-3.
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Have you ever passed coded messages in class? Maybe you used some Pig Latin to sneak a message past your teacher because they couldn’t make sense of it? This term in Chapel we embark upon the most loaded, coded book of the Bible—Revelation. What might seem at first to be spiritual gobbledygook, is actually the clearest and truest picture of our world today and where it is all heading. The good news is that the message of Revelation is simple— Jesus Wins. That’s a message that doesn’t need to be concealed in Pig Latin or any other symbol and it’s the truth that we will reveal this term in Chapel together.
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You might have thought we were done with Jonah. We've had a couple weeks off from Chapel and the story did seem to resolve itself insomuch that God's plan of restoring Nineveh through Jonah's preaching had occurred. But there's an outtake, an extended scene, a denouement that is no denouement and it all centres on a plant, a worm and a jerk...
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Justice and mercy. We love them both but can never seem to get the balance right. But what if instead of dilution of the two, we saw them both done to the max? This tension plays out as Jonah finally goes to Nineveh...
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Last week Jonah was prepared to die instead of obey God, but now God has rescued him. It's cause for praise of the Lord, but has Jonah learned his lesson? We stopped by the belly of the beast to see how Jonah was travelling.
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Ever had a sulk under the doona? We all have probably tried to shut out the world for a moment longer under the covers, but Jonah was trying to shut out the Creator of the world, and it didn't go well...
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Does God desire our good? How can we find our good without God? Where can you find a good place away from God? These are the questions that Jonah is confronted by as his quest begins.
The meme referred to in the talk can be viewed here.
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It's Mermaid Week at TRAC as we prepare for our College Musical, The Little Mermaid, so who better to learn from about life under the sea than Jonah himself. He stopped by to say hello this morning at Chapel.
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I believe in the life everlasting! We have come to the end of the creed and at Easter we look to the life everlasting, but do we really want to live forever?
NB: Two lines from the Creed were covered in our Easter Chapel in different ways. 'the forgiveness of sins' was a Kids' Spot delivered by our Junior School Chaplain, Amanda Farrelly, and 'the resurrection of the body' was presented as a free verse, which you can view here: https://youtu.be/_R2EUip1APc
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Church is good for you...seriously. Church is good for your health, but that's not the main reason why I believe in the church. There are reasons greater than my health, greater than me at all, that make the church worth believing in.
Note: This recording sounds a little different as it was recorded in my office after our service was cancelled for logistical reasons.
I'll be there in spirit. What does that even mean? Where is your spirit and how can you tell? Where is God's Spirit and why should we believe in him? The shortest clause in the Apostles' Creed creates a long list of questions for us.
Where does El from Stranger Things actually go when she enters that empty blackness and what has that got to do with Jesus' Ascension and Judgment?
Why did Jesus have to come back to life? That's a very different question to the how (Science) or the what (History) of the resurrection. It's a question we might not always ask, but it's best to ask it first before getting tangled in the how and what of Jesus' resurrection. Why would we want Jesus to come back to life?
Jesus' death is situated in the past, according to the Apostles' Creed, way back in the days of Pontius Pilate. So what difference can it make for our lives in the present, even into eternity?
What is the go with the virgin birth of Jesus? Why did it make the Apostles' Creed and not all the teachings and miracles of Jesus? Surely, they're more important and believable than a far-fetched tale about Jesus' birth?
God is described as Father, Almighty and Creator in the first line of The Apostles' Creed. But do we really need an almighty, creating father, if we live in a universe that seems almighty enough and has done so forever without anyone parenting it? Maybe we should look again at our universe and at God?
What do you believe in? Do you mean that you believe that something exists or that it is good and right when you say 'I believe in...'? We're often more willing to speak of what we don't believe in, which leads to conflict. Christianity is centred on a series of 'I believe in...' statements, which we call The Apostles' Creed, and this term in Chapel we will see that Christians believe that key figures exist, we believe in things they have done, believing that these things are good and that they lead us to a good existence. Can you believe that?
Here's the free verse I wrote for our 2022 Christmas Chapel. Thanks to Tim Keller for the insight into Luke 2:8-20.
Well, we are finally here at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, but now that we've reached the summit we can look over the horizon and see that we've only just begun. There is now building work to be done!
Last week Jesus said the narrow gate was hard to find and this week he steers us away from the wrong gates to enter. Using the Food and Toy Drive as a vehicle for travelling the narrow path let's see how to finally enter the kingdom of heaven.
We like to think that whatever path we take in life, that eventually we will end up in the same place; some sort of eternal hope over the horizon. But is that how Jesus sees things?
This week as we continue in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount we launch our annual partnership with Anglicare's Food and Toy Drive
Pigs, pearls and dogs? What is this passage all about and why does an old banknote and a dropped pie help us understand why this verse does NOT apply to TRAC?
Judgment is prohibited by Jesus, but this talk was delivered on the occasion of the outcome of a long process of judgment -- student leadership elections! Have we done the wrong thing?
As Year 12 graduate and look forward to celebrating at their formal, it seems such a carefree time. But there are still worries. Hair, dresses, suits and spray tans of course, but there's also the worries of tomorrow and the days to come post school. Can we really take seriously Jesus' call to not worry about tomorrow?
What do you treasure? Where do you treasure? Who do you treasure? These are the 3 simple questions that Jesus asks and he gives seemingly simple answers, but there's always a deeper meaning. The question is whether we're willing to answer these simple questions.
Fasting might seem like a strange thing to talk about in this day and age, but amongst our College community, fasting is alive and well. Today Jesus outlines how to live and be well in his kingdom if you fast.
What does the Tour de France have to do with forgiving others their debts against us? Find out in this live action K-12 Chapel, with special guest, Mr Kingsland assisting.
Bread is easy to come by. There are over 50 bakeries in Wagga alone. So why does Jesus want us to pray each day for something that is so easily accessible?
Goldfish can't see water, but it is all around them. That's how it is with the Kingdom of Heaven, it's all around us, but we don't see it. Why is that? As we park ourselves in the Lord's Prayer for a few weeks we begin first with Jesus' call to our Father in heaven and his kingdom come.
Have you ever prayed? If praying can be defined as longing, hoping or wishing for something, then we've all prayed. We've all felt disappointed when it didn't work out too. Is that all there is to prayer? There is some truth to prayer being about what we're longing for before we've even prayed for it, but how can that be the case, and how can we deal with the disappointment of unanswered prayer?
Why do you donate to causes? Is it because there's a need or is it about your own needs? Needing to be noticed, affirmed? It's so hard to know our own hearts, but what if there was someone who does know our hearts better than us? Jesus now turns to the hearts of those who would hope to enter his Upside Down Kingdom.
As National Reconciliation Week unfolds in Australia, we reflect on how Jesus' radical call to love your enemies lies at the heart of the reconciliation movement. Credit to Rev. Michael Duckett for providing his reflection on National Sorry Day and Reconciliation Week: https://sydneyanglicans.net/news/a-message-for-sorry-day-and-reconciliation-week/52347
Do oaths really work? Are they are an illusion? Was that Jesus' beef with swearing oaths or is there some deeper truth to our truth-telling?
Jesus’ words on divorce jar us today. He might have got away with it back in the day when marriage was all sacred—or was it? Perhaps Jesus was just as jarring back then as today, perhaps even more?
After another Christian leader falls prey to sexual temptation it can be tempting to skip over this part of Jesus' sermon. These are jarring words, perhaps, but they may also be the balm we need in a world where sexual sin causes such pain.
What do words weigh? The sound waves created by our words are virtually weightless, but according to Jesus our words bear a deadly weight.
The passing of Shane Warne has struck a chord with all of us, but it's especially got me thinking about the idea of doing something to the max in a way that no one has seen before or since. In that way, Warnie and Jesus might have more in common than first thought.
Show Note: If you want to see the Warnie advertisement I mentioned during the talk, you can find it here
After Jesus lays down his guidelines for the blessed life, he starts talking about being salt and light. These are curious phrases for us today, but in a world where salt was jam-packed not just with flavour, but meaning, these words would have lit up their hearts and minds.
Forgiveness is fashionable, but doing the forgiving is not. We love being shown mercy, but it is hard to show. Perhaps we're a little out of fashion?
We all have an inkling about what a blessed life might look like, but we'd be reluctant to admit that we've achieved it, even if our circumstances suggest otherwise. While we might be affronted by the inequality of living standards in our country, we should certainly be confronted by the upside down description of the blessed life with which Jesus opens his Sermon on the Mount.
We begin 2022 chasing the new normal once again, but what if we could always be resting in a new normal that is so normal that you may not even realise that life was ever any different? What if you could actually rest in a world turned upside down? We begin the year at TRAC in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount; a message we will sit in slowly for most of 2022.
Hallelujah is one of those words that has passed from biblical vocab into simple exhalation in our speech. We might use it a lot or a little, but we probably don't use it as it was intended. Psalm 148 helps us recapture our hallelujahs and challenge us to consider how our planet still sings God's praises today.
Why do we struggle with our diaries? Is it just disorganisation or does an aversion to record keeping run deep in all of us? Psalm 130 is by no means dated as we consider this question today.
Today we come to Psalm 23, arguably the most famous of passages in the Psalter, if not the whole Bible. Yet with such familiar words we can easily gloss over their meaning can't we? Let's hear them afresh today
We kick off a new series in the Psalms this term. We're shuffling our way through some greatest hits and mixed bag songs from the Psalter as we discover the many and varied words God has given us to sing to him in prayer. Today we consider whether Psalm 121 is trustworthy travel advice, or whether it's speaking to something more than a road trip.
Guest presenter, Mrs Lister, continues her two part journey looking at episodes in Luke's Gospel where Jesus confronts the good guys of 1st century Palestine. This week Jesus tells the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector.
Guest presenter, Mrs Lister, takes us on a two part journey looking at episodes in Luke's Gospel where Jesus confronts the good guys of 1st century Palestine. This week Jesus meets Simon the Pharisee.
As we wrap up our series on the questions you’ve asked about Jesus, the final question to consider is even if there are credible answers to each of our tricky questions about Jesus, does Jesus really matter? Can he just be someone that Christians are into, but everyone else can just follow their own path? Essentially, can Jesus be true for you, but not for me?
No one likes to talk about Hell, not me, not you, not even Jesus; it brought him to tears. But Jesus spoke about Hell more than anyone else in the Bible. Hell must then be not a topic of choice, but a topic of urgency. Even so, it raises many questions for us about our loving God.
I broke this topic up into the 5 key questions I get asked in the classroom. There's more resources for each of these questions in the show notes.
- The Galileo Incident?
- Six Days?
- Evolution or Creation?
- Dinosaurs and the Bible?
- Humans and Monkeys?
- Watch Dicko on Q and A
- Check out the rest of my Genesis 1 Chapel series from 2020
- See how it all rests on the Cross
It's the question that obliterates faith in God, it did for President Bartlet anyway. How could a loving God allow suffering? Today we hear why Christians shouldn't be embarrassed about asking or answering this question.
There seem to be a lot of religious people out there who are bad, so if I want to be good, then perhaps I should avoid religion? Maybe I should avoid God altogether? How does humanity fare without God?
There's some wacky stuff in the Bible and you might struggle to take it literally, because you think that doing that means believing it's true. But is that how speaking literally or metaphorically works? Is literal the only type of truth, or does a metaphor have truth too? How can we take all the words of the Bible to heart when so much of it is metaphor and so much of it seems literally unbelievable? Well, the answer at the heart of all the words of the Bible is one word in particular: Jesus.
There's no specific denouncement of the entire system of slavery from Jesus in the New Testament, in fact there are lots of rules surrounding the procurement and treatment of slaves throughout the Bible. At the same time, it has been Christians who have been at the forefront of abolishing slavery, and they still are today. How can these seeming contradictions sit together? This is the conundrum of slavery that we embark upon today.
You might have noticed that I called this series in 1 Samuel ‘Unremarkable’. We began asking the question, ‘Where is God in the unremarkable parts of life?’ Of course, if you’ve been paying attention you might think that the events in 1 Samuel are in fact remarkable. Priests sleeping with prostitutes, a heavy man rocking on his chair and breaking his neck, a magic ark that can make statues fall over, inflict tumours on people, infest whole countries with rats. 10s of thousands of people slaughtered in one day on a battlefield, and I don’t think any of us will ever forget Mr Dawson’s remarkable rendition of lowing cattle. So have I got the title of this series wrong? Isn’t it remarkable that all these events took place? Find out why not in 1 Samuel 7 today...
If God is real then we would probably like him to make his presence known. He should step in a bit more. It would be nice to have him around. But we rarely consider that it might not be so nice for us to be around him! This is the mistake that the Israelites make today in 1 Samuel 6.
If God is he who says he is, then to ignore or oppose him should end badly for us, right? But does it? Not when we look around.
So why let the power of God disturb your life? It seems like such an unremarkable thing and we rarely see remarkable moments of God disciplining those who oppose him. The power of God rarely causes us to tremble.
So if God is real then either we are incredibly brave, or he simply isn’t the all powerful being he says he is. That's what the Israelites and the Philistines would have thought as the ark of God was taken captive in Ashdod...
NB - This is the audio only from a video talk delivered at TRAC Chapel. You can find the video at https://youtu.be/fT9qINgdOD0
This week we see that what everybody knows about God does not always inform how they respond to God. Eli, Hophni, Phinehas and the Philistines all know some key things about God's character, purpose and promises, but despite this knowledge they act against their own interests. We wouldn't ever be so foolish would we?
Have you been following the PreachersnSneakers Instagram movement? What does it tell us about the state of the church? Is this a new problem, or one that God has been quietly exposing by his word since those unremarkable days in Shiloh?
This term as the weather gets colder and our minds might turn to the unremarkable, we are going to visit a part of God’s word where the unremarkable is the focus. We’re in Old Testament times, but we’re not in the heady days of Noah and the floods, or Moses and the plagues of Egypt. We’re not going to see the Red Sea parted, or fire come down from heaven. We’re just going to focus on a bloke named Samuel, who does have a few sparks of the supernatural, but when we finish this term, nothing much will have been achieved. The mundane remains. The nitty gritty outside the city. ‘Where is God when things are unremarkable?’ ‘When it’s just so so, God what’s the go?’
My address at the annual Good Friday service at the Wollundry Lagoon in Wagga Wagga NSW
We draw our Prodigal God series to a close at Easter and we reflect on how the two brothers and the banquet are echoed in the death and resurrection of Jesus.
How you know you’re home? It’s often not about knowing, but feeling home. The longing for home felt by the younger brother is a longing felt in all of us. A feeling we know needs to be put right.
Why do the younger brothers and elder brothers of this world, the rebels and the rulekeepers, the sinners and the Pharisees, not get on? Who can end the sibling rivalry? We meet another family member today; the True Elder Brother, who brings healing to our hearts.
Sibling rivalry is as old as time, the first murder in the Bible points to this paradigm. But is sibling rivalry really to blame for the stubbornness of the elder brother, or can he just not handle the reckless love of the Father?
'God, you're dead to me!' Whether you've said those words out loud, thought them in your head or just lived them through your actions, it could seem like that's the end of the story. If there is a God out there and we've told him to get stuffed then it might be all said and done. But Act 1 of the Prodigal God paints a different picture.
What is your initial reaction to Christianity? Intrigued, offended, disinterested?
What do these knee jerk reactions reveal about the state of our soul?
How does the Parable of the Prodigal God expose the truth of our hearts?
What does it mean to be prodigal? Is it just about running away and returning? Who really is the prodigal in Jesus' parable? Why do we keep coming back to this story again and again? This is the first talk in our series in Luke 15:11-32.
As 2021 begins at TRAC we may not be feeling that peaceful. Can we make ourselves peaceful, or is it always something only given?
What do we do with those awkward passages about God judging, slaughtering and condemning us? Should we skip over them? Could they actually be worth our time because of the gritted teeth comfort they bring us? Find out as we open up James 5:1-6. Full disclosure, I'm aware I have actually skipped over James 4:13-17! I'm saving that for next week!
You gotta serve somebody. You may think you're just serving yourself, but James reminds us today that it goes much deeper than just self-serving or self-sacrifice. When we are confronted with that reality it can makes us grieve, but God's grace turns our grief to joy!
As we begin a new and short series on James 4-5 we are considering some of the vital signs of the Christian faith. There should be stark and striking indicators in the life of the Christian, but they often appear in the most ordinary of places like our wallets, our calendars and our to do lists! Today we consider wealth and our wants.
2020 Fellowship Captains, Meg Graham and Rebecca Scott, have collaborated together once more to reflect on Psalm 13 and how David faced his experiences of suffering.
Are healthiness and happiness the same thing? Why do we naturally conflate happiness with how we feel, especially when the latest neuroscience suggests that the way our brains process our feelings are not always geared towards our best interests? What does God think about about our happiness in relation to our health? Can we find joy when we feel lousy? These questions we consider today as we consider Living with Sickness.
Who's to blame for my tooth decay? I may not be the best flosser, but tooth decay is ubiquitous amongst humanity, so is it really my fault? Who's to blame for the sickness of our world and what if we can't find the answer within our world? Today we consider the cause of our sickness as God sees it.
As we kick off a new term we are still in the grip of Corona chaos. We are very much surrounded by sickness and wishing that this illness would end. The good news is that it will end one day, along with all sickness and suffering. This term we will dive into the issues surrounding sickness and health to consider what God has to say about all of this, but we are going to start at the very end….
It’s fair to say that this term we’ve been a little critical of the disciples and their bumbling efforts to understand Jesus’ mission—even after his resurrection. Today as our series wraps up for Term 2, Peter the Apostle steps in to defend himself by hijacking Chapel.
Would you believe a story involving a kangaroo, a home invasion, a stray dog, an undercover cop and a baby? Maybe you’d believe some of the story, but not all of it, but what if believing required accepting the embarrassing details too? This is the vibe we can bring to the Ascension in Acts 1.
This week, TRAC’s Fellowship Captains, Meg Graham and Rebecca Scott combine forces to reconsider some of the misconceptions of Jesus’ Great Commission, and extract the key comforts of being accompanied to the very end of the age by the One who has all authority in heaven and on earth.
Why does Jesus ask Peter the same question three times? Is he hard of hearing? Peter gives the same answer three times. Is that answer wrong? Let's consider these question together in a poem of erratic measure!
When a big moment comes and goes how do you respond? Often we just go back to some sort of normality or mundane activity. We defrag while we do something on autopilot. Today we catch the disciples doing just that after their resurrection encounter with Jesus. Amidst this scene of normality they are reminded that even in the minutiae of life they need to be supplied by Christ.
Is seeing the only way to believing? Why does Jesus have scars and wounds on his resurrected body if he was into healing everyone else? And what's all this got to do with Mr Tyndall's yellow jacket? We'll see today that Jesus' scars continue to tell a story after Easter; a story which can be ours by believing.
What happened to Jesus after Easter? What's next? I get mixed responses to this question. Some students speak of him living on Earth till he grew old and then assuming he died like the rest of us. This seems to defeat the whole purpose of the resurrection doesn't it? As we start a new series in Chapel we'll consider that what comes next for Jesus is also what comes next for us.
As COVID-19 grinds everything to a halt, we are forced to take a break at Easter. But are we really at rest during this time of isolation or are we still all worked up? Today we consider the rest from work that God experienced after creating the universe and how the quest for real rest brings us to the foot of the cross.
Ruling and subduing our planet seems to come as second nature to humans, but how does that rule sit with our sinful nature? Even more vexing is that COVID-19 has made us feel ever more at the mercy of nature. How can Christ both restore our rule and our planet? We consider these questions in the penultimate talk in our Chapel series in Genesis 1.
The origin of humanity is a topic we treat with little to no scepticism these days. We assume we're just smoother, smarter monkeys. But should we be so nonchalant about our origins? Do our origins affect our future? What does the resurrection have to say on this matter too? This was the first of our Chapels to be streamed live on YouTube. You can check out the video here.
It's a basic feature of Christian belief that sin leads to death, but what was life like before there was sin? Particularly, as we consider Days 5 and 6 of Genesis 1 were animals dying? Did they eat one another and does that matter?
The Chicken and the Egg paradigm is nothing new, in fact some people see a similar problem that goes all the way back to the Genesis account. This is especially the case with Difficult Day 4. How can God create the sun after he has already created light? This seems baffling and backwards...
If the plant in the the Tyndall's living room dies is that bad? Is our natural world really as indifferent as we've been led to naturally believe? God doesn't think so, as we'll see on Day 3 of Creation. From bushfires and drought to dinosaurs and wombats, we'll see that there might just be more to the simplistic argument about the blind, pitiless indifference of nature.
As we arrive at Day 2 of God’s creative work we can begin to ask questions about whether the description God gives fits with what we now know about our world. Things might not always be as they seem, but can they still seem that way? We’ll hear what a toddler, Forrest Gump and Jesus Christ all think about this question of interpretation.
When I studied journalism at uni my media theory lecturer asked us what the most ubiquitous form of information in our country was. We argued over the prevalence of radio, print and TV (the Internet was only just becoming a thing then….sigh), but our lecturer replied that light was the most pervasive source of information. Funnily enough, my lecturer had tapped into a biblical truth that God revealed on Day 1.
It’s funny how easily we write off what we haven’t read. As God’s creative masterpiece in Genesis 1 gets underway we read afresh what we might have written off, without reading more than God gives us to read.
The opening talk for 2020 at TRAC. This term we will be thinking slowly through Genesis 1 to see what we can learn about our planet, ourselves and our God.