Eight years ago, on 23 January 1996, Pastor Joe Wright delivered a prayer to the Kansas House of Representatives in Topeka, USA. His prayer was remarkable for its courage and clarity in condemning many evils prevalent in American society and in Western societies generally.
Category Archives: Full-Text-Longing
Suggested reading lists for book clubs
Rory Shiner’s top fives
Top 5 Christian books
- Letters Along the Way by John Woodbridge and Don Carson
- Islam in Our Backyard by Tony Payne
Learning not to trust
There is a certain mystique about newspapers—the piles of identical bulletins stacked in the newsagent, the solemn blackness of the headlines, the ink on your fingers, the wrinkly familiarity of spreading it out in front of you on the table. I’m not sure how the combination works, but whatever the reason, I still find it hard not to believe what I read there. There is a gravitas, a kind of aura of trust, that seems to emanate from the pages. Surely if it’s there in black and white, then it must have happened like that?
The assault on marriage and family
That the institutions of marriage and family are under threat today is a no-brainer. All the indications point clearly to the fact that that the natural family and the covenant of marriage are both being stretched to breaking point. Many sources of attack could be mentioned, but the activities of the homosexual lobby deserve special mention.
What’s wrong with same-sex ‘marriage’?
Recently I read of a church that fell into serious error. Apparently this happened under the influence of a newly arrived pastor whose predecessor—a godly man—had, for more than three decades, “never preached anything but the gospel truth”. How could this falling away happen so quickly? A friend of the church observed of the former pastor, “He told them the truth all those years. What he didn’t tell them was what wasn’t the truth”.1
Use and abuse of the fathers and the Bible in trinitarian theology (endnotes)
Endnotes
1 Myself included.
2 Kevin Giles, The Trinity and Subordinationism, IVP, Downers Grove, 2002, p. 81.
3 See http://www.ajmd.com.au/trinity/. This excellent site pays careful reading, for Moody has acute biblical and theological insights into how Giles’s arguments work.
Use and abuse of the fathers and the Bible in trinitarian theology
A review of Kevin Giles, The Trinity and Subordinationism, IVP, Downers Grove, 2002.
The long debate among evangelicals about women’s ministry has brought many issues floating to the surface. It has challenged us to think about our view of Scripture and how it speaks to us today. It has prompted us to re-examine ordination itself and the traditional structures of ministry. And most recently, it has put the doctrine of the Trinity back on the agenda.
The Briefing and the ESV
A response to Don Carson and Allan Chapple
I am not by nature a grumpy person. I don’t often get very heated in debate or upset about things. You could even call me phlegmatic (love that word).
ESV/NIV Comparison Chart
In his RTR article (reproduced elsewhere in this month’s web extra), Allan Chapple judges that the ESV has fallen short of its own objectives, and provides some examples. As promised (in the paper edition of this month’s Briefing), here are some counter-examples, where the ESV is advantageously a few steps more direct in translation than the NIV, while remaining quite readable (that is, where the ESV has achieved its objectives).
Generating Confidence in the Bible: The use of Bible translations in Christian ministry
As a preacher, I am passionately concerned to ensure that I am faithfully proclaiming the word of God. Equally important is the question of whether I am effectively proclaiming the word of God. It will be of little or no lasting benefit to those who hear if I parade my cleverness—my wit or charm, my ability with funny or emotive stories—and not bring people into contact with the word that God has spoken. It likewise will be next to useless if I proclaim the truth in a way that obscures its meaning or makes it difficult for people to hear and understand.
The English Standard Version: A Review Article
Originally published in The Reformed Theological Review. Reprinted with permission.
My aim is to assess the quality of the English Standard Version of the Bible (ESV). This can be done by comparing the ESV with other translations. However, such a huge task could not be reported adequately within the scope of an article such as this. A more satisfactory alternative is to measure the ESV against what it was intended to be: that is, to compare the final product with the aims of those who produced it. By concentrating on its characteristic features and studying representative passages, even the limited survey possible here will enable us to reach sound conclusions. (more…)
Good English With Minimal Translation: Why Bethlehem Uses the ESV
Why I would like to see the English Standard Version become the most common Bible of the English-speaking church, for preaching, teaching, memorizing, and study.
All Scripture Is Breathed Out by God and Profitable
Today, at the end of prayer week, we focus on the preciousness and power of the Word of God, the Bible. I will call you today to love the Word of God and meditate on it every day this year and memorize it systematically.
A Bible for Everyone
Copyright (c) 2003 First Things 138 (December 2003): 10-14.
One summer years ago, I attended a conference that met at Princeton Theological Seminary; we participants stayed in the seminary dormitory. We soon discovered that the lounge on the first floor of the dorm had been converted into a kind of outsized study. A large table dominated the room; scattered across its surface were dozens of hefty books, many of them held open by other books. A group of men sat around the table from morning to evening, sometimes rising to consult one of the piled tomes. Whenever we walked past we could see them framed in a large picture window like figures in a painting. I half-expected to find a neat brass plaque screwed to the windowsill and bearing a single word: Scholarship.
The Perfect Muslim
Introduction
This article is a comprehensive study of the subject of submission in the Bible and Qur’an. This is a subject on which the Bible and Qur’an have much in common and as such is a place where Christians and Muslims can agree at many points. The article examines submission from the time of Adam until the return of Jesus. It also asks the question as to what it means to submit to God perfectly.