I don’t normally post sermons up on my blog, but having read Tony Jones’ ‘A Better Atonement‘ ebook and seen his request for anyone who’s writing or preaching about atonement on his blog, I thought I’d put something up. This isn’t a transcript (though you can hear the audio on the church website), it’s a […]
I have a new post on Provoketive.com titled ‘Worship in a Minor Key‘, a reflection on lamenting in the church. I’ve put an excerpt here, click on to read more – and leave your comments, please! Last weekend I attended a Christian event which began with sung worship. This was nothing unusual – a young guy with […]
This evening we were reflecting on Gethsemane in our housegroup, thinking about the visceral reality of the moment as it is depicted by Matthew. A short paragraph from the notes helped me to summarise what I thought about it (though in a kind of opposite way!) There are at least 2 potential resources Jesus was drawing on […]
It’s funny the things that stick in my head and prompt me to write a blog post. Take yesterday for example: just a couple of words from a prayer in an open time of worship at church. The lady thanked Jesus for his “undying love” for us and promised her undying love in return. Now […]
Christians spend far too much time discussing Creation. What’s worse is that the theology that comes out of this obsession is very often warped and ‘me centred’. It’s all ‘I believe that God made me to be special, so I can tell you how evil you are and how you should live your life’. I […]
This morning at church we looked at the call of Matthew in Matthew 9. Jesus tells Matthew, the outcast tax collector, to follow him and accepts an invitation to dinner chez Matt. There he is criticised for being associated with the riff-raff, the people who were most hated by the religious establishment – “Why does […]
Why is it that my brain switches on whenever I get in the shower in the evening? It never does that in the morning! All sorts of things go through my mind, seemingly completely unconnected with whatever’s gone on in the day – ideas for blog posts, questions about books that I read, even ideas […]
Here it is. The big one – I know at least a few of you have been waiting to have a chance to read this, I hope you find it as interesting to read as it was to write. Despite the unassuming title, the subtitle gives away the potential controversy in the content of the […]
Now here was a module well outside my comfort zone – brought up in a cessationist context, I’ve come to think that’s not right, but I’ve never done any real Bible study on it. So a Pentecostal tutor who’s written a book on Baptism in the Spirit – a challenge to say the least! The module […]
I was hugely looking forward to this module – thinking through in a rigorous academic context how the Bible speaks to contemporary culture and can bring about social and political transformation. I brought in some ideas that I was aware of but not really fully up to speed on, like liberation theology, it was an […]