Word on Wednesday with John Mason

God has built into the universe, laws, the regularities we observe. However, these laws don't prevent him from intervening, if he chooses to create an irregularity which we call a miracle. Jesus performed his first miracle at a wedding in the small village of Cana in Galilee, when he turned water into wine. He did this for a bigger purpose than simply resolving an embarrassed bridegroom's dilemma. This miracle in John's Gospel is the first of the 7 signs revealing Jesus' true identity.

Despite the 2009 campaign by Atheism UK - There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life - people are still looking for answers to life's meaning because they are depressed, isolated and disillusioned. Many thinking people are now asking if their worldview needs to be reviewed.

Despite advertising and promotion by the atheist society in the UK, people are still disillusioned with life, depressed and alienated. Many are re-assessing their lives and philosophy of life which has resulted in an increased interest in Christianity.

In January 2009, the atheist society in the UK ran a campaign on London buses. The slogan read: There's Probably No God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life. However, people are still disappointed with life, depressed, lonely and disillusioned and many are re-thinking their philosophy of life. They are wondering if their worldview needs to be reviewed.

In 2009 the atheist society in the UK ran a campaign on London buses with the slogan: There's Probably No God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life. However people are still depressed, disappointed with life, lonely and disillusioned, so many are reassessing their philosophy of life. This podcast discusses some of these issues with reference to John's Gospel, chapter 1.

In January 2009 Atheism UK ran an advertising campaign on London buses. It read: There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life. Despite this, people are disappointed with life, depressed, lonely and disillusioned. Thinking people are now asking if their worldview needs to be reviewed.

How often do we express our gratitude to the LORD? Do we wake up in the morning and go to bed at night with thanksgiving in our heart and praise on our lips? This podcast encourages us to be thankful with the words of Psalm 95 which begins: ' O come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!'

For the first three hundred years or so after Jesus' death and resurrection, his followers were regularly persecuted under Roman rule. Yet they were called up to pray for their leaders as people whom God had provided for the good order and protection of society in a fallen world.Do we criticize our leaders? Or do we pray for them?

A criticism of Christianity that constantly arises is over the question of suffering in the world. It's one of the toughest to answer for anyone who believes that God now only exists but is also all-powerful and all-compassionate. This podcast, includes a reflection on Psalm 13.

Who Am I? Is this a question you ask? Have you found the answer? This reflection on Psalm 8 comes up with a surprising answer.

God's people are regularly mocked for their faith. Psalm 2 alerts us to the plotting of men and women against God.

Are you ever resentful of successful people who post their lavish lifestyles on social media: their achievements, perfect family and exotic vacations? Is this really the epitome of life? Or is there something more? Psalm 1 takes us to the two choices we have.

To be happy is something we long for. But how can we achieve it? Psalm 1 helps us find the key to being happy.

How can we weather the challenges of our changing and uncertain world? Find encouragement in this reflection on a profound prayer of the Apostle Paul in Ephesians chapter 3

What does Jesus expect of everyone who believes? A third part of Jesus' prayer in John chapter 17 provides the answer to this question.

To say that Jesus is the only way to God seems very narrow-minded. The story of Jesus is woven around a virgin birth and miracles. The greater part of Jesus' prayer in John chapter 17 focuses on. his disciples and their significant role in the promotion. of God's good news.

Are your prayers all about you? Are they like Christopher Robin's bedtime prayers - God bless ... God bless ... ? Listen to this week's podcast on Jesus' prayer in John chapter 17 and be encouraged in the focus of your prayer life.

How often are your prayers prompted by your meditation on God's Word? In Daniel chapter 9 we find Daniel confessing not only his own sin, but also the sins of God's people. And he then asks God to honour his promises to the people of Israel.

Do you have any regrets? You may regret words you let rip and can't take back, or a relationship you should never have started. Listen to this reflection on Psalm 51, where David expresses his guilt to God following his adultery with Bathsheba.

Is there anything we can do that might make a difference in our world, where daily the news seems to get worse?Listen to this reflection on a prayer of Moses found in Numbers chapter 14.

Do you ever feel alone, isolated from people and from God? Find encouragement in this week's podcast looking at the words of Psalms 42 and 43.

What can shake us out of our apathy and fear and make us an intrepid people? Listen afresh to the events of the Pentecost following the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Porocity is an important aspect of the world around us and to our own life and well-being. However there is another dimenstion to porocity: the porocity of the universe. Find out more in this week's podcast.

Porocity is an important aspect of the world around us and to our own life and well-being. However we tend to overlook the fact of the porocity of the universe - the non-material supernatural dimension of existence, beyond the space-time material world that is capable of movement within the material universe. Find out more in this week's podcast.

In a culture which ignores or rejects transcendental truth, the fact of Jesus' resurrection from the dead gives us hope.

The orthodox Christian creeds state that 'we believe in the resurrection of the body and life everlasting'. How can this be? Paul the Apostle answers our question in 1 Corinthians chapter 15.

How do we face a broken world where any day, we might unexpectedly die?

If the resurrection of Jesus is the foundation of the Christian faith, why is the cross the symbol of Christianity and not an empty tomb?

It is imperative that we think about the truth ad reality of the resurrection. If it is true, then our lives gain meaning and purpose.

It is imperative that we ask whether the account of Jesus' resurrection is an invention. If it is true, it is life-changing.

Jesus' death was not the end of a heroic life but the inauguration of a new age. This is God's extraordinary gift and for those of us who have received it, a legacy we want to share.

Despite humanity's progress in science and technology, human wisdom has not found a solution for lasting and just peace.

Vindictiveness, anger and lack of forgiveness pervade our society. How can we respond?

Augustine of Hippo, North Africa, one of the great minds of the late Roman Empire, wrestled with the notion of God and the question of evil, before coming to believe that Jesus Christ is truly the Son of God. He writes in his Confessions that as a young adult his prayer was, “God, give me chastity and self-control, but not yet”. One day when he was reading in a garden, he heard a young child’s voice singing, Tolle lege; tolle lege – ‘Take up, read; take up, read.’ He had been reading Paul the Apostle’s Letter to the Romans. Going back to the place where he had left the text, his eyes fell on the words in chapter 13: Let us live honourably as in the day, not in revelling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarrelling and jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires. As he read, he found the solution to his heart’s longing. “How sweet did it suddenly become to me to be free of the sweets of folly: things that I once feared to lose, it was now joy to put away. You (Lord) cast them forth from me, … and in their stead you entered in, sweeter than every pleasure…” (Confessions VIII) Paul’s advice in Romans, chapter 13 is similar to what we find in the first section of Colossians, chapter 3. There Paul writes, Since you have been raised to a new life in Christ, set your hearts and minds on the things above…And in verse 5 he says: Put to death therefore what belongs to your earthly nature… It is because of the new relationship that God’s people have with the risen Lord Jesus that Paul exhorts us to adopt a new lifestyle that reflects the goodness of God. Everything we think and say and do is to be framed by our new identity. Paul touches on three important areas of our behavior: sex, speech and relationships. Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. Passions. If you know the Lord Jesus, Paul is saying, then sex is for marriage only. ‘You used to do what you wanted to do,’ he says, ‘but now having linked yourself with the Lord, put to death such behaviour.’ People often argue that they are ‘making love’, but with his reference to greed in this context, he is saying that it is really lust. In recent years studies suggest that the internet is having a negative impact on marriages. People are so consumed by it, especially pornography, that they have less time and inclination for their marriage partner. What a strange paradox: ogling at pictures more than enjoying the precious gift of the personal, intimate sexual relationship in marriage. As Augustine came to realize, God is not interested in spoiling our fun. Rather, we are reminded, that as our Maker, God has a good and wonderful purpose for us in marriage. Paul frames his exhortation here in the context that we have died and been raised with Christ. When we feel the impact of this, the desires of our hearts will change. We will see the rightness and true joy in living out the Lord’s good plan for us in a committed and faithful marriage – one where there is forgiveness and renewal. Paul also speaks about the tongue: But now you must get rid of all such things—anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practicesand have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator. It seems strange that Paul writes about controlling the tongue in the same context as he writes about sex. What we forget is that the New Testament sees the tongue as our most sin prone organ. In his Letter, James says that the tongue is a restless evil. You may think that to get on in life you need to express yourself with vehemence and an edgy vocabulary. But malice, obscenity and anger constantly damage and destroy relationships. Sometimes people tell me that nobody likes a saint: they’re so self-righteous. But to say this is to forget what true humanity is. To be truly human is to be like Jesus. Let me ask, ‘Do you get the impression that he was a dull, anaemic personality?’ He was man as men and women are meant to be. Which brings us to Paul’s further exhortation – about relationships: In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all! Here in Colossians, chapter 3, verse 11 Paul tells us that we need to recognize the unity we have in Christ and, in turn, provide a picture to the world of God’s new society. One of the significant features of New Testament Christianity was the breakdown of racial and cultural barriers – not least between Jewish and non-Jewish Christians. Paul’s words set the agenda of unity across the social and racial divisions for God’s people. Yes, we’ll disappoint one another, we won’t always be as tolerant as we should be, we won’t always

Where do we find life and light in the darkness of our world?

What can we do when we feel spiritually dry; when our Christian life and walk seem automatic and we feel far away from God? The Apostle Paul, writing in chapter 2 of Colossians, helps provide the answer.

From Captivity to Liberty through the Cross.

What's life all about? Is it meaningless? Ecclesiastes now gives the answer: 'Fear God and keep his commandments'. We're not alone and there is a purpose to all our toil and to our lives. And we find it when we acknowledge our Creator God, the Father of the Lord Jesus.

If we're working hard, denying ourself in order to amass money, property and prestige for ourselves, what's the point of it all? The more we get, the more we want. What's the solution?

Ecclesiastes chapter 3 asks us if life, with all its different seasons, is meaningless and a burden, or whether there is a purpose to it all.

Is life really a mist, a chasing after the wind, meaningless? The writer of Ecclesiastes asks this question. But he also has an answer.

The main purpose of a minister - according to Paul - is to make the word of God fully known.

How should we pray for ourselves and for others? Here are Paul's words: '... asking that you may be filled with all spiritual wisdom and understanding'. Knowing God and knowing how to live.

With all the chaos in our world, we might wonder about the future. But it is possible to know 'comfort and joy'.

How easily we miss the thrill of hope that the birth of Jesus brings.

What is life all about? Where do we look for answers?

In his book, The Right Questions (2002), the late Phillip Johnson wrote that at the heart of the cultural changes today is the sharp divergence between two very different world views: the Christian view that states (as in John 1:1-4): “In the beginning was the Word…”; and scientific materialism that says, “In the beginning were the particles” (p.136). (Phillip Johnson was Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley for over thirty years.) In an earlier chapter in his book, he observed that “In the beginning was the Word” is dismissed as a ‘non-cognitive utterance of religion’ and therefore one that cannot be evaluated in terms of ‘true or false’ (p.63). On the other hand, he also draws attention to an unquestioned assumption that stands behind scientific naturalism, namely that ‘the laws and the particles existed, and that these two things plus chance had to do all the creating’ (p.64). In this context Johnson points out that everyone needs to ask ‘the right questions’; especially with respect to the assumptions that stand behind scientific materialism. For example, he draws attention to President Clinton’s announcement in June 2000 with the breakthrough in understanding the human genome: “Today, we are learning the language in which God created life, we are gaining ever more awe for the complexity, the beauty, the wonder of God’s most divine and sacred gift” (p.37). And Francis Collins, the scientific director of the government’s Human Genome Project, said: “It is humbling for me and awe-inspiring to realize that we have caught the first glimpse of our instruction book, previously known only to God” (p.38). Johnson comments that both statements ‘seem to say that the genome research actually supports the view that a supernatural mind designed the instructions that guide the immensely complex biochemical processes of life’. He also notes the negative implications, namely that ‘Clinton and Collins seemed to be repudiating the central claim of evolutionary naturalism, which is that exclusively natural causes like chance and physical law produced all the features of life…’ (p.38). Yet he also notes that most leading biologists reject the notion of God and God’s involvement. But can the clear statements of John 1:1-2 be easily dismissed as a crutch for those who need such a foundation for life? In the beginning was the Word, we read, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God… And in John 1:14 we learn, And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. In his Prologue John the Gospel writer speaks of the pre-existence of the Word of God. From all eternity the Word has been enthroned in the magnificence of the glory of heaven. But Joh also speaks of the incarnation of the Word: he is a Person who took up residence with us. The Word incarnate was full of grace and truth, John tells us. We have seen his glory, he testifies. John was either spinning a falsehood or witnessing to a truth that is beyond human invention. Indeed, The Gospel of John, together with the other three Gospels, reveals a transcendent figure. The esteemed ancient historian Dr Edwin Judge once commented: ‘An ancient historian has no problem seeing the phenomenon of Jesus as an historical one. … The writings that sprang up about Jesus also reveal to us a movement of thought and an experience of life so unusual that something much more substantial than the imagination is needed to explain it’. Furthermore, Paul the Apostle in his Letter to the Colossians, chapter 1, verse 5, speaks of the gospel as the word of the truth. He could have left out any reference to the words the truth, but he doesn’t. He wants to stress that the Christian message is true. Paul’s words reflect not only the words of the Gospel of John but also those of Luke who states that he had verified his account of Jesus Christ with eyewitnesses (Luke 1:1-2). Strange as it may seem the Bible accounts of Jesus are verifiable and true. Over the years the Christian church has been criticised for taking a western religion to other cultures. But what we often forget is that Christianity is not a western faith. Its origins are in the Middle-East. More significant is the point that Paul makes in Colossians, chapter 1, verses 6 and 7: the Christian gospel is for all the world. All this brings us back to the question of knowledge. When we ask the right questions we discern that there are some essential assumptions that undergird scientific or philosophical naturalism – assumptions that cannot be tested and which require a step of faith. On the other hand, the step of faith in the statement that there is a creator God, is not a blind step. Its essence is grounded in a verifiable historical figure – Jesus. This is the Jesus Christ to whom the believers in Colossae had responded. He brings us the good news that we need to embrace ourselves and introduce othe

Dr John Lennox, Emeritus Professor Oxford University, observes, "To the majority of those who have reflected deeply and written about the origin and nature of the universe, it has seemed that it points beyond itself to a source which is non-physical and of great intelligence and power."

Thanksgiving has its origins in a non-sectarian expression of. 'thanks' to a loving, merciful and generous God.The podcast is asking us whether we have a heart of thanksgiving towards the God who has been kind and generous to us in so many unexpected and undeserved ways.

Paul continues his address at the Areopagus in Athens, quoting Greek poets and leading in to introducing the God of creation in whose image we are all made.