Parish News Article: August 2026
Monthly Message
August 2026
CHRIST’S ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS IN THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD
INTRODUCTION
If a person has no religion or if he has closed his mind to all thoughts of supernatural and if he regards the churches as purveyors of outworn myths, is there a place where Jesus may grip the person’s attention? The answer is readily available in the world’s most accessible book- the New Testament.
Jesus had a mind (of his own), and a view of life that raises a question mark over most current values and attitudes. As powerful opposing ideologies make their goals more apparent, the relevance of what he taught and stood for challenges our contemporary thought today. Can we imagine if he was in a television programme what would happen? Any question referred to Christ would be lifted to a new level. When the Pharisee and Herodians arrived together with trap questions about paying tribute to Caesar (Matt 22:15-22), the answer from Christ took them by surprise. They went away and left him alone. Then the Sadducees came next with the question about the reality of any life beyond this, which the Sadducees had no belief in (Matt 22:23-33). Christ’s answer silenced them, yet the people heard what he said and were astounded at his teaching. Pharisees regrouped again to make another question about the greatest commandment in the Mosaic Law (Matt 22:34-40). The reply of Christ was a combination of two separate statements from the Law which left them with no more to say. He asked them a question to which they could not reply, and they shrank away from asking him any more questions.
In a world like ours today with various misunderstanding and questions but short of answers Christ could still deal with the contemporary questions our people may ask. The stories Jesus told are among the world’s literary masterpieces, catching the ear of the passer-by and made people realize the unexplained depths in him.
The contemporary importance of Christ is that he spoke the highest things with an authority and gave them finality. Honest thinking penetrates to any depth, and they still take us right to the matters he talked about. Problem after problem today could be met by his answers. Economic justice, racial relationships, resorting to violence and the violence in most tragic forms such as wars, clearly shows how far his thinking remains ahead of us. The fact of life calls us to examine his teaching, freshly, objectively as a pressing contemporary need.
The question who is my neighbour? Was never discussed in a legal way, yet the answer cited current practices, the level of human involvement and obligation towards each other. The neighbourliness rises above racial prejudices. Social justice is not a matter of race but of sheer human need. Furthermore, the law of Moses put resistance, or reprisal, in terms of tit for tat, life for life, an eye for an eye, wound for wound, stripe for stripe (Exod 21:23-25). Jesus brought new thinking to an old problem where he had watched men meeting evil with evil, force with force, and he saw the endlessness and viciousness of the proceedings. Jesus exposed its inadequacy. How can Satan cast out Satan? (Matt 12:22f) How can you ever deal with any form of evil by matching it with equivalent evil. Somehow, the vicious circle of evil answering evil had to be broken. Your questions can be answered too.
(Adapted from: A New Testament of Evidence. Verdict on Jesus, 5th Edition, by Leslie Badham. 2020 SPCK Great Britain, pg11-15).
Reverend Stan Chatikobo
Minister, Trinity Church