—and if he had not promised and prepared for thousands of years in the Scriptures—
—and if he did not come in human flesh— (more…)
Archives: thought
The power and inadequacy of biological determinism
Thought
Yes, it’s been a while since I last posted. And so you may be forgiven for forgetting where we’re up to. I’m talking about my preparation for an evangelistic talk on sex (see the start of the posts). And last time, I tried to show that biological determinism lies at the heart of the modern story of sex. To put it simply, we’ve evolved in such a way that we’re made to have sex—lots of sex, with multiple partners. And because it’s biologically determined, we have no choice. Today, I want to reflect on the power and inadequacy of this position.
A rich man’s identity discovered?
Thought
Ever since I first came into contact with the rich fool of Luke 12, I’ve been intrigued by the stupidities of his personality. He is a man so rich that he can even afford to tear down his barns and build bigger ones. This is a strange piece of non-thriftiness that a friend from a farming background assured me is still not unknown in rural Australia—something which I witnessed, in modified English form, for myself just the other day. (Well okay, watching Grand Designs on the telly may not count as ‘witnessing’, but let’s just say that there are enough rich fools about for any of us to recognize the type.)
Using your biblical word power: Justification through atonement
Thought, Sola Panel
Improve your biblical word power 4: Atonement
Thought, Sola Panel
The story of the glory of God (Part 2)
Thought
Improve your biblical word power 3: Justification
Thought, Sola Panel
Stirring the affections
Thought, Sola Panel
I concluded part 2 of this little series with a challenge:
What we need is a change in our affections. We need to change not what we feel nor even what we know but what we love.
The question is: How does one do that?
Our guide (in part 2 in particular) has been Jonathan Edwards and his classic Treatise Concerning Religious Affections. What does Edwards say about how to stimulate the affections?
Jesus IS a Jew
Thought
Is this a modern scandal for Christians—a truth that some find hard to swallow? I don’t mean that that Jesus was a Jew, but that he is one now.
Learning from The Pretenders, or The case for church history, Part 3
Thought
As a middle-aged git, an aspiring baldy man, someone as uncool as you can get and a rock dinosaur, much of my wisdom is drawn from song lyrics from bands that most people under the age of 35 have never heard of. Thus, in this final blog post, I want to make the case for church history with reference to a line in a song by The Pretenders (called, I believe, ‘Hymn to Her’): “Some things change, some stay the same”. It’s not too profound, I guess, but it’s a critical element in the historical task, given that the very possibility of history requires some analogy between the present world in which the historian lives and the past that is being studied. Were they identical, history would be pointless, for the past would be the present; were they utterly different, history would be impossible, for there would be no way of analyzing, categorizing or describing the past. No, for history to be possible, there must be things about my world that are the same as those in the past.
Sticking it to the man, or The case for church history, Part 2
Thought
It is almost a given today that history is oppressive. That is why there has been so much hoo-ha about how it is taught over the last 30 years. Everybody wants their say: if you’re a woman, you need a woman’s history; if you’re gay, you need a queer history; if you’re black, you need a black history, and so on and so forth. The making of many histories is itself a reflection of the priorities and, on occasion, the pathologies of modern society. How long, one wonders, before we get a history written from the perspective of Frank Sinatra impersonators, ginger haired people and compulsive hand-washers?
Improve your biblical word power 2: Forensic righteousness
Thought, Sola Panel
The theological importance of criminal profiling, or The case for church history, Part 1
Thought
It is a great honour and pleasure, being invited to contribute a few guest blog posts to The Sola Panel in advance of my forthcoming visit to Australia. Given the fact that a fool is generally known by his much speaking, I have decided to focus my posts on what I know best—church history, but not in some tedious here-are-a-few-names-and-dates-manner; rather, I want to argue for the importance of church history as a vital discipline for theological education, both in seminary training and in the day-to-day life of the church. Those who do not know history may not be quite as doomed to repeat its mistakes as the famous proverb would imply, but understanding how it can be useful might yet help one or two of us to avoid some embarrassing potholes, or it may just save us from having to reinvent the wheel all over again, fun as such reinvention undoubtedly is (once watching the grass grow and the paint dry has lost its appeal, that is).
Thinking about emotions (Part II)
Thought, Sola Panel
Christians are arguing about emotions and passionate outpourings. Some exalt in these experiences, and see in them the revival of true and authentic Christianity; others decry the emotional hysteria of easily manipulated crowds, and assert that rational, mature Christianity needs to rise above such gross displays of experientialism.
Sound familiar? It is a (rough) description of the mid-18th-century American context for Jonathan Edwards’s classic work A Treatise on the Religious Affections.
Improve your biblical word power 1: Righteousness
Thought, Sola Panel
This post is the first in a series designed to help you to get to know and love some of the important words used in the Bible so that you can be more precise as you seek to know God and talk about him.