Daily reflections

Jesus called 12 men to follow him and become the nucleus of the Church. They were, to put it mildly, a ragtag bunch – fishermen, a tax collector and possibly even a terrorist among them. We don't know how he chose them, but...

This chapter contains Jesus' Sermon on the Plain (verse 17), Luke's version of Matthew's Sermon on the Mount. It begins, though, with two stories about the Sabbath. Sabbath-keeping was – and is – one of the marks of an...

The story of Jesus' encounter at Simon's house is very moving, and very challenging. A meal for guests at that time, perhaps held in an open courtyard, would have been more accessible to uninvited strangers than it would be...

Yesterday’s passage, Luke 7, ended with Jesus showing respect to a woman of ill repute.  Chapter 8 picks up where chapter 7 left off. Tormented and marginalised by disease and spiritual affliction, a number of women are...

Chapter 9 starts off Jesus’ journey from the rural province of Galilee to the spiritual capital, Jerusalem. As he travels through a region called Samaria, some of his disciples who have gone ahead into a village are rejected...

Luke continues his ‘Samaritan theme’. In yesterday’s passage they were the baddies. Today we read about a Samaritan helping a Jew in need. People can behave both badly like the unwelcoming Samaritan villagers in chapter...

Like Matthew, Luke includes the Lord’s Prayer in his Gospel but, unlike Matthew, he immediately adds a number of parables about God’s character.

By the time Luke wrote his account, the Gospel message had begun to spread and cause controversy. Imagine a Jewish convert hanging out with the Jesus sect on a Sunday, suggesting to his family that yesterday’s Sabbath worship...

In a rapidly shifting world, calls for strong leadership have been on the increase and, in some cases, they’re altering the political landscape beyond recognition. The issue is, what if the strong leader you called for begins...