A deep and abiding passion to see our churches grow is a very dangerous thing. That may seem an odd observation to make, but it is a critical one. If we run with a passion to grow things without at… (more…)
This article is an edited transcript of a talk given by Phil Colgan at the 2014 Nexus conference in Sydney, written up and edited by Sam Freney. Personal references throughout are therefore applicable to Phil, not Sam. In my… (more…)
Tony Payne talks with Phillip Jensen about the history of The Briefing—how it began, what its aims have been, and where we stand now. ~ Tony Payne: Phillip, The Briefing was really your idea. You drew together the resources to… (more…)
I suppose it’s like looking at old baby photos, but over the past month or so I’ve been browsing through some of the classic early articles in The Briefing. I chuckled over some of the ‘Lead Balloons’ we ran in… (more…)
This article is an edited transcript of an address given at the 2014 Nexus conference in Sydney. ~ And when [Paul] had said these things, he knelt down and prayed with them all. And there was much weeping on the… (more…)
“What do you do for work?” is one of the most common questions that we ask when we meet someone new. For most of us, work is right at the heart of how we see ourselves and how we explain… (more…)
People who are on slippery slopes don’t like slippery slope arguments.
The slippery slope argument says that once you allow ‘A’, you are at the top of a slippery slope which will sloppily and slippily carry you down the slidy thing you are on to ‘Z’. The people who are heading in the direction of ‘Z’ tend not to like being told they’re heading that way, presumably because they are ‘A’-type people.
Recently, Sandy Grant wrote to Anglican Archbishop Roger Herft of Perth, trying to discover what view the Archbishop took in response to one of his senior clergymen apparently denying the bodily resurrection of Christ. The response at the time was ambiguous. (Sandy commented on the topic here and here.)
I’m leading the Lord’s Supper this morning at church.
For no other reason than because Sandy alluded to it in his post, I brought down from the bookshelf Broughton Knox’s discussion of the coming of Jesus, referred to in Matthew 24, 25 and 26. It comes from a chapter cheekily entitled ‘The Five Comings of Jesus’ which you can read for yourself if you have Broughton’s book. If you haven’t got it, here’s what he says:
In my last post, I said there were three options for Matthew 24:1-35: it could refer to Christ’s final return, it could be talking about the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 70 AD, or it could be discussing the death, resurrection and ascension of Christ. I said I swung between option 2 and 3: the temple destruction and Christ’s death. But even as I was preaching, I was conscious that I had dismissed the connection of earlier sections of the chapter with the second coming of Christ too easily.
Once I get started on a train of thought, it can be a bit difficult to derail myself—that is, when it’s not far too easy. My post on ‘Praying to dead people for help’ is the latest train to bury itself on a track at the back of my mind.
A few weeks ago, I was preaching through Matthew’s Gospel and got to the apocalyptic material in chapter 24 and following. In the first week I preached on Matthew 24:1-35. The context is Jesus’ prediction of the temple’s destruction (vv. 1-2). In response, the disciples raise a question of timing concerning three matters (which were, presumably, linked in their minds): “Tell us, when will this [i.e. every temple stone being cast down] happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” (NIV). The section mentions a couple of other key events: verse 15’s abomination that causes desolation standing in the holy place and verse 30’s Son of Man coming on the clouds with great power. The big question is what does this chapter refers to? In particular, what event does the coming of the Son of Man refer to? There are three main options:
A woman is currently standing trial for assisting in the death of her partner Graeme Wylie:
Alzheimer’s sufferer Graeme Wylie would have been unable to get and ingest the drug that killed him without the help of his partner, Shirley Justins, and friend Caren Jenning, Justins told the Supreme Court yesterday.
All this daily writing, posting and commenting is enormous fun, but after all of one month, I’m thinking it would be good to take Sundays off. Let’s just all go to church enjoy some propinquity. Back again tomorrow.
Dear Sola Panel readers,
Will you do me a favour and take part in this two-part blog posted titled ’Noosa not Newletter’? If you would be so kind as to answer the question below by submitting a comment, I’d be grateful. Here’s the question I want you to answer:
Having promised three posts on ‘social action’, here at last is the final instalment (Read Part 1 and Part 2.)
Part 3 has been difficult to polish off—not only because we are getting to the rough terrain of practical wisdom, but also because it’s so easy to be self-deceived. Am I wanting to play down what social action means in reality because, for all my lofty talk about love, my heart is in fact cold, and I don’t want to have to put myself out for others? Or am I wanting to play up social action because, for all my lofty talk about proclamation being central, I don’t in fact want it to be central, and would rather do something else instead—something that seems both more immediately useful and more acceptable in the eyes of the world?
From (almost) the beginning of the Bible to the very end, the Bible is a book about judgement. The idea that judgement might come functions in the obvious way: to scare sinners. But it is also paradoxically comforting for angry people. It is especially comforting to those who are angry over the injustice they see in the world.
Say it in a whisper, but Zechariah is not the first book that I would turn to when dipping into the Old Testament. Some books are easy to understand, and some books are not. Zechariah is not.
A wise man once said, “Before you criticize anyone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you’ll be a mile away, and you’ll have their shoes.”
They say that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. Or is it satire?
Whichever it is, I know it’s not irony. Irony has a much better reputation. It’s the Honda Accord Euro of wit: classy, effective, understated. Things ‘drip’ with irony, like honey from the comb, or blood from a wound. But the strangest and most delicious aspect of irony is that it is usually invisible to the very the person speaking the words. When Caiaphas says that it would be better that one man should die for the people, rather than the whole nation perish, he does not realize the bittersweet truth he is uttering, although we as readers do.