Matthew 16:24 – No, Jesus isn’t going to take up your cross for you
In this blog I’m going to write about one of those pesky verses in the gospels that we all know is there yet it’s often easier to pretend it isn’t,…
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Michael Hallett
55 posts
Exodus 20:5 – Original sin = generational trauma
When I was growing up, one of the things that really bothered me about Christianity (aside from corporal punishment at a Catholic primary school in Switzerland) was the doctrine of…
Matthew 7 – Seeing God through a cracked lens
There are two trees in the Garden: The Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The trees are metaphors for the way we live, work,…
Matthew 6:33 – What is the Kingdom of Heaven?
If the message of Jesus had to be summed in one phrase, one of my contenders would be Matthew 6:33, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven.” Arguably, Jesus’ primary…
Matthew 7:3 – What you judge in others reflects what you judge in yourself
Judgment is one of the great themes of the Bible. It contains many passages referring to both individual and collective judgment. But what does it mean? Why do we judge?…
John 2 – God is uncompromising; you must be too
The second instalment of this New Earth 101 series is about the need to be uncompromising. We all struggle with change. At the same time, we often want change or…
Matthew 10 – The truth is always unacceptable
“You can see the speck in your friend’s eye, but you don’t notice the log in your own eye.” (Matthew 7:3) It’s one of many truth bombs that litter the…
New Earth tools #22 – Play
I’m concluding this series on New Earth emotional tools with what may seem an unlikely tool: play. What kind of bizarre tool is play? Surely, that’s the world of children,…
New Earth tools #21 – Honouring
Honouring? Eh? What kind of a tool is that? A very powerful one. Many years ago, when I was a young man, I left New Zealand on my own on…
New Earth tools #20 – Fortitude
The ongoing coronavirus epidemic and the resulting lockdowns have placed us under new pressures and brought new qualities to light. The quality I’d like to discuss today is fortitude. The…