I want this T-shirt

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Audio Bibles

For the next 48 hours the Listener’s Bible’s having a sale.
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You can get the entire NIV, ESV or KJV read by Max McLean on mp3 CDs for $40 (£25).
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Or how about this for a nifty little product.  The GoBible is an mp3 player with the NIV preloaded on it.  You can go directly to any [...]

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Humility, Trinity and Daniel 4

For thawed-out Thursdays.  First posted in Jan 2008…
How should we 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 [...]

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Bible by the bys #1

I’m starting a new intermittent series.  Just some incidental acts or assumptions in the bible that make you think…
 
Here’s the first:
Hannah was praying in her heart, and her lips were moving but her voice was not heard. Eli thought she was drunk. (1 Sam 1:13)
The expectation was that Hannah would pray out loud.  And even [...]

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Daddy’s rich

Maybe your earthly father had short arms and deep pockets.  Or long arms and shallow pockets.  Or crossed arms and closed pockets. 
Your Father in heaven is different.
He’s rich beyond your wildest imaginings.  6 times Pauls says it in Ephesians (1:7,18; 2:4,7; 3:8,16). 
He’s rich – rich I tells ya.  And it’s just the normal word [...]

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I am in Christ AND Christ is in me

Something I think the Lord has been teaching me recently is to prize both these truths:
I am in Christ
 and
Christ is in me
I am clothed in an alien righteousness but also filled with an outworking Power.  My standing before God is entirely outside myself – in Jesus.  Yet my walk in the world is enabled [...]

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Successful and troubled

Thinking and preaching through 1 Corinthians recently, it’s so stark what a mixture the Corinthian church was. Successful and troubled.  Their congregation contains former male-prostitutes, idolaters, thieves, drunkards and swindlers (6:9-11).  What a work of grace to convert this lot from their dark past.  As this motley bunch meet together, called saints by the Father [...]

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What grace is not…

‘Isn’t it wonderful that we’re now under grace?’ they enthuse.
‘Sure is,’ you say.
And then they explain what they mean by ‘grace’ and you wonder what it is they’ve really found themselves ‘under’.
 
Here are 8 common misconceptions.
1. Wahey!  Isn’t it great that God has lowered the bar?  He used to care about loads of stuff.  Now it’s [...]

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God is waiting for you to despair

From Watchman Nee’s Sit, Walk, Stand.
“An engineer living in a large city in the West left his homeland for the Far East. He was away for two or three years, and during his absence his wife was unfaithful to him and went off with one of his best friends. On his return home he found [...]

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Sometimes the smart-assed answer is the best

The Sunday School teacher asked:
What do you need to do in order to be forgiven by God?
Billy piped up:
Sin
 
Got it in one Billy.
Are you a sinner?  That’s all you need to bring.  Jesus will do the rest.
 

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Luther v Cranmer on Lord’s Supper

Given discussion about Lutheran influence on the UK, here’s a Thawsday repost…
John Richardson (whose excellent blog is here) adds his voice to this discussion on Stand Firm in Faith.  He writes about the place of repentance in the communion service.  It chimes with a lot of what I wrote here: 
I have long felt Anglicanism (specifically Thomas [...]

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Where are all the Lutherans?

Are you aware of Mike Reeves’ new book on the reformation, The Unquenchable Flame? 
 
Mark Dever says about it:
 
‘With the skill of a scholar and the art of a storyteller, Michael Reeves has written what is, quite simply, the best brief introduction to the Reformation I have read.’
 
How about that?!  You can check out all the wonderful [...]

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Subterranean terror

The first human emotion after the fall was fear – Gen 3:10
The first human emotion after birth is fear.
The most common biblical command is ‘Fear not’.
Which gives you the idea that fear is a major part of our emotional life as fallen creatures.  But of course, we hide it under a thousand pseudonyms.  Here are [...]

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You’re a very pretty princess!

The church says “we need to man up, we need to appeal to men”; the Scripture says “if it helps, He does think you’re a very pretty Princess”.
Go and read Daniel Blanche’s post NOW. 
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Bless me Vader I have sinned

Dan’s worried about wearing Anglican garb. 
Don’t worry Dan, there’s a lot of cool clerical wear out there.  I think the guy at the back is Archdeacon or something.
 

 
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How He has loved us

For Thawed-out Thursdays – this one from 18 months ago
Three pictures of how we are loved from the upper room. The waterfall, promotion, God’s compass. They all deserve reflection as we immerse ourselves in the love of the triune God.
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First, the waterfall:
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.” (John 15:9)
Here the [...]

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Not receiving it – receiving Him

Enquirers into Christianity often have difficulty with the concept of appropriating grace.  And given how we often present it, that’s understandable.  Often we tell the enquirer simply to receive grace as a free gift. They, naturally, wonder what on earth that looks like. So we reply with greater vigour ‘Just receive the free forgiveness and [...]

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The New Birth

My great friend (and regular commenter here) Will Mackerras recently preached a cracker at Farm Fellowship (where Paul Blackham ministers).
Do we really believe that a person in Christ will naturally and organically produce righteous fruit – just as someone in Adam will naturally and organically produce wicked fruit?  Do we have a proper understanding of our new [...]

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Dan Allender – The Psychology of a Pooped Pastor

The Wounded Heart is my favourite Dan Allender resource. (see previous post).  But here’s one that’s $95 cheaper (i.e. free).  A talk entitled The Psychology of a Pooped Pastor
His main point is that the problem is not Pooped Pastors but Pissed Pastors.  (By the way Mum, by pissed he means angry – it’s an American [...]

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Sexual abuse – a resource and a sermon

There are few bits of teaching that have affected me more than Dan Allender’s The Wounded Heart.  These 14 hour-long talks are especially directed at recovery from childhood sexual abuse.  But to be honest they are the best thing you’ll ever hear on pastoral theology.  I’ve listened my way through the whole thing at least [...]

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Reading Scripture trinitarianly

. . . There is no such thing as a non-dogmatic or non-theological engagement of the biblical text, or of any text or language for that matter. Moreover, anti-Trinitarian frames of reference lead to fundamental problems for approaching the Bible and revelation. To illustrate by way of a historical parallel, the early Socinians, whose orientation [...]

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Jesus saved a people out of Egypt – the story of Exodus

Jesus… saved a people out of the land of Egypt.  (Jude 5)
That’s Exodus in 10 words. 
Let me give a more expanded but less inspired version.  I will focus on the who of Exodus rather than the what.  My attention will not be on Moses or Pharoah or the plagues or the Red Sea or the law [...]

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Jesus is LORD

I’m watching Lionel Richie sing ‘Jesus is LORD’ at the concert to commemorate a JW turned Muslim.
What the?
 
UPDATE:  Just found out the song is ‘Jesus is love’.  Lyrics here.  Still interesting.

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Macho Jesus is a false Jesus

I think this is the most blasphemous image of Christ I’ve seen.
Brings to mind that pithy saying often heard on the lips of an influential pastor: ‘I refuse to worship a Jesus I could beat up.’ 
If that logic were followed – would this be the Jesus who is worthy of worship?  Perish the thought.
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Some manly things Jesus did

 

Three pictures of manliness in the gospels:
ONE.  Jesus, pictured as the father in Luke 15, (seriously the father is Jesus.  Just straightforwardly and obviously Jesus.  It’s demonstrable beyond any question of refutation.  Really).  Where was I?  Oh yes, Jesus, pictured as the father, is turned in his stomach with compassion, hitches up his robes, runs to [...]

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Newbiggin Lecture

Wonderful Lesslie Newbiggin lecture on Nihilism.  Nihilism as the fruit of a divorce between faith categories and certainty/knowledge categories.  And it started a lot sooner than Kant.  Go listen.
h/t Dave K

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Passover is…

… the ultimate plague (i.e. judgement)  (Ex 11:1)
… judgement upon the gods (Ex 12:12)
… the defeat of the Enemy (Ex 6:1)
… liberation from slavery to overlords (Ex 13:14)
… liberation to the service of the LORD (Ex 8:1)
… the cause of unparalleled sorrow for the enemies (Ex 11:6)
… the cause of great joy for the redeemed (2 [...]

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Bad news for England

Australia’s batting looks fragile and apart from Lee the bowling seems toothless.  So I was relieved to watch this the other day:

 
And just a reminder of what Warne can do

 
If cricket’s not your thing, I’m sorry.  I really am sorry.
Here – watch Robert Webb flashdancing…

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Thawed out Thursdays

The dumb thing about blogging is that you’re always burying your old stuff with whatever nonsense occured to you in the shower that morning.  Almost 500 posts on it occurs to me that newer is not necessarily better and, apart from Bobby, I’m not sure how many of you were following the blog from the [...]

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Apologetic Christianity

In a Christian book shop this morning they were promoting a new apologetics book with the strapline:
Why God probably exists.  Why Jesus is probably divine.
Hardly the language of revelation (i.e. of the gospel!)
The book consisted of four theistic proofs, a couple of chapters on Jesus and then some answers to thorny questions.  An epilogue asked readers [...]

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