word | spirit | world | church
If you want to mature, you’re going to have to suffer. Actually, that’s not quite right. You are going to suffer, that’s the nature of life under the sun. Some of that will be petty, some of it will be serious, and (heaven-forfend) some of it will be so psychologically scarring that you’ll be getting… Continue reading Maturity requires suffering
We live in a strange moment of time and cultural winds that gets called all sorts of different names, but we can all agree its ‘modernity.’ Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing, how concerned we are by it, and what features it has that we should embrace or push against are all… Continue reading The Bombadil Option
We need to learn to play in the Bible’s text. I’ve touched on this in an article about the way I read the Bible with others, but I’m convinced that what we need to learn if we want to revive our reading of the Bible is the freedom to try things out in discussion. The… Continue reading Playing in the text
An easy question you would think, and it probably should be. I’ve seen it treated very vaguely very often though, there’s a depth and complexity here which people like to skate over the surface of. Jesus is baptised (Matthew 3, Mark 1, Luke 3) with John’s baptism which is clearly stated to be a baptism… Continue reading Why was Jesus baptised?
At the Lord’s Supper we remember Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf. It’s a lot more than that—we eat God too—but it’s not less than a memorial because that’s what the scriptures tell us (1 Corinthians 11). I concede, a memorial is not the same as ‘remembering,’ it’s a symbolic edifice that we can look at.… Continue reading Discerning the Body
A couple of years back Onsi Kamel, in a much-read article, bemoaned the lack of a Protestant Intellectual ‘Ecosystem’ to rival the Catholic one. He pointed out some of the reasons for this, not least the strong populist streak in evangelical varieties of Protestantism, and some of the organisations that were striving to do their… Continue reading The Evangelical Intellectual Ecosystem
One of the qualifications for elders is hospitality (1 Timothy 3, Titus 1), which means ‘welcoming strangers.’ While this is an absolute expectation of pastors, most of the qualifications describe the ordinary Christian life. We’re meant to be welcoming strangers, and we’re all meant to be doing it (Hebrews 13). Yet, we’re terrible at it.… Continue reading Welcoming Strangers
Abraham gets a bad rap, and I think lots of it extends from bad reading. We are talking, of course, about what is sometimes called the ‘sister fib.’ Abraham—still called Abram at the time—tells Pharaoh that Sarai (Sarah) is his sister rather than his wife, and hilarious hijinks ensue (Genesis 12). Actually no, not hilarious… Continue reading Rescuing Abraham
Or, more specifically, should they have vision statements? It’s common these days to expect a church to have a specific vision, often expressed in a pithy statement about what they will or won’t be seeking to do in their location. Sometimes it’s accompanied by a mission statement—which sometimes is the same thing, but at least… Continue reading Should churches have a vision?
Pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5), the Bible tells us. We think: surely you don’t mean literally, Lord? As Christians we have a remarkable privilege; the one who not only made the world but contains to sustain it, and who the powers that run the world obey, has offered us constant conversation. We can chat… Continue reading Why we are tempted not to pray
nuakh 