word | spirit | world | church
Lamentations is a difficult book. I’ve been reading through it with my Bible reading group recently and it’s heavy going. There’s much to gain, but when you read through it in your mornings you can slide through it fairly quickly. When you spend a few hours per chapter slowly chewing it over around a table… Continue reading A Lamenting Samaritan
Last week I outlined what I called a 'taxonomy' of Baptism in the Spirit. In essence I broke down the various questions we need to ask in order to clarity the terrain of the debate. I originally came up with this a few years back when I was trying to figure out exactly what I… Continue reading Receiving the Spirit
God creates by dividing, that’s the pattern begun in Genesis 1. He continues to create that way today. I’ve written before on how the Lord makes order from chaos in the first Creation narrative, and how that work which is begun but not completed becomes our work. Adam was meant to create order in the… Continue reading Creation requires Division
Sometimes when we pray people are healed, and sometimes they aren’t. But why is that, why isn’t everyone healed? I’m a charismatic, I believe that God heals today and that this happens frequently. I’ve watched someone’s leg grow while someone else prayed for them. I’ve felt the muscles in someone’s back untwist while I prayed… Continue reading God and Healing
We should thank God when he does things that are good. Because it’s polite. Also, because we’re told to (1 Thessalonians 5, Hebrews 12), pretty much (Psalm 103, Colossians 3), all over (Isaiah 12, Psalm 107), the Bible (1 Chronicles 16, Psalm 95). Our lives are supposed to be defined by thanksgiving. Let’s unpick my… Continue reading On Thankfulness
The Psalms have sharp edges. They cut the unwary and cut the bonds of the broken. I’ve just prayed my way through them, at roughly one a day. I’m starting again at the moment. I knew they were raw but have often been surprised by how raw. Which I really shouldn’t be, but my church… Continue reading The Hard-Edged Psalms
We all struggle. We all suffer. We all know pain. At the same time, we’re acutely aware that we don’t have access to each other’s struggles except as they are related to us. There is nothing more humanising than suffering—this is the human condition—and there is nothing more isolating. When Christians suffer, when we experience… Continue reading The Privilege of Pain
Jesus told us to enter the kingdom like children. In fact, he was stronger than that, saying that if we did not receive the kingdom of God like a little child, we would not enter it (Luke 18). We’re familiar enough with it, and it conjures up doe-eyed sentiments of pudgy-cheeked children. Except, should it?… Continue reading Taking & Receiving
Jesus came to give us life, and life to the full. Life that is abundant, excessive in quantity. We know the words of John chapter 10 well enough, but I think it’s difficult for us to picture what that means. I hear the phrase “life to the full,” and I inevitably picture someone into extreme… Continue reading Life to the Full
I am convinced that every word of the Bible is about Jesus. The whole book, in all its several thousand years of composition history and score of different authors is a unified whole: it tells a single story, carefully crafted by the primary divine author, that not only points to Jesus but is about him… Continue reading Preaching Jesus in every text
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