Author Archives: admin

What if God has not joined together?

Walking With Giants Posted on by

In Matthew 19:6 (= Mark 10:9) Jesus quotes Genesis 2:24, and then says, “what God has joined together, let man not separate”.

R. Paul Stevens discusses three approaches to the vexed question of remarriage after divorce: (a) the textual/legal approach, which seeks to find out what Scripture says about permissible grounds; (b) a dispensational approach which asks whether the harder teaching of the Bible is for our own day or some other age; and (c) through a biblical theology approach, which seeks to connect the reality of Scripture with the reality of contemporary culture.…

Genesis 22 – “Abraham, kill your son”

Walking With Giants Posted on by

The account (in Genesis 22) of how God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, is one of the most problematic in the whole of scripture.  It seems to teach that blind, irrational faith is a ‘good thing’, even the result is that you are willing to slaughter a member of your own family because you think that God has told you to do it.  Of, course, God prevented Abraham from killing Isaac in the end (Gen 22:12), but that does not seem to get us off the hook: we presume that Abraham would have gone through with the terrible deed if God had not intervened.…

Cake decoration for beginners

Walking With Giants Posted on by

I wouldn’t normally expect a satirical news show to make a point defending Christians (who, after all, are regarded as such soft targets for ridicule).  So I was surprised, and pleased, when Ian Hislop did precisely that on last night’s Have I Got News For You.

Judges in Northern Ireland have recently found a bakery business, run by Christians, guilty of discrimination for refusing to bake a cake that carried a pro-gay slogan.

Hislop simply asked what the outcome would be if a bakery run by Moslems was asked to bake a cake with a depiction of Mohammed on it.…

Gospel spirituality

Walking With Giants Posted on by

What does gospel (that is to say, evangelical and reformed) spirituality look like?  Peter Adam writes:-

1. Mediator

Christ is the mediator of the revelation of God, so this spirituality is Christ-centred, responding with faith in Jesus Christ, and especially to his saving death and resurrection.

2. Revealer

Christ has revealed the Father, so this spirituality is that of trust in God our Father, his love and kindness in Christ, and his sovereign and providential rule over everything.…

10 things you should know about evangelism

Walking With Giants Posted on by

What follows is based on (‘inspired by’, if you like) this post by Mack Stiles.

1. We must have a biblical understanding of evangelism

It is all too easy to assume that we know what a biblical approach to evangelism would look like, while persisting in the delusion that the bare declaration that ‘God loves you’, or an invitation to follow three of four simple ‘steps’ will do the trick.  We must severely critique both what our tradition says evangelism is, and also what our culture says it would like it to be.…

Gladstone clever, or Disraeli clever?

Walking With Giants Posted on by

The following story was recounted by Princess Marie Louise, grand-daughter of Queen Victoria, and is recorded in The Faber Book of Anecdotes:-

A young lady was taken to dinner one evening by Gladstone and the following evening by Disraeli.  Asked what impressions these two celebrated men had made upon her, she replied, “When I left the dining room after sitting next to Mr. Gladstone I thought he was the cleverest man in England.  But after sitting next to Mr.
…

Can guilt be transferred?

Walking With Giants Posted on by

How can it be possible for guilt to be transferred from one person to another?  How can it be possible for Jesus Christ, the sinless one, to bear away the guilt of me, a sinner?

In his book Scandalous Don Carson reminds us of an illustration that is quite often used by preachers: a judge pronounces a guilty sentence on a criminal.  Then he steps down from the bench, takes off his robes, and takes the person’s place in prison or writes out a cheque to cover the fine.…

The driving force in Jesus’ life

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Sit down (suggests J.I. Packer, in his celebrated book Knowing God) and read through Mark’s Gospel, and you will receive an impression of Jesus that includes at least the following four features:-

1. Jesus was a man of action.  He was ‘a man always on the move, always altering situations and precipitating things—working miracles; calling and training disciples; upsetting error that passed as truth and irreligion that passed as godliness; and finally walking straight and open–eyed into betrayal, condemnation and crucifixion (a freakish sequence of anomalies which in the oddest way one is made to feel that he himself controlled all along the line),’

2.  …

Rom 7:24 – Who is the ‘wretched man’?

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Paul describes, in vv15-24, a high level of emotional turmoil.  But who is the “I” of this passage?  Is it Paul himself, or someone else?  And is the state he describe that of a believer, or an unbeliever; a regenerate, or an unregenerate person?

It is true, as Moo says, that what Paul says about the law still amounts to much the same thing, whatever conclusion one arrives at: ‘One can preach this paragraph, in its basic intention, without even making a definite identification of the ‘ego’.’ …

Jeremiah 36 – dramatised reading

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Dramatised Reading – Jeremiah 36

(Adapted from Contemporary English Version)

Narrator, Jeremiah, Baruch, King Jehoiakim, king’s secretary

Narrator – stands at lectern
Jeremiah – stands front of stage, organ side
Baruch – sitting in congregation
King Jehoiakim – sits regally centre-stage, wearing his crown.
King’s secretary – stands beside Jehoiakim.

Props: scroll, crown, large pair of scissors, paper shredder

The scroll should be in three sections, with the following words on sec. 1:

“Who will have pity on you, O Jerusalem?…