Decreation

When God floods the earth in the days of Noah it’s like he turns the clock back on everything that’s happened in the last six chapters of Genesis, and the world reverts to Genesis 1. Before God created and ordered over seven days, the world was water. In Noah’s flood he unmakes and disorders by… Continue reading Decreation

Order and the Charismatic

Paul in 1 Corinthians 14 is keen to express to the Corinthians that worship should be orderly. Yes, you can have a flow of charismatic life with everyone bringing their prayer, tongue, Bible reading, prophecy, and the rest, but you must also have some order. At the very least you need to take it in… Continue reading Order and the Charismatic

God and his agents

I recently spoke at Commission’s Leadership and Governance conference, for elders and trustees. They’d asked me to give them a bit of a biblical overview—you can listen to it here—and I started by showing them God’s good governance in Genesis 1. My message went elsewhere over that, but I’d like to draw your attention to… Continue reading God and his agents

Noah’s Vineyard

In a previous post, one of my most read, I explored what happened between Noah and Ham in Genesis 9. There are two particular possibilities, both plausible, though I come down on one side in that post. However, I’d like to nuance what I said previously, by exploring Noah’s relationship with wine. Noah sometimes gets… Continue reading Noah’s Vineyard

Adam the Man

I was chatting with a friend about Genesis 1 and whether the earth is young or old the other day. I don’t find it a particularly interesting question, not because there isn’t an answer (there must be) and not because it’s not important (the truth is always important) but because there are so many more… Continue reading Adam the Man

Evening, then Morning

Have you ever noticed that in Genesis chapter one, the days are the wrong way around? When I say the wrong way around, I mean backwards to what we expect, and before you rush off to compare the order of creation and question whether it means anything meaningful that the sun and moon come so… Continue reading Evening, then Morning

When God Came to Dinner

In Genesis chapter 18, Abraham has an encounter with Yahweh, the maker of heaven and earth. Not so strange, by this point he’s had multiple across his life and as readers we’re expecting God to deal with Abraham as a friend. Except, this time, the Lord most high comes for tea. It sounds like the… Continue reading When God Came to Dinner

Rescuing Abraham

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

Repost: On Rainbows

Sometimes light reflects, refracts, and disperses in water droplets causing its brilliant white radiance to split into the visible spectrum and hang suspended in the air. We call it a rainbow, as the sun breaks through rainclouds and colours bend the sky. It has a similar effect on most of us as snow does, we… Continue reading Repost: On Rainbows