Quiet times

This week I’ve been listening to sermons from the web on Luke 14.  I’m preaching on it on Sunday.  It’s Jesus at a banquet.  He heals on the Sabbath, He teaches about not taking the seats of honour, He calls people to invite the poor, crippled, lame and blind to dinner and He speaks of [...]

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Calling sinners to Christ

I’ve just written an essay on repentance and evangelism.  It was very hurriedly written, but basically my point is: Unbelievers can’t repent, believers must – all the time. 
One of the implications is that evangelism is calling sinners to come to Christ just as they are.  Two men preaching in the 19th century grasped this very [...]

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Prayer of humble access

I flew a kite here for the notion of confession following our taking of communion.  It wasn’t enthusiastically embraced!
I was reminded on Sunday of how brilliant Thomas Cranmer’s ‘Prayer of humble access’ is.  In the Anglican church, this is what we pray before receiving communion.  Isn’t it great?
We do not presume to come to this your table, merciful [...]

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Trinity, universalism and women’s ministry

How about that for a title?
Just two half-formed thoughts really that flow from recent musings on the trinity…
First, Bobby has some interesting posts here and here that touch on (among other things) Barthian methodology and avoiding universalism.  Now one way of describing universalism is the conflation of church and world – that is church and [...]

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Let Jesus be Jesus.

Ok, so the last post put forward church life as an analogy of trinitarian life.  More specifically:
‘Differently gifted members of one priesthood’ is analagous to ‘Differently gifted Persons in one Godhead.’
Once this is seen, then we can all breathe a sigh of relief and just let Jesus be Jesus. 
What do I mean by that?  Well [...]

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The Priesthood of all believers and Trinity 2

In previous posts I have discussed the priesthood of all believers and how this doctrine interacts with the doctrine of the trinity.  In my last post on this I examined the connection from Trinity => church.  In this post we’ll go in the other direction: church => trinity (a much more perilous route!!).  My question is:
          Can ‘different [...]

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The Way of the LORD

From Genesis 1, the way of the LORD has always been forming, then filling.
The filled-out reality is there by anticipation even in the forming. The intention for filling is included in the forming. But still the order is ‘form, then fill.’:

In Gen 1:2 – a formless and empty creation is then formed (days 1-3) and [...]

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The Priesthood of all believers and Trinity 1

When discussing the priesthood of all believers I tried to highlight the corporate nature of our priestliness.  I only find my priestliness in union with Christ and in union with others.  Both are essential.
The priesthood of all believers is not a priestliness that is the private possession of each believer.  If we argue like this then the [...]

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Theology – the end of the process??

Is “systematic theology… the end process of exegesis and biblical theology”??  Ben Myers writes brilliantly against such a conception.  To imagine that a pure biblical scholar can dispassionately read off the meaning of the Bible through the use of objective interpretive tools is ludicrous.  To imagine that then the systematic theologian comes to co-ordinate these propositions [...]

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What does the ‘priesthood of all believers’ mean?

I’m no expert on the historical use of this phrase but surely there are some unhelpful ways of spinning this evangelical touchstone.  Here’s what I think the phrase must protect:

The church as a whole is the only earthly priesthood the NT recognizes.  (Ex 19:6; 1 Pet 2:9; Rev 5:10) 

Every Christian has equally entered this priesthood. 

None is [...]

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Humility, Trinity and Daniel 4

How to attain humility?  Determine to think low thoughts of yourself?  You’d be defeated before you began.  Self-deprecation is still self-deprecation.  No, to be humble we need to be humbled. 
Daniel 4 gives us a great picture of this.  Nebuchadnezzar, the most powerful man in the world, is humbled by the triune God who is ‘able [...]

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Where does repentance fit?

Where would you place the ‘confession’ in a communion service? 
I was speaking about that yesterday with another gospel minister.  I ‘flew a kite’ for the idea of confessing after receiving the sacrament.  Perhaps, I wondered aloud, we could receive Christ in the bread and wine (of course with reverence recognizing the body of the Lord) [...]

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I believed, therefore I spoke.

Our church is in a sermon series encouraging us to put mission at the heart of all we do and say.  It’s got me thinking about one of my favourite verses: ”I believed therefore I have spoken.” (2 Cor 4:13)  I’ve been trying to think, what do I need to believe in order to be the evangelist [...]

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Avoiding a fourth

No (good) trinitarian theologian wants to have a fourth thing – a divine substance considered apart from the Three Persons.  But it’s important to be aware that this error (effectively having a quaternity) has two versions.  There is a vulgar quaternity and a more insidious one.
The vulgar one looks like this:
 
Here is the “shamrock” trinity [...]

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Barth for Beginners

Hello all,
I’m going on a blog-fast for the next week.  Feel free to comment on anything but I will resist replying – for a bit anyway.
In the meantime enjoy this!   Barth 101:

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So what??!

A friend of mine is at Bible college and has been set an essay on trinitarian theology and the difference between east and west.  He emailed me to ask “So what??! I mean realistically what are the implications of the different approaches?”
Here’s part of my response.  I have obviously caricatured positions to make a point.   I’m [...]

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Assurance in the Reformed Tradition

Over at White to Harvest there are some very stimulating discussions of election and assurance going on – see here and the comments here.   But just to stick up for the reformed tradition, here are (very selective!) quotations from three of the greats.  Not to say that these are consistently followed by each theologian or their [...]

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Nicene Trinitarianism

Much of this is from a comment or two I’ve made here at Dan Hames’ excellent blog.
The trinity is a very old doctrine. See The Trinitarian Old Testament for just how old. But Nicea (by which I mean the Niceno-Constantinopolitan creed of 381 which we say in church today) gave us certain terminology that is accepted by [...]

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Mission, evangelism and social action – part 5

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:34-35)
“May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have [...]

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