Reprinted with kind permission from The Sacred Sandwich http://sacredsandwich.com. (more…)
Author Archives: The Briefing
To mourn or not to mourn?
Up front
I was talking to a friend the other day who told me this story:
I was in a prayer meeting this week with a lady who asked us to pray for her relationship with her parents. They were getting divorced after having been married for several decades. She doesn’t live at home anymore, and she talked about the whole thing quite matter-of-factly. I told her that that was really sad, and the sharing of prayer points moved on to the next person.
Review: “Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament”
Review
It always bothers me when the author or editor of a book starts by telling me what their book is not. So it was with some concern that I began my reading of Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament—a book that, the editors say, neither surveys, summarizes nor takes a position on the debates over the use of the Old Testament in the New Testament. However, it was not long before I became pleased with it. (more…)
Introducing God to my friends
Everyday Ministry
‘Jars of clay’ is a column featuring stories about people speaking the Bible’s life-changing word in every situation. In our first-ever instalment, Karen Beilharz reminisces about the year she spent trying to introduce God to her friends. (more…)
God did it. Have I missed something?
Thought
Wesley, charms and church planting (Part II)
Everyday Ministry
According my trusty Oxford American Writer’s Thesaurus, the following are synonyms for ‘pedant’: dogmatist, purist, formalist, quibbler, hair-splitter, casuist, sophist and nitpicker. Given that theologians study dogmatics, doesn’t that tend them towards pedantry? And if so, how could I say in my last post that church planters need to be theologians in order to contextualize the gospel?
Theologians are as risk-averse as actuaries, so how can they contextualize the gospel successfully?
Where are we looking for rest?
Life
The coincidence of approaching summer holidays (we’re in the northern hemisphere!), living in a ‘lifestyle-focused’ culture, and reading Nehemiah has got me thinking about the topic of rest. It’s not a particularly recent thought for me, or for humanity in general; since ancient times, rest has been a great concern for people—perhaps another indication that we are indeed created in the image of our creator, who is himself a God who rests (Gen 2:2).
Wesley, charms and church planting
Pastoral Ministry
For some reason (now lost in the fog that descends regularly on my neural pathways), I was reading the words of Wesley’s ‘O for a thousand tongues’ the other day. I don’t remember why I was reading, but I do remember being struck by what I read: “Jesus, the name that calms our fears …” I was sure that it wasn’t quite right. Sure enough, it wasn’t; Wesley actually penned “Jesus, the name that charms our fears”.
I thought to myself, there’s a church planting lesson in that.
Women and the Bible (Reflections on reading the Bible with my kids part II)
Thought
We read the Bible as a family each night after dinner. On this particular night, the story is the feeding of the 5000. Well, more specifically, the feeding of the five thousand men.
My daughter’s face told a story that her question confirmed: “Dad, why did they only count the men? Didn’t they care about women back then? Were women less important?”
What’s a dad to say to that?
Hit me with a Psalm!
Everyday Ministry
Psalm 53, to be precise.
Psalm 53:5, to be preciser.
Okay, so if you really wanted to connect the gospel with the people in the community, you just know intuitively that telling them that they’re under judgement is marketing suicide. It’s a bit like selling your medicine by asking people to come along to a discussion group so that they can share about their favourite disease.
Christians who believe judgement is real often respond, therefore, by hiding the information about God’s wrath inside the fine print of their mind. After all, they reason, the Bible reserves its worst words of judgement for religious insiders.
Jesus changed heaven forever
Thought
I’ve never been one for thinking about angels much. Nor have I thought much about how Jesus changed life in heaven. I mean, I’m sure it’s all very interesting; it’s just not very practical really.
Wrong!
A virtual conference
Life
One of the advantages of living in Mexico is that you are in the same time zone as much of the USA. For NBA and NFL fans, this is good news. Last week, I discovered another advantage: the Gospel Coalition was holding its annual conference in Chicago, and was streaming the sessions live. Throughout the day and evening, I could listen to the likes of John Piper, Tim Keller, Mark Driscoll and Ajith Fernando in real time. Apparently, about 3,500 people attended; who knows how many watched like I did!
But as good as it was (the technical production was brilliant, and I could see and hear everything—maybe better than some of those attending), it wasn’t the same as being there. This got me wondering about the concept of cyber-church, e-church, virtual church or whatever you want to call it. Will it ever work? Should we try and make it work? Are there essentials of meeting together that the internet just can’t provide?
Reading the Bible with your eyes open
Life
You read what you see.
You knock on the door of the dingy inner city terrace. You probably did see a whole lot of Harley Davidsons outside on the footpath, but obviously you weren’t thinking. The door opens, and now you see a room full of leather-clad, patch-emblazoned, hairy types of the bike riding persuasion. You were supposed to invite the happy householder to a gospel thingy at the local church. If you go along with that plan, you suddenly see a different future stretching out before you—and it doesn’t seem to stretch that far any more.
Sexual immorality: Some thoughts from Corinth
Thought
Pornography, sexual temptation and sexual failure are one of the great issues for God’s people as we learn to live in the always-connected age. It’s a problem that’s not about to go away any time soon. In the face of such a massive challenge to Christian living, it is important for us to learn how to talk honestly with each other about our struggle to live pure lives. Our churches need to provide places for Christians to support each other in this struggle. That’s the essence of what James Warren’s excellent article is about. But instead of running it as the first feature in this issue, we decided to start with Gordon’s piece on lessons learned from Corinth. The final and ultimate solution to dealing with our sexual sins is not community (although that is vital), but the death and resurrection of Jesus. As you spend some time thinking about these problems, don’t jump straight to the second article; we need to hear everything both articles have to say—over and over again. (more…)
The naked truth about porn
Life
Pornography is an extremely important and complex issue, but it isn’t easy to talk about, even though it’s now a part of mainstream culture. In this insightful article, James Warren opens up the topic and asks “What is porn?”, “Why is it a problem?” and “What can we do about it?” (more…)