Archives: life

Deborah: a mother in Israel

Life, Sola Panel

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This is the fifth post in Jean’s series on women in the Bible. (Read the first, second, third and fourth.)

Deborah, judge of Israel, is a poster-girl for egalitarianism in Judges 4-5. She’s undoubtedly female, and she’s a leader of God’s people: a judge who delivers God’s rulings, and a prophetess who speaks God’s words. Like the other judges, she’s used by God to deliver his people when they turn from their idolatry and cry to him for rescue from their enemies. Her husband is virtually absent from her story and, if she had any children, they aren’t mentioned. If the New Testament seems to say that women shouldn’t teach or have authority in the church, surely Deborah shows that these restrictions are cultural and can be laid aside in our more enlightened society!

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Sisters for those with no sisters

Life, Sola Panel

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I grew up with one brother and no sisters. I love my brother, and never longed for a sister (unlike my daughter, who loves her three brothers, but has always wanted a twin sister). But I’ve always wondered what it would be like to have a sister.

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John Newton and ‘Amazing Grace’

Life, Sola Panel

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It’s well known that John Newton was the captain of a slave trading ship who converted to Christ and eventually became an Anglican minister. Some people condense the whole story romantically by implying the horrific storm at sea that spurred Newton to first turn to God immediately led to a mature and complete repentance from his evil ways—such that he wrote ‘Amazing Grace’ as an expression of his gratefulness for being saved. But for some time after Newton’s storm-driven adoption of Christianity, he continued to make his living from the slave trade.

However, I believe it is accurate to say that soon after his conversion, he did begin to treat his slaves better. Yet it was only 32 years after his conversion—long after he’d given up seafaring and become an Anglican minister, and some years after he wrote ‘Amazing Grace’—that in 1780, Newton began to express regrets about his part in the slave trade. In 1785, he began to fight against slavery by speaking out against it, and he continued to do so until his death in 1807 (the year of the trade’s abolition).

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How to avoid persecution (according to Screwtape)

Life

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Our subject today, my novice fiends, is ‘How to help the Enemy’s urchins avoid persecution and suffering’. Now, hush your maggoty howls and listen to your Uncle Screwtape! Our Father didn’t promote me to Professor of Persecution for nothing, so listen and learn. (more…)

‘Missional lifestyle’: Home (the idolatries)

Life

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This is the fourth in Nicole’s series on ‘missional lifestyle’. Read parts 1, 2 and 3.

In my last post, I suggested some of the opportunities that our homes provide for serving God in mission within his world. But a home doesn’t just create opportunities for mission, it also creates opportunities for idolatry. Instead of being a place where God is worshipped and served, home can itself become a god we worship—or a shrine for the worship of other gods.

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Loving what God loves

Life, Sola Panel

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The UK government has launched a review into occupational Health & Safety laws (OH&S). It seems to be a very popular move. Health is good. Safety is good. But the multiplication of rules purportedly designed to enforce it often leads to madness. (more…)

A remarkable woman

Life, Sola Panel

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This is the fourth post in Jean’s series on women in the Bible. (Read the first, second and third.)

I met a remarkable woman the other day. To be honest, she’s not the kind of woman I normally feel comfortable with. She’s had an immoral past, a pagan background, and a life of change and crisis. She’s brave, shrewd and outspoken. I might as well come out and say it: she was once a prostitute. But I reckon she knows more about God than any number of women from safe Christian backgrounds (like me).

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An attempted collect on the regulation of bodily functions

Life

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Why the need for a collect on the regulation of bodily functions?

It’s because people like me do actually pray—often with some fervour—about the bodily functions of the children for whom they are responsible. That’s right, we pray about the absence, presence, frequency, infrequency, texture, colour and quantity of poo. We do it mostly because such things can flag a problem in young children—especially when they are only a few weeks old (at least that’s why I pray about such things; others may have different reasons).

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A theology of milk and other ordinary things

Life, Sola Panel

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Last year I read this statement, tucked away in a footnote in a certain august magazine:

… Paul isn’t talking [in 1 Corinthians 10:31] about just any old eating and drinking (as if there is such a thing as a godly and an ungodly way to drink a glass of milk!), but about the specific issue of sharing in fellowship meals with unbelievers.1

The bit in brackets disturbed me (although, as I read on, I was reassured2) because I’m convinced that the Bible has a huge amount to say about seemingly inconsequential things like how to drink a glass of milk. (more…)

‘Missional lifestyle’: Home

Life

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This is the third in Nicole’s series on ‘missional lifestyle’. Read parts 1 and 2.

I’m hoping in my next few posts to look at a few different areas of life (home, education, work, sport, etc.). I want to discuss the opportunities that each present for being involved in the lives of others—for their good and their salvation. I also want to examine some of the idolatries that we can be tempted to serve in each of these areas—idolatries that have the potential to destroy both us and our witness by luring our hearts away from Christ. I’m going to start with the most obvious one: our homes.

There are two big opportunities for mission that our homes open up for us: proximity and hospitality.

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Keep the Sabbath

Life

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At the risk of being too general, most Christians agree it’s good and wise to keep the intention of the Sabbath by taking a day off every week and resting.1 We don’t do this because we’re under the law of the Sabbath, for Jesus has fulfilled that law for us. We don’t have to have it on a certain day of the week, and it’s not done to win God’s favour. Instead, we observe these Sabbath-type days because we trust the God who loves us in Christ and who rules all things; taking a day off once a week is “an expression of this commitment”.2 (more…)

Marketing 101

Life

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The assembled students were oblivious to the presence of the sharply dressed man of indeterminate age who had appeared silently in the doorway at the rear of the buzzing lecture theatre. He stood there for a few moments, surveying them with a curious mingling of desire and loathing. Then as he smoothed his greasy ponytail with one hand, he flicked a long, narrow tongue across thin lips, twisted his mouth into something approximating a smile to reveal a glimpse of abnormally pointy teeth, and made his way to the front of the room. (more…)

On casting stones and sinning no more

Life, Sola Panel

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Jesus said, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone”. He also said, “Now go and sin no more”.

Keen Bible readers will know that Jesus said both things on the same occasion. (See John 8:3-11—especially verses 7 and 11 respectively.1) My question is how do we hold and communicate both truths together to a society that denies the second statement’s relevance and does not think we Christians believe the first?

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My sister Mary

Life

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I have to confess that for much of my Christian life, I’d not really stopped to consider the person of Mary and what she contributes to the church today. I knew about the major controversies of church history, and the significant differences between the Roman Catholic understanding and that of reformed Protestantism. But at a personal level, I’d never stopped to ask the question, “What does Mary mean to me?”

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