It would be strange when we are young to consider, too seriously, our mortality. Life appears endless with possibilities, which it is.
It would be strange when we are older to ignore our mortality. The signs of its inevitability are all too obvious…
Read MoreThere may currently not be a more important topic to give our attention to than discipling God’s people, to seeing them transformed in thought and action into the likeness of the Jesus of the gospels. Discipleship occupied the full attention of Jesus when he was giving his final words/instructions prior to his resurrection, so should it occupy ours – “Go into all the world and make disciples …” This is our new creation mandate….
Read MoreA place does exist, more easily in Liberal Democracies, for a faith/moral voice in the political realm. But it can never be at the cost of the otherworldly nature and call of the kingdom of God. We are fools if we fail to see that the whole world, and its systems…
Read MoreWorld events that unsettle, unnerve us, often find Christians resorting to various readings of the Revelation of St John (or more precisely, the Revelation of Jesus Christ). The vast, terrifying, apocalyptic landscape of Revelation is read as a prophetic calendar of future events - which in some ways, and consistent with multiple fulfilments of this literary and prophetic genre, is valid. There is something about the grand spiritual themes and battles in Revelation that will last the entire age, in that every era has the possibilities of seeing dragons, false prophets and persecution of the saints…
Read MoreIn this forth foray into the reading of scripture we will look at the New Testament with the Old Testament in view, as it relates to Jesus in John’s gospel. How does Jesus employ the Hebrew Scriptures?…
Read MoreDiscipleship – everyone is talking about it, which is cause for rejoicing. After all, it was foremost in Jesus’ mind when he spoke to the disciples prior to his ascension (Matt 28). Little else ranks as important to the church’s mission as the making of disciples; the history of God’s church rises or falls on how well we make disciples of Jesus.
Read MoreMilitary conscription was my generation’s dread, yet by the time my birthdate was to be subjected to a lottery, conscription was no longer required. We were relieved, to say the least, as being drafted to Vietnam was looming as a possibility. The closest I got to war, or hearing about, it was through my grandfather who had fought in the Pacific arena of WW2…
Read MoreJohn 6.1-21 is a remarkable vignette in the gospels that is easily lost to a metaphorical/spiritual principle reading. We are so used to reading and preaching beyond (almost despite) the historical context/event, we fail to be captured by the enormity of the events themselves…
Read MoreWords are never just words. They are suffused with meaning, with value; words are loaded and defining. Precision matters when employing words, because a lack of it can muddy the waters, or say something other than what is intended or more than what is intended – which can be intentional…
Read MoreI mentioned the value and the necessity of reading scripture in its context. In other words, an individual verse primarily belongs to the unifying and explanatory context it is found in, as is the case with all writing. Whilst this seems obvious, the way we read scripture regularly makes it anything but. We lift verses out of context in large measure due to a promissory interpretative view of God’s word – scripture is seen as a treasury of personal promises instead of the salvation narrative/record - past, present, and future - that it is. It is the story of God.
Read MoreDuring the reign of Emperor Tiberius, crucifixion was a common form of capital punishment. It was a particularly brutal form, meted out to the enemies of Rome, and there were plenty of those in Palestine as the Jews, in the main, hated the Romans.
Read MoreHaving happily lived in the Pentecostal/Charismatic tradition for the entirety of my Christian experience, I am used to people saying God said to them. I don’t doubt most people’s sincerity, and they rarely say anything heretical, but I must admit it does seem like the Almighty chats a lot, and that I am clearly a dullard because it isn’t my experience that God is talking to me as much as these people say he does to them.
Read MoreIf anyone had the gift of prescience it was C.S.Lewis; nowhere better seen than in the third instalment of his science fiction trilogy - That Hideous Strength. He mythically, graphically, with foresight shows the results of the amoral search for knowledge at all costs, along with its hideous consequences…
Read More“It is not right that we should neglect the word of God … we will devote ourselves to prayer and to serving the word.” Acts 6.2,4 NRSV
In the first recorded dispute among the believers in Jerusalem, the apostles provided a solution, appointing deacons, and in so doing resolving among themselves to not neglect their prime duty to prayer and scripture.
Read MoreThe right to abortion is part of a wider agenda of self-determination for women. Women want to be able to self-determine in regards, amongst other things, their education and careers, their domestic circumstances, their sexuality, and their reproductive rights. And it is an unwise or naïve person who would deny them the basic right of self-determination; that battle is long over, even if not fully realised for all women.
Read MoreIn world history Moses stands a herculean figure; he has few rivals, less eclipse him. His impact still reverberates in the Western world: in our jurisprudence, our literature, and in our moral code. Even if the moral law is being questioned and jettisoned those that do so still hope that people have a moral code, and a just legal system is still to be found. We repudiate Moses, but we still hope his influence underscores human behaviour and responsibility.
Read MoreThe reading of scripture, therefore the understanding of scripture, changes as one ages, or as one matures in the faith; hopefully the two are synonymous.
When a new reader approaches scripture it is often with a focus on individual texts.
Read MoreAI is not a species, a sentient being, a self-conscious entity; humans are, computer programs aren’t. AI is artificial intelligence – it is not a living intelligence, that is the domain of people. Any ‘so-called’ intelligence that is accrued by AI is due to the intelligence of people. And yet we talk as though AI were a person, a being. How? By referring to ourselves as human as though we were somehow a separate species, alongside AI.
Read MoreIt is not hard to argue that at the core of all ministries is the heartbeat of the shepherd, the pastor. These were the words, sage words, of my first pastor – who was himself primarily an evangelist, as well as being a good pastor.
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