An Aid to Reading the Bible

Embark on a clarifying journey through the scriptures with Genesis to Leviticus, the inaugural volume in the fresh series, ‘An Aid to Reading the Bible.’ Crafted for devout readers and seekers alike, this guide aims to shed light on the text and context of the Bible’s initial three books, enhancing your scriptural voyage.

Utilizing a streamlined bullet-point format, and enriched with insightful notes from The Bible for Today (1941), this concise companion intricately navigates through each chapter of Genesis, Exodus, and Leviticus. While not a commentary, it’s tailored to accompany any Bible version of your choice, serving as a lens to magnify the profound wisdom nestled within the sacred verses.

This book invites you to delve deeper, fostering a richer understanding and engagement with the divine narratives. Whether a seasoned Bible reader or embarking on your spiritual exploration, this guide is a beacon, illuminating the path through the timeless tales and teachings of the scriptures.

Psalms Together: Continuing the Journey of Faith

This book follows the book Psalms Together: A Journey of Faith which covered the first 92 Psalms. This book continues the journey of Faith through the Psalms from Psalm 95 to Psalm 150. It is part of a bible study series which began in March 2020 at the beginning of the Covid Lockdown and was completed in March 2022. The chapters are composed of different Psalms which were adapted to encourage further study. The Psalms are such a blessing to read and study as they share many different experiences with the reader. Each chapter title is about the different aspects of continuing the journey of faith with the Psalms.

The book is written in an easy conversational style to encourage each reader to respond to the Lord in what they are reading, learning, and applying in the daily lives of faith. It is hoped that the different human emotions, struggles, mind tangles, difficulties, joy, and delight found in these Psalms will encourage the reader to find faith, hope and peace in the Lord as they read and study.

May the Psalms: Together Continuing the Journey of Faith bring much blessing and a unique experience from the Lord to each reader on their individual journeys of Faith.

Religion and its Origins in Human Psychology: A View through History

In an era of scientific dominance, why does religion still maintain an unshakeable grip over so many lives, dramatically impacting world events? Why did humanity first develop religious constructs and institutions? How has our relationship with the divine evolved over civilisation’s history? This book chronicles religion’s enduring role across millennia - its profound shaping of both individuals and societies. Reviewing psychological theories, it explores the evolution of our inherent need to interact with gods and the supernatural. Religion was our original “science” - humanity’s first response to the natural world and our place within it.

Since then, two major transitions have revolutionised our religious approach. First, the emergence of teachers like Zoroaster, Jesus and Mohammed introduced personal and social accountability. Today, science and nationalism inherit many attributes once exclusive to faiths. Throughout history, religion also empowered rulers who claimed special divine sanction to exert authority and wage war. Despite an uneasy coexistence with science, religion perseveres because it continues answering profound human requirements at personal and collective levels.

This is the innate legacy that ensures religion’s hold over life and world affairs is unlikely to ever diminish.

Lessons for Living

God has set the stage for our life story to be acted out on and with the gift of a free will, it’s up to each of us to decide what role we want to play; wilderness wanderers as the Israelites of ancient times, so close to the Promised Land yet not permitted to enter; or a believer in God’s eternal promises fulfilled in Christ. There are only two options.

God does have a plan for humanity; he has set forth a calendar, established a timetable; and we all live along that timetable, somewhere from its beginning, to the end of all human rule on Earth. He needs each of us to start again spiritually, to become willing participants in the inward transformation of our disposition, ready for the day to come.

Becoming a Christian is easy. Maintaining the claim that Christ lives in you will be the most challenging, life-changing experience. How do we change our inner self to take on Christlikeness? How do we react in times when our faith is put to the test; - times of unknowables, those things sometimes beyond the limits of human experience or understanding?

The primary purpose of this book is to introduce the real God, because if we seek a relationship with him, we must think of it in terms of a valuable human relationship. There needs to be a degree of attractiveness; we need to share similar values as God possesses to even begin to flourish and grow.

The Want Book

When asked, “what did you learn at Sunday School today”, my four-year old daughter replied, “Just another fairy tale about Jesus.” I suddenly realized I could not teach what I did not understand clearly myself. The verse, Mathew 7:7,8, came to mind. Thus, began my lifelong search to find universal truths in all the world’s respected religions.

I wanted to know how to explain and teach logically the mysteries and wonder of life to children in our multicultural society. This book is the result of my efforts.

You Better Stand Your Watch - A Call To Being A Spiritual Leader In The Workplace

The surge of spirituality in the workplace is not necessarily about religion, but about sharing an inner desire to find meaning in what we do. Written for those who are called to being a spiritual leader at work, this book addresses the issues that spiritual leaders face when encouraging spirituality at work, both for the benefit of the individual and the organisation. It explores factors that hinder progress in a multicultural and religious workplace setting and provides leadership and decision-making models to fit. Standing your watch or remaining loyal to the Lord is a key success factor. The text is based on the Bible book of Ezekiel - a narrative history that was written by the prophet Ezekiel in approximately 511 BC. Your purpose as a spiritual leader in the workplace is to sound the alarm to wake up the office and encourage the employees to allow God to be present. This book is a great how-to guide.

The Unwitting Fundamentalist

How and why religious fundamentalism has come to exist is an important issue, rarely explored in detail without an underlying agenda. In this discursive and absorbing investigation, Andrew Norman has addressed this complex question in an intellectual, yet thoroughly comprehensible manner. Each aspect of religion is covered; not just fundamentalism itself, but why some religions have prophets and some don’t; why some have one deity and others several; and how science has shed new light on many aspects of the religious experience. Whether you are interested in fundamentalism or simply how man has become such a religious animal, and remains so, The Unwitting Fundamentalist is an absorbing read.

The Story Of Humankind

The Story of Humankind is a comprehensive up-to-date survey of the scientific accounts of the creation of the universe, the physical origins and evolution of mankind, and the continuous search for spiritual fulfillment.This book sets out, in a clear and jargon-free way, the most up-to-date scientific discoveries concerning the creation of the universe and the physical origins of life on planet earth. The author conveys the wonder and mystery of the process by which a few small bundles of self-replicating cells have evolved"”over billions of years"”into all forms of life, including Homo sapiens.Other topics covered are: what is the explanation for the existence of suffering and evil? What is morality? What is free will? And what is the impact of spirituality and religion on our lives today?

The Historical Jesus: the Origins of Christian Belief

The authors of the New Testament were convinced that Jesus was the promised Messiah as prophesised in the Hebrew Scriptures. However, the New Testament is not a uniform account of Christian belief or a consistent historical narrative. To explain some of these inconsistencies it is helpful to understand how the authors interpreted Hebrew Scriptures’ prophesies to emphasise current events. They were also influenced by contemporary cultural and religious beliefs, and a changing political environment. The New Testament includes differing historical scenarios that are addressed.Was Jesus born in Nazareth rather than Bethlehem?Was Jesus’ message of the Kingdom of God primarily for the Jews and not the Gentiles?Did Jesus die as a result of a summary execution rather than by trial by the Sanhedrin?Did Jesus die on Thursday afternoon before partaking in the Passover supper?This work represents a radical new understanding of the origins of Christian belief and reflects the work of many eminent academics in recent decades. 

The Age of Aquarius: The Golden Age of Mankind

Part religious study and part scientific study The Age of Aquarius: The Golden Age of Mankind is a fascinating insight into religion, science and the stars. Split into chapters, providing tips on how to meditate, information on astrological symbolism, the Seven Seals and the planets, there is sure to be something to interest everyone in this book.  There are chapters on each of the individual planets, and the book also contains diagrams and illustrations throughout, which will fascinate readers.

Religion for Scientists

Following Fritjof Capra’s arguments in The Tao of Physics, this book seeks to draw a connection between Western mysticism and theoretical physics, specifically between string theory and the Hebrew esoteric tradition of Qabala, arguing that the structure of space-time is defined by the Qabalistic Tree of Life.Modern theories developed to combine the incompatible theories of relativity and quantum mechanics nearly always postulate that the Universe is defined in more dimensions than we are aware of – 10 in the super-symmetrical string theories, and 11 in M-theory and 11D supergravity. This implies that, in addition to the four dimensions from special relativity, there exist six more compactified onto a 6D complex geometry.

Mysterious Ways: The Life That He Lived

When we read the stories about Jesus in the Bible, we hear about what Jesus did to help the people he met. He befriended them, he taught them, he healed them and he saved them from embarrassment. They are wonderful stories but what about the people themselves? Where were they coming from? What did they do with the rest of their lives? For example, what happened to the woman caught in adultery who, in the biblical account, we leave sitting alone with no money, no home, no family and no friends. Did Jesus really leave her in this position, which would have been a sort of living death?Looking at what Jesus did from the perspective of the people he met gives a different idea of what it was like to meet him. It showed more clearly his love and care for those he met and the way in which he shared the poverty of the people he met. More often than not, it was a life-changing experience.The stories are mostly told in the first-person so that the characters can say what they really felt. The stories have been used in the author’s own church for bible study and as dramatic readings. They have been used in schools and colleges as study material. They have also been used just as good reading material.