Topic: Authority

Reading scripture with God’s people keeps us honest as we seek to interpret and live by God’s law written on our hearts.

Following the living Jesus is the pathway to healing, integrity and life, and sometimes it comes into conflict with “following the Bible”.

Rather than close the book on who can and cannot be accepted into the church, the Bible calls us to follow Jesus on a path of continually expanding inclusion.

God invites us to live joyously, boldly and freely in the midst of mystery, but we are frequently tempted to grasp for something more tangible and certain.

The marriage equality debate raises questions about authority, but prophetic authority is not proved by fidelity to past rules, but by its power to produce a harvest of new life and love among the people.

Jesus does not burden us with crippling moral expectations, but humbly takes our burdens on himself and frees us to relax into the life of God.

God is all ready to heal and free us, but organised religion is not always so quick to agree.

Being a follower of Jesus means honouring his authority by following his teachings and his example (something that has become surprisingly rare).

The foundation of our faith is in a living Christ who enables us to understand the Bible, rather than in a Bible that enables us to understand a dead Christ.

The reading of scripture is one of the most important places where God has promised to become present and known to us.

Jesus is angered by our trivialising of religion that inoculates us against the claims of a holy God, and calls us to clean out the crassness and commercialism and approach God on God’s terms.

Jesus meets us with not just words of hope, but with actions of authority and integrity.