word | spirit | world | church
Do we have free will? It’s one of those perennial philosophical questions which we would rather not engage with—either because it seems self-evident that we do and therefore the question is a nonsense like enquiring if cats meow, or because we’re slightly concerned the answer might be no and that the weight of that answer… Continue reading On Free Will
Have you ever pondered God’s economy? I don’t mean what is God’s opinion on our economic structures, or a typically American apologia for capitalism as the sine qua non of the Kingdom. Let’s put such thoughts aside for now—though if you want a typically provocative thought on the subject: I’m queasy about capitalism for Biblical… Continue reading Faith’s Economy
I wrote a few months back about our preoccupation with the need to be extraordinary. It’s, particularly for my generation, a problem in ministry. It can play havoc with leadership, undermine the ordinary means of grace, and mean that we miss what we’re aiming for. To take preaching as an example, I am convinced that… Continue reading Ministry with an Extraordinary God
I’ve been reading Charles Taylor’s famous magnum opus, A Secular Age. It’s a monumental achievement that I’ve been chewing over slowly for approaching a year now, though its sheer scope and breadth makes summarising (or critiquing) the argument a challenge. Taylor wants to tell a story about why, five hundred years ago, not believing in… Continue reading Stories and the meaning crisis
Once a day dawned dark, the clouds hanging limp like wisps of smoke that clog the lungs after a fire has burned beyond its life. Tear-stained faces watched a man displayed, his torn body nailed to a tree torn from the ground and weeping over its foul fate. His face contorted with pain as his… Continue reading It is Finished
There’s a lull in your day, a small moment of nothing among the busy tides of time. Is it an oasis to indulge, or a terror to smother? Most of us would talk that a small gap of peace in our over-scheduled lives would be a delight—but my actions, and I’m guessing many of yours… Continue reading Eating Ourselves Dull
We are a people of the Exodus. Our lives are exodus movements. I’ve written before around the edges of the idea of cosmic geography and about the way the sea was viewed in the Old Testament as the place of chaos and death. When the climactic act of Yahweh’s saving power happens at the beginning… Continue reading Our Emotional Exodus
There are moments when suddenly it’s like you see the good news of the gospel for the first time. Have you ever had one of them? Where it’s all fresh and new and you almost want to ‘get saved’ again because you need to respond to the wonder of these truths? I’ve had a few… Continue reading Lemons and Thorns
The Christian life feels precarious, sometimes. Do you feel like that? We’ve all seen dear brothers and sisters who we thought were following Jesus wholeheartedly—and perhaps they were—disappear from the scene and seem to abandon their faith. Putting aside how we should read these occurrences it can make us feel like we’re one step away… Continue reading We Did Not Build the Fortress
I have often written that we need to live a better story, or live the Bible’s stories as though they were our stories. I think this is one of the solutions to a host of our contemporary problems, though I’d get it if you thought it was too small or too flimsy a thing to… Continue reading Living a ‘Better Story’
