word | spirit | world | church
At Jesus’ last supper he ate the Passover with his disciples, lamb, wine, bread, bitter herbs—the whole kit and caboodle. Which might seem like an obvious statement but is important for our understanding of how Jesus was inhabiting and renewing the Old Covenant Feast. Before we get into the details it might be worth noticing… Continue reading The Lamb at the Supper
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
We all know how the world should be run. It’s simply obvious to us: the best people should run things, and everyone should get what they deserve. If you put that to 100 people, I suspect you would find the vast majority would agree that this an innately good idea. They call it a meritocracy—a… Continue reading God is a Giver
We don’t think much about the Ten Commandments in my corner of the Christian world, which some of us would think is exactly as it should be—“we’re a people of grace!”—and I fit in the other camp when I wonder if our resistance to the commandments as law means we lose them as wisdom. It… Continue reading On Names and Naming
Jesus wants you to do the next thing in your walk with him. The next act of repentance, the next act of forgiveness, crush the next idol, love the next person above yourself, refuse the next temptation, tear down the next boundary. And he wants you to do nothing else. This might sound like a… Continue reading A Conveyor Belt
A couple of weeks ago we were at a wedding. We were invited to the evening but not the reception, so we’d brought a few sausage rolls and a pack of crisps for lunch and went looking for somewhere to eat it before we went on to the afternoon activities we’d planned—exploring the Cotswolds in… Continue reading Burial is Hopeful
After his resurrection Jesus gathered his disciples to give them his parting instructions and pass on his mission. Each of the gospel writers summarise his words a little differently but they all include what Luke calls “the promise of the Father” (Luke 24). Matthew records it as a promise that Jesus would be with them… Continue reading The Promise of the Spirit
As I write I’m on the third of three days of prayer and fasting. This is a normal practice for our church, we have corporate times—often three days—of prayer and fasting two to three times a year. Which is weird. In some ways I’m only waking up to how weird it is as I write.… Continue reading On Fasting
You’d be forgiven for thinking I was speaking of January, named after the Roman god Janus who had two faces to look forwards and backwards in the year. Rather, Advent—the first season of the Christian year—has two faces. One face is a face of joy, the face we associate with our Christmas traditions, with chocolate… Continue reading The Month with Two Faces
Jesus was executed on a hill outside Jerusalem that they named Golgotha, which we’re told means ‘the place of a skull’ (Matthew 27). I’ve always imagined a hill that looks like a skull, rocky with caves to highlight eyes and a mouth. Perhaps something a little like Lion’s Head Rock down Dovedale in the Peak… Continue reading Snakeshead Hill
nuakh 