word | spirit | world | church
In the Old Testament, the Temple was a microcosm, a miniature copy of reality. We see this in the way it’s structured; it’s built as a copy of the Garden of Eden: a mountaintop land with trees. The Temple is on the apex of a mountain, it’s full of trees (the lampstands and the decorations),… Continue reading Church as Blueprint
When I write on modernity, I suspect I give off the ‘vibe’ that everything was better in some golden age in the past. At the very least I sound like something is profoundly wrong with the moment in which we find ourselves. This codes me as ‘conservative’ in the broadest way: conservatives are those who… Continue reading On Nostalgia
There is a gift from God that we do not want. If we’re honest with ourselves, I suspect there are many gifts from God that we don’t want. We enjoy both sin and comfort too much to value all of God’s gifts; we are indicted by our lacklustre enthusiasm for the things of God. The… Continue reading The Gift of Dissatisfaction
After Solomon’s folly the kingdom of wisdom and peace he had ruled over—the closest to the design of the restful ruler the earth had yet seen—was torn into two by Rehoboam and Jeroboam. And, as far as I knew the story, so it continued until the Northern Kingdom, Israel, was carried off to Assyria, and… Continue reading Reunited Kingdom
We live in modernity, the source of all evil, according to some. I’m the sort of grumpy curmudgeon who thinks everything was better before the modern era, by which I mean the last 500 years. This clearly isn’t true. Antibiotics, for one, are a gift we would not want to give up! What is true… Continue reading A Kingdom with a King
We studied through James with a group of students in our Life Group recently. I noticed something, which I think is worthy of note. James is a letter written to churches telling them how to behave to one another. The New Testament is full of similar commands for the church should love one another, care… Continue reading Aiming Inside
History is written by the victors. This is a truism, who else is left alive to write it? But here’s the thing, there is such a thing as a Christian view of history. The Bible has a lot of say about history and how to read it, including two detailed commentaries on Israel’s later history… Continue reading To whom does History belong?
Adam had a job. It was given to him and Eve in Genesis 1.28: And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that… Continue reading Image & Mission
Christians believe in life after death. We believe that God is in the heavens and we are on earth, and that death isn’t the end. We often would say that when we die, we “go to heaven” forevermore. While that’s not wrong per se, the Bible doesn’t teach what I think most people imagine. Having… Continue reading On the hereafter
nuakh 