“Herein is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” (1 John 4:10)

“Love is love” is a slogan with a silent, unanswered question. It does not actually tell us what love is. It does not answer the question, “But what is love?”

Professor of Economics at the University of Essex, Sonia Bhalotra has written a shocking article this month, exposing the horror of the link between world gold prices and the rate of female infanticide and sex selection abortion of girls in India. When world gold prices go up, fewer girl babies in India survive their first month of life, and there is a significant correlated improvement in the survival of boys.

Dan Flynn the ACL Victorian State Director recently told us that he saw his first fly for the season and rejoiced because summer was on the way. He shared a portion from Song of Songs 

…not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

To read scripture is to encounter a way of thinking that stands in stark contrast to that of our world.

It’s difficult to come up with a more controversial topic than gender.

The controversy is not limited to the public square. It is the same in the church.

But I’ll never forget the insight of a wise friend of mine. He observed that, if the Australian church were to undergo widespread revival, these matters “would no longer be controversies to be avoided, but glories to be discovered.”

The last several days have been remarkable with our new Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, making some serious waves—and headlines.

These words are not common anymore.

We tend to prefer more palatable alternatives like brokenness. Addictions. Mistakes. Errors. Regrets. Idolatry.

The numbing of our vocabulary around sin and evil has been accompanied by numbed attitudes.

“When a nation sins, it will have one ruler after another. But with a man of wisdom and understanding, its stability will long continue.” (Prov 28:2)

With its startling contemporary relevance, a verse like this reminds me of a truth I discovered some years ago.

It is this: scripture contains the first principles of everything we need to know for life in this world.

It’s even there for Prime Ministers.

In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.

Logos was not a new word when the Apostle John used it to refer to the second person of the Trinity.

What do we worship?

If aliens from another planet were to conduct a research expedition to earth, tasked with answering this question, what would they come up with?

They might ask people, but I doubt the answers would match up with what the aliens saw all around them. Various gods would be offered up as objects of worship. Some would say, “I’m spiritual, just not religious.” Others would claim to worship nothing.

But the evidence speaks louder than words.