Meet Jesus

Jesus of Nazareth was born in Bethlehem in Judea more than 2000 years ago. He became a carpenter following his adoptive father Joseph's trade, and around the age of 30 began a discipleship ministry with 12 men, teaching, healing the sick, raising the dead and proclaiming good news to the poor.

Scores of people followed him, as he taught with truth and authority, teaching us how to love God with all we have, and love our neighbours as ourselves, even those who are our enemies.

As people got to know him better, he revealed himself to be the Son of God, the prophesied Messiah, who came to be the Saviour of the world, through his perfect and tested life, sacrificial death on the cross and miraculous resurrection, which brings us forgiveness of our sins, peace with God and hope of eternal life.

This good news and his teachings were proclaimed throughout the ancient world, and churches were established in many cities, with lives impacted and blessed in so many ways.

Unfortunately, the nature of man, tainted with sin, has often failed to genuinely reflect Jesus, even in the church and in her human leadership. This has brought about many occasions of people getting wrongfully hurt and abused. We are deeply sorry for these failings. We continue to look to Jesus, and, being changed into his image by the power of the Holy Spirit which he has given us and the healing Word of God in Scripture, we open our lives to one another and to the broken, poor and burdened in the world today.

We invite you to explore who Jesus is, what he did and what he taught in the following sections, with the hope that you too would be transformed by the power of his love.

For further reading, start at the Gospel according to Matthew in the Bible, and to understand the significance of Jesus' life, the letter of the apostle to the Romans and to the Hebrews would be of great benefit as well.