Tag Archives: holiness

Reading Leviticus

Life, Thought, Sola Panel

| | 1 comment

I’m reading the Bible through, chronologically this time. I’ve just got to Leviticus: the shoal that’s wrecked a million Bible reading plans (at least, it did mine when I was a teenager). Once again, as I read this hard part of God’s word, it seeps into my skin and reshapes my insides. 

flickr: natematias

There’s something beautiful about Leviticus. Sometimes, like those 3D pictures, you have to blur your eyes to see it. As you persevere through the bewildering details (split hooves? a sore with white hairs in it? two materials woven into one?) you begin to sense the outlines. Laws that protect life and relationships. Laws that forbid detestable practices and depraved worship. Laws that uphold justice and provide for the poor.1

There’s also something terrifying about Leviticus. (more…)

Sanctification is not about progress

Thought, Sola Panel

| | 9 comments

Well, sanctification is not primarily about progress—but I thought I’d get you with the title!

I dislike how so much evangelical discussion speaks of sanctification primarily in terms of progress in holiness. (more…)

The first 21 years are the hardest

Resource Talk, Sola Panel

|

There’s no doubt about it: this 21st birthday Briefing has put me in a nostalgic frame of mind. I’m finding myself daydreaming about the late 80s when New Zealand wore beige and brown body shirts in one day cricket, when U2 was a young, emerging supergroup, and when the book to give away to a non-Christian friend was John Chapman’s bestselling A Fresh Start. (more…)

God, sin and Christ: why we need all three

|

What ever happened to preaching the holiness of God and the seriousness of sin? Martin Foord asks whether our evangelism has been rendered worthless by a loss of nerve.

One day my mother discovered a pimple-like bump on her arm. So she went to her GP for a diagnosis and was told, “It’s nothing to worry about”. However, she decided to get a second opinion from a skin specialist, and this time the diagnosis was radically different: it was melanoma, and she was under the surgeon’s knife within several days. Stories like this remind us uneasily of how perilous it is to be ignorant of bad news. If we have a melanoma, it’s critical we know, otherwise we can’t take the appropriate action. (more…)

The New Perspective in action

Thought

|

All Christian teaching has implications for Christian living. Likewise all doctrine works itself out, one way or another, into a pattern of Christian practice. Having examined the ‘New Perspective’ on justification in the two previous Briefings (#228, #229),1 in this article, we want to explore the ‘cash value’ of the ‘New Perspective’ on justification—that is, its impact on Christian experience and ministry. Once again, we will focus our attention on the teaching of Tom Wright— partly because of the significance of the challenge he poses and partly because he (more than others) has taken the time to articulate what he sees as the practical outworkings of the ‘New Perspective’ on justification.

(more…)