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
Tag: Reading the Bible
The Bible doesn’t speak to that
I’ve come across the idea, a few times recently, that the Bible doesn’t speak to everything. In the context I’m hearing it, this means that there are lots of matters of faith and practise that the Bible doesn’t tell us what to do on, so we have to figure it out for ourselves. Which is… Continue reading The Bible doesn’t speak to that
We don’t know our Bibles
I’ve argued before that British Christians don’t know their Bibles, and I’d like to push that thought a little further. I think there are a set of nested problems that inform and intensify each other, I’ll briefly touch on each in turn, mention what I understand some of the causes of this to be and… Continue reading We don’t know our Bibles
Reading the Whole
A couple of weeks ago I ran an event in Birmingham called 'Reading 2 Timothy', where we did exactly that: read the book of 2 Timothy over the course of a Saturday morning. It’s a Bible study, which probably doesn’t seem that revolutionary. It probably isn’t that revolutionary, to be honest, but I’ve not seen… Continue reading Reading the Whole
When Christians Love Magic
Evangelicals love magic. On the face of it that doesn’t sound like a true statement, perhaps you remember the mild panic over Harry Potter in the early 2000s, or the much bigger panic over Dungeons and Dragons in the eighties—witchcraft remains something we are inherently nervous about, sometimes leading to absurd extremes. Which is true… Continue reading When Christians Love Magic




