Our thirteenth issue of The Big Picture focuses on the theme of health and wellbeing, and it contains wide-ranging explorations of this topic, from prosperity in the Old Testament, to grief, depression and trauma, to social media and AI. The full issue launches in mid-May 2025 in print and for paid subscribers. Free subscribers can gain delayed access to the articles on the dates listed below.
We hope you enjoy the latest Big Picture. Subscribers, leave us a comment on any of the articles if you’d like to join the conversation!
From the Director: “I am your physician!”
Craig G. Bartholomew
Craig introduces us to the breadth of shalom, including its implications for personal and social wellbeing, and what it means that God is our physician.
Just a Touch of Love
Kevin O’Donnell
Kevin describes the potential of even the smallest gestures to provide help and healing.
Understanding Biblical Prosperity: Psalm 128
Jordan Pickering
Prosperity is a contentious issue in the church, with some claiming the availability of divine power to secure health and wellbeing, and others denying the materiality of God’s blessings in this life. Psalm 128 illustrates some principles for ordering a theology of prosperity from the Old Testament.
Practical Wisdom: The Beginnings of a Framework for Body Literacy
Genevieve Wedgbury
Learning to listen to our bodies is an underappreciated Christian ethic. If God’s goodness implies that our own goodness is a moral virtue, what does it imply for us to recognise that God is health?
The Parable of the Sensible Farmer
Michelle Stinson
Isaiah 28:23-29 contains a farming parable that has interesting implications for Israel’s judgment in the exile and, by extension, for how God as wise farmer cultivates his present-day people too.
The Broken Soul
Maura Kelly
A poem touching on harm and resilience.
Ancestral Threads: The Art of Remembering
Cas Monaco
Legacies and heirlooms connect us to our ancestors and to the historical forces that played a role in making us. Cas discusses the quilting tradition of the women in her family and the importance of looking back.
A Civilisational Threat: The Impact of Smartphones on Healthy Formation
Jason Fletcher
Jason describes some of Charlotte Mason’s key principles of healthy education and how recent research is suggesting that smartphones may be catastrophic for the development of our children in these areas if we don’t intervene.
Chris’s Column: Elijah and the Healing of Depression and Fear: 1 Kings 19
Chris Wright
Chris’s column looks at God’s patient, generous care of Elijah during his period of emotional defeat and despair.
Spiritual Trauma and Healing for the Church
Michael Wagenman
Michael interviews Canadian psychologist Dr Hillary McBride and the CEO of Sanctuary, Dr Daniel Whitehead, about the way in which institutions and communities can be healthy or unhealthy and can in turn affect the wellbeing of their members.
Creatine Supplement: An Example of Progressive Nutrition
Nicole Farah and Diana Salgado
There is no shortage of opinion about what is good and bad for us, not least because social media is awash with unreliable information. Creatine, for example, is a supplement that has unfairly gained a negative reputation. Nicole and Diana encourage us to seek out advice from reliable sources.
Preaching the Bible for All its Worth: Psalms
Craig G. Bartholomew
Craig describes some of the important progress made in the study of the Psalms in recent decades and recommends key resources for preachers and students.
“Now through the Church…”: How can Christians Navigate the Current Cultural Crisis?
Ian Geary
Many nations are locked in a polarised battle between liberal and illiberal political factions. While the UK has seen the emergence of a promising postliberal group “founded on a politics of virtue and bonds of belonging, flourishing and love,” Christians need to learn from Jesus’ approach to the Samaritan woman and get involved with forging a healthy politics.
AI, Economics and the Christian Perspective: Navigating the Ethical, Theological and Societal Implications
Robert Tatum
Robert and members of the Association for Christian Economics (UK) examine what responsible stewardship of AI tools looks like, and how Christians can be engaged in facilitating healthy change to accommodate these tools for personal and social good.
Whatever Happened to Healthy Families?
Lucia Stelluti
An Italian magazine recently devoted an issue to the characterisation of the family as a toxic and damaging social institution. Vice president of the Italian Evangelical Alliance, Lucia Stelluti, points us to the Bible’s realistic representation of the good and bad of family, and challenges us to be consciously engaged in the healthy formation of our families.
Understanding Grief and Loss: A Reflection on Nicholas Wolterstorff’s Living with Grief
Dani Leclair
Christians can be guilty of meeting grief with empty, damaging platitudes that fail to adequately acknowledge what it means to deal with loss. In conversation with Wolterstorff’s book, Dani reflects on her own experience of a loved-one’s death and its implications for the new shape of the rest of life.
Towards Easter Sunday 2025: Who am I? An Exhibition by Gert Swart
Jorella Andrews
South African sculptor Gert Swart’s exhibition features new and reworked pieces that reflect his difficult journey navigating a broken nation and his own physical frailties.
Book Club: The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Jordan Pickering
Neil Gaiman’s magical-realist book is a story of a violently broken childhood redeemed by the grace of a curious and powerful family next door, and the ambiguity of attempting to walk in that redemption as an adult. Recent allegations of sexual assault made against the author provoke questions about what true redemption of human brokenness entails.
A Liturgy for Beginning a PhD Mid-Life
Sara Osborne
Sara offers a prayer for mid-life students wrestling with pressures and limitations on all sides.
From the Mill: To See Something
Otto Bam
The apparently unassuming painting of Jacob’s Ladder by Arendt de Gelder suggests interesting things about being embodied and learning the art of truly seeing.