Daily reflections

Job seems overwhelmed as he ends his speech. Life is short and full of trouble; it withers like a flower; it’s as fleeting as a shadow (verses 1–2). Why does God bother to notice him when his life seems so insignificant...

Eliphaz the Temanite has heard Job’s words, but it’s clear he hasn’t accepted them. When it comes to understanding God’s ways, he thinks he’s got it nailed and no matter what evidence Job puts forward, he’s not...

There’s no comfort in the words of Job’s friends, who insist on seeing his suffering as a sign of his guilt. Neither defending himself nor staying silent alleviate his situation. It does seem like God is his enemy.

Corinth had a reputation throughout the Roman Empire for being a particularly immoral city, prone to all kinds of sexual licence. In Paul's day it may have been no worse than any other seaport, but mud sticks. In 1 Corinthians...

Paul was writing at a time when the idea that people's bodies were in any way sacrosanct had very little traction. Slavery was normal. People's physical appetites were there to be satisfied – 'Food is for the stomach and...

This chapter is sometimes mined for its teaching about marriage. But step back from the details, and what strikes us is its common-sense approach not just to marriage, but to living faithfully in the world as it is. Perhaps...

At first glance, a passage about food sacrificed to idols might not have much to say to twenty-first century readers. In Paul's time, animals would routinely have been dedicated to a particular god or goddess when they were...

In this chapter, Paul is stressing his absolute focus on fulfilling the mission God has given him. It would be perfectly reasonable and right, he says, for him to be supported in his work by the churches and to live a normal...

At the beginning of this chapter, Paul goes back into Israelite history to make a point about responsibility. As the people wandered in the wilderness after leaving Egypt, they repeatedly sinned against God, and suffered accordingly...