word | spirit | world | church
I suspect that many churches feel that developing ‘teachers’ is straightforward, as its essentially the same as developing ‘shepherds.’ There’s something to that, the two are grammatically linked in Ephesians 4 in a way that the other three gifts aren’t. Except, I think it’s tricky. Developing any of these gifts has a challenge to it… Continue reading How do we develop Ephesians 4 teachers
Especially that thing that you’re sure it doesn’t. In John’s prologue we’re told that ‘all things’ were made through Jesus, and that there is nothing that has been made that was made without him. We’re hedged in by the positive and negative affirmations: if it was made, Jesus made it. Paul says something similar in… Continue reading Christianity speaks to everything
Have you ever noticed that every great act of redemption starts with a childless woman? The obvious one is that Jesus’ story starts—in Matthew and Luke’s tellings, at least—with Mary, before Jesus walks onto the page. We start with a young woman with no children, in her case an unmarried virgin. While Mary is the… Continue reading The Shape of Stories
The Tabernacle, and the Temple, are a picture of the cosmos. Or, perhaps, the cosmos is a tabernacle. We know this because Moses tells us so in his structure. We see this first in the structure of Genesis 1. We have a two panelled story in 3 sections. What I mean is that day 4… Continue reading The Tabernacle and the Cosmos
Who would be for it? This might see like the easiest thing to argue in the world: exhaustion is bad. Of course there is a kind of tiredness which is good: a body worn out from hard work in the field (he types from behind his laptop) or a mind worn out from hard graft… Continue reading Against Exhaustion
Or, why World Book Day doesn’t need to be celebrated in church. To be fair, I’m not sure anyone was doing this. I did walk home from a friend’s house late the night before World Book Day and see a harassed looking mother earnestly spray painting a child’s white t-shirt, presumably for some part in… Continue reading The Church Calendar Again
The ‘problem of evil’ is a philosophical way of framing a challenge that every Christian and everyone who has considered Jesus’ claims knows intimately. The ‘problem’ is simply, if God is good, if God is all-powerful, and if evil exists, one of those three premises must be false. We know the challenge more simply in… Continue reading Six Ways that Christianity answers the Problem of Evil
You work for five minutes in a business environment and you’ll end up talking about metrics. You will have a key measure of success and it will drive your behaviours. That measure will determine what you’re aiming for because it will determine what good looks like. You’ll do your best to achieve it. It’s the… Continue reading What is Success?
This morning I sat on the floor in a house I dearly love, emptied of all its things. The three of us—Helen, me, and the cat—sat on the floor after the removal guys had taken all of our earthly possessions and packed them onto a van. We’re moving a few hours south, a long way… Continue reading A Theology of Place
It’s common these days in church circles for people to suggest that we need to see ourselves represented in order to fully participate in something. On the face of it, there’s something very true there. However, I think it’s often confused. What’s true Those who lead us do represent us; this is a key Biblical… Continue reading Do we need to see ourselves represented?
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