Peter Barnes

It seems that there is but one topic of conversation these days: COVID-19. If we are not suffering from the virus, we must be suffering from fatigue as a result of news about the virus. Nevertheless, it might be worthwhile for us to make some points about the Christian response to the threat of plague. […]

It seems that we are constantly swamped with the great issues of the day – droughts, then fires, then floods, then plague. The history of the world can be read as the history of one crisis following another. Actually, it is all a reflection of the truth that life, for all its wonders, consists also

Dr Samuel Johnson is supposed to have written to a hopeful would-be author: ‘Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.’ One can sympathise with the sentiment. Everyone has written on the coronavirus, and the main points that

In any society the legal system plays an important role in steering people in the way we should treat one another. Increasingly, in modern Western societies, those who seek to maintain the legal system have become as dangerous as those who break it. The proposal for a Religious Discrimination Bill is a case in point.

Stuart Briscoe once noted: ‘Qualifications of a pastor: the mind of a scholar, the heart of a child, and the hide of a rhinoceros.’ In fact, they come close to describing what all Christians need to possess in this modern age. Jeremiah wept for the condition of Judah in the sixth century BC (Jer.9:1), and

There is an episode in the book of Daniel where a man – presumably an angel – appeared to the prophet, and addresses him as ‘O Daniel, man greatly loved’ (Dan.10:11). Not many human beings receive such direct revelation of heaven’s declared love for them. Not surprisingly, Daniel himself seems to have been lost for

Some readers may have struggled with the drought for years, and now, especially in NSW and Queensland, may be confronted with the more immediate threat of fire. Television brings the story to the wider population, but it tends to have a deadening effect too. To watch uncontrolled fire for a minute, then sit through an

The apostle Jude said that he was very eager to write on one subject – our common salvation – when he found it necessary to write against who were assailing the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3). In his case, it was a matter of divine inspiration; in my