Advertise on podcast: Bethnal Green Mission Church

Wisdom is both lauded by Qoholet and our culture as something to be pursued and prized. But Ecclesiates paints a complicated and messy picture of the benefits of wisdom. Wisdom is both powerful and fragile, it gives and it takes away, it is something to appeal to, but also a source of exasperation. What can we learn from Qoholet's picture of the smart and the dimwit? And how does the spectre of death inform our wisdom?

We're talking about our most valuable resource and our greatest enemy - time! In this second talk we examine the two greek words for time and their associated gods - chronos and kairos. We seek to understand how our hyper-speedy world brings a cruelty to our times and seasons and how the wisdom of our sage can help us transform this cruelty into curiosity.

Ecclesistaes 3.1-13 is one of the book's most well-known chapters, but also one of its most misunderstood. In this riddle-like poem of 28 seasons, time is enigmatic - both something we can inhabit but also something done to us. What is this sage Qohelet saying we should do with time? Today, we look at some of the 'essentials' of what he is saying and not saying and explore how previous readings of these verses have been sometimes unhelpful and damaging.

Today Heather helps us understand the posture and spirit of love, which 'always looks for the best'. How is this both a challenge and joy as we seek to engage with our world around us?

Qoholet's ancient wisdom echoes modern philosophy and our own human condition, that we long to see gain from our toil, reward for our labour, and profit from our varied experiences. What do we do when there is no gain from life under the sun? How do we manage our culture's pull towards striving and seizing? In this talk we explore some of the unhealthy consequences of our human desire for gain, and some alternative postures and behaviours to temper this.

In this second talk on Ecclesiastes, we explore Qohelet's vexed angst against the uncontrollable nature of life. If life is absurd vapour, 'a chasing after the wind', how do we cope as humans and Christians? In our innate reflex to control, strive and seize, where is our comfort when we realise, like Qohelet, that what we work for, pray for, and pay for cannot be guaranteed, cannot be bottled for future use? Is Qohelet hinting at a different posture and outlook, where we come to terms with our finitude and mortality? How can Harmut Rosa's concept of 'Resonance' help?

Today we start a deep dive into the book of Ecclesiastes in our 'What We Missed In..' series. Ecclesiastes is a unique voice in Scripture, perhaps the nearest the bible gets to a piece of philosophy. But as ancient wisdom, it still speaks powerfully to our own modern dilemmas - 'how can we live well', 'does life have meaning', 'is there benefit or gain from our work', 'what is the good life'? The voice of the book's protagonist is compellingly honest and raw in its emotion as he explores the questions about the baffling enigma that is life.

We're continuing our series 'Love Does', using the Message version of 1 Corintians 13.3-7. This week Bernie explores that very easy-to-do aspect of love which 'Trusts God Always'.

In this talk James continues our sermon series on 'Love Does' looking at the concept of truth. Using scripture five scriptures as lenses, we look at truth from different angles to build a framework for how we as Christians enter into a space where truth is more and more divided

This talk starts a new series called "Love Does..." It looks at the various ways that 1 Corinthians 13 highlights how love is practically manifest. Taking The Message translation, "Love does not strut, or have a swelled head" we explore the way pride is an enemy of love by drawing on the lessons from the parable of the Pharisee and Tax Collector from Luke's gospel.

This sermon explored repentance as a Lenten practice — what repentance truly means, and why we often fear it. It reflected on some of the most common barriers to repentance, including fears of vulnerability, misdirection, and anger, while also considering what genuine repentance looks like in practice and the core attributes it requires. Ultimately, it invited us to consider why repentance matters: not as an act of shame or punishment, but as a pathway to freedom, restoration, and deeper transformation.

Looking at what is meant by Contemplation, how it is described by its great teachers and a chance to experience one of the Ignatian contemplative practices. This is a whistle-stop tour of contemplative prayer and practice, drawing from the wisdom of some of its main teachers - St Theresa of Avila, St John of the Cross, Julian of Norwich, Thomas Merton and others.

We reach the end of our series on WWMI the Cross with a Q&A with questions from members of BGMC.

We reach the conclusion of our mammoth series on the Atonement and our journey to expand our understanding and appreciation about how Jesus' death saves us. In this talk we do a deep dive into how Jesus' incarnation, death and resurrection deals with the greatest enemy facing humanity and creation, which is death. This is not just a solution to a problem but something far deeper and wider that God has done for us and for humanity.

In a noisy world how do we experience silence? How is silence viewed from the experience of people in the biblical stories? Silence has often been a key component of this Lenten Season but what is our practice of it and posture towards it?