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Dear Margaret I think the first thing you should do is take a step back and relax (not easy, I know). Your grand-niece sounds like a fairly normal unbeliever, and not especially sinful. A lot of the things you comment on are not even anti-Christian. Many devout Christian women have short...

15 Jesus’ mission Read Luke 4:16-21, 18:31-33 Why did Jesus come? His own understanding of his mission is partly laid out in the sermon he preached in his home town of Nazareth. He was the King promised by the prophet Isaiah, and he had come for the marginalised, the ‘nobodies’ of the...

14 Jesus is God Read John 14:1-11 One objection to the Christian faith is that “Jesus himself never claimed to be God” - implying that this was an idea dreamed up by his followers many hundreds of years later. And yet many of Jesus’ statements about himself are startlingly egocentric...

13 Jesus’ miracles Read Luke 7:18-23 Jesus soon acquired a mass following - not only because of his teaching, but also because he performed miracles. Most of these were miracles of healing. Many people claim to be “faith healers”, of course; but Jesus’ success rate was so phenomenal that he...

12 Jesus’ teaching Read Matthew 5:21-48 Jesus first came to public attention as a travelling preacher. But his approach was very different to the professional rabbis of the time. He put forward his own personal interpretation of the Jewish Law - and he demanded an extraordinarily high...

11 The consequences of sin Read Ephesians 5:3-6 God’s original intention for the human race was that we should not die, but live in his presence and enjoy fellowship with him for ever. But when the first humans sinned, they lost their automatic right to immortality. And all their...

10 Who’s in charge of your life? Read Job 21:7-15 Cnut (Canute) was king of England for 20 years during the early 11th century. It is said that, egged on by his flattering courtiers, he once placed his throne on a beach and commanded the tide not to come in. Of course, the sea took no...

9 What drives you? Read Romans 1:20-23 About 37% of people in England and Wales claim to have “no religion” - but if the true God is pushed out of our lives, something else inevitably takes his place. You may not recognise or acknowledge it as a ‘god’, but in our personal scale of...

8 Sin Read Mark 7:21-23 These days, most people believe that human beings are fundamentally good, and that if we do go wrong, it’s because of our parents, or bad childhood experiences, or something like that. But Jesus taught the exact opposite (Matthew 7:11)! We’re certainly capable of...

7 The Great Rebellion Read Genesis 3 Human beings are not robots; we are free agents. We can therefore choose, either to obey God or to disobey him. As we go through life, we have to deal with a vast number of moral choices, big and small. But for the purposes of this story, all are fused...

6 The first human beings Read Genesis 1:26-28 God has always wanted co-workers. The world that he created was inherently good, but it still needed on-the-ground management to keep it on the right track and enable it to fulfil its potential. Enter human beings. From a purely biological...

5 God’s eternal plan Read Genesis 12:1-5 What are we doing here? God originally made the universe as a means of displaying his glory. Things haven’t gone smoothly (which is largely mankind’s fault); but God’s plans can never be frustrated (Isaiah 46:10). He is now working to bring peace...

Good point. I must get that in somewhere.

4 What is God really like? Read Exodus 33:18-34:8 It’s very easy to get the wrong ideas about God. Some people think of him as being like an indulgent grandfather: old-fashioned and a bit out of touch with the modern world, but generous and kind to everybody. Others think of him as a sort...

The 'head covering' spoken of in the Bible wasn't a hat but a veil (like the hijab) covering the hair. I don't know about it being the "norm" for women to wear hats up until the 1960s - I have an old photo of my Mum walking down a street hatless in 1950. And although my 1960s school uniform...

3 God reveals himself Read Exodus 3:1-15 God is the Maker of the universe, not part of it. We can’t see him or touch him. We can’t reach him by travelling (not even into space!), and we can’t discover him through scientific investigation. So it’s very easy to get the wrong ideas about God...

No, I explained that Jesus actually meant something different

I don't see how that makes Jesus a liar. It's true - if we don't forgive, we suffer consequences.

The New Testament was written in Greek because Greek was the "lingua franca" of that part of the Roman Empire (everyone spoke it, a bit like English today), and the New Testament was written for all nations - not just the Jews. By that time even the Jews no longer spoke Hebrew as a first...

Why?