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WORD FROM THE EDITOR IN CELEBRATING the 44th anniversary of becoming an independent nation, we give thanks to God for the marvellous way in which this island republic has been able to weather the many challenges that we have faced and successfully overcome. at Singapore has taken its place as one of the newly-developed nations […]

R E F L E C T I O N S BY REV GABRIEL LIEW IMAGINE. It was Thanksgiving and the preacher was ready to begin. He stepped up to the pulpit, cleared his throat, “Ahem” and began. He said, “Let us give thanks, for our marvellous bodies, for legs that walk and run, for […]

FOR spiritual refreshment I have been reading the book, A Basket of Fragments, by Robert Murray M’Cheyne (Christian Focus Publications). M’Cheyne died when he was 29 years old. That is less than the time I have been in vocational (so-called “full-time”) ministry! But I am amazed by the spiritual depth I find in his writings […]

‘Christians are commanded to submit themselves to the authority of the state that seeks to do the will of God by promoting justice and peace.’ What should be the Christian perspective on the secular State? PERHAPS the best place to begin one’s reflection on what might be called a Christian theology of the state is […]

CAN a person be rich, powerful and yet unhappy? Well, Zaccheus was such a man. But why was Zaccheus not happy? Firstly, could it be that he was socially alienated? You see, he was a tax collector. He collected taxes from the Jewish people for the occupying Roman empire. In the eyes of the nationalists, […]

  RECENTLY a cousin called me to pick my brains, so she said. She has been going to this particular Methodist Church for a number of years and one day, happened to pick up a Bible from the pew. On the inside page, it read “Property of xxx Methodist Church. Please do not remove.” It […]

  JENNY, a mother of three teenagers, recently expressed to me her fear that both her daughter and son seemed to be flirting with things that were harmful to their spiritual health. I asked her what made her think this. She said that both had come home with the smell of cigarettes on their clothing […]

ONE of the sad facts that any youth ministry faces is the number of people who were active in God’s work in their youth who are now not active in service or completely backslidden. Youth for Christ (YFC) has had to face this fact and admit with sorrow that many who were active with us […]

SOME years ago, Duke University gave an honorary degree to High Thompson. On March 16, 1968, Thompson, a young helicopter pilot, was flying on patrol over the countryside of Vietnam. When he and his crew flew over the village of My Lai, they saw a nightmare below them. The United States Army troops, under the constant pressure of danger and the madness of war, […]

Global Warning: Local Acting WHEN we were preparing to leave the United States after completing our studies, our friends asked us, “What will you miss about the States when you return to Singapore?” Our reply was, “Apart from friends and the four seasons, we will miss the recycling bins!” We had developed the practice of […]

ON ONE occasion when John Wesley was feeling particularly exasperated at the way things had developed at Kingswood, the school he founded near Bristol, he exclaimed: “I will have a Christian school or I will have no school at all.” What is a Christian school? When we describe the ACS schools as Christian schools what […]

It simply warns against confounding these images with God Are Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians disobeying the second commandment when they use images and icons in worship? THERE is no consensus on the interpretation of Exodus 20:4-6. Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians maintain that these verses refer not to Christian icons but pagan idols. According to […]