As someone committed to the verbal inspiration of Scripture, I have always thought it best to use biblical words in biblical ways. It sort of seems self-evident. (more…)
Category Archives: Bible insights
→ God and his holiness
Link
Tim Challies has an interesting reflection on God’s holiness:
Holiness is a difficult term to define. Most Christians know that a dimension of holiness is God’s set-apartness, his being essentially different from everyone and everything else, but there is far more to it than that.
John 13:34-35
Bible 101
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
There’s a story about John the apostle as an old man, recounted by Jerome.1 Whenever John’s disciples carried the frail apostle in to their meetings, he would say, “Little children, love one another”. Every. Time. (more…)
1 Kings 8:38-40
Bible 101
“…whatever prayer, whatever plea is made by any man or by all your people Israel, each knowing the affliction of his own heart and stretching out his hands toward this house, then hear in heaven your dwelling place and forgive and act and render to each whose heart you know, according to all his ways (for you, you only, know the hearts of all the children of mankind), that they may fear you all the days that they live in the land that you gave to our fathers. ”
Israel’s great King Solomon is remembered primarily for two things: his wisdom, and the temple that he built in fulfillment of the promise that God made to his father David (1 Kings 8:15-20, cf. 2 Samuel 7:13). Soon after its completion, Solomon dedicated it for use in Israel’s life (1 Kings 8:12-66). As Solomon prayed at the temple, he reflected that its completion was not simply the fulfillment of a promise, but an event with cosmological significance. The God who could not be contained by the highest heaven (1 Kings 8:27) had nevertheless come to his people, and made his dwelling place among them. The temple is called the ‘house of Yahweh’ eleven times in these central temple-building chapters (chs. 5-8). This is more than a symbolic statement: Israel was a nation who lived their lives in the presence of God. (more…)
Hebrews 12:22-24
Bible 101
“But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.”
Where do you go to church? For me, I go to an Anglican church in North Epping, Sydney, Australia. Easy, right? I suppose a better question is this: where are you when you’re at church? These verses from Hebrews 12 show us why that’s a question that’s worth asking, and what’s going on when we gather as God’s people. (more…)
Dangerous love
Everyday Ministry, Thought, Sola Panel
flickr: MousyBoyWithGlasses
Just recently I came to realise that I had been treating a part of the Bible like a Mr Squiggle picture. Mr Squiggle was a kids’ TV show I used to watch. Children throughout Australia would draw little random squiggles–a couple of lines or curves on a piece of paper–and mail them in to the TV network. During the show, Mr Squiggle–a marionette puppet with a pencil for a nose–would add extra lines and curves to the squiggle, from his own imagination, to transform it into a recognisable drawing of something nice for the young audience (a cat, a house, a bunny rabbit). It was riveting viewing. Really. (more…)
Exodus 19:4-6
Bible 101
One of the best watch-the-penny-drop moments I’ve ever had reading the Bible with people has been with these few verses from Exodus, as they realized for the first time that ‘grace’ isn’t a New Testament concept.
Three months after escaping slavery in Egypt, Israel came to the foot of Mount Sinai. Moses went up to speak with God on behalf of the people, where he heard a deliberate summary of the events of the preceding chapters (v. 4): God acted against Egypt to release the Israelites from slavery, he brought them out smoothly and powerfully, and he did it to bring them to himself. (more…)
→ Context is your friend
Link
Context is important: in this post by Robert Jones we’ve got both an interesting example of using God’s word to talk through hardships in life, along with a look at what the ‘good’ is in Romans 8.28.
After the NIV, then what? The NIV.
Everyday Ministry, Life, Pastoral Ministry, Sola Panel
Some time ago I wrote about choosing a Bible translation for public use in church. At my church, St Michael’s Cathedral in Wollongong, we’ve decided to go with the 2011 version of the New International Version (NIV11), recently published by Biblica (a.k.a. the International Bible Society). I’d like to follow up on my previous article to tell you about our decision, and why.
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Acts 2:36
Bible 101
Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.
Peter must have been an interesting preacher to listen to. Not afraid to speak his mind. Contentious. Divisive. (more…)
Time to be hated?
Life, Sola Panel
Maybe you’re a people-pleaser (like I am), and like to be liked by the smart and the sensible. If that’s you, then I wonder if Jesus’ words in John 7 will cut you like they did me this morning. (more…)
Worship and Relationship
Thought, Sola Panel
From what I understand, I am one of the few who have been convinced by Tony Payne and Phillip Jensen’s assertion that you don’t come to church for the purpose of worship. Call me a company man or, as I like to think of it, a person who recognizes biblical correction. Either way, I know that I am in the minority. (more…)
Problems with the hymn on guidance
Everyday Ministry, Sola Panel
Recently, we’ve been preaching on Guidance, and to reinforce the theme, I selected “Guide me, O my great Redeemer” as our hymn of the month. (more…)
Don’t get fleeced by Gideon’s guidance!
Everyday Ministry, Sola Panel
Reading the Bible with kids – even the hard bits
Everyday Ministry, Life, Sola Panel
flickr: Wikipedia Commons: Michelangelo, Sistene Chapel ceiling
The first chapter of Ezekiel (let’s be honest) is some kind of weird. A wind drives an immense storm cloud from the north; four glowing creatures emerge from the cloud, each with four different faces, with two wings covering their bodies and two spread out, darting to and fro with a sound like roaring waters; wheels within wheels, one for each creature, their rims covered in eyes, move in a straight line wherever the four creatures go; and above the creatures’ wings is an expanse like crystal, surmounted by a sapphire throne on which sits a human figure, glowing like metal in a furnace. (more…)