Peter Adam is Principal of Ridley Theological College in Melbourne, Australia. In a recent lecture on John Calvin as a preacher, he sets out nine demanding engagements that Calvin sought to fulfil in his own preaching.
There are:-
1. Engaging with God. The preacher doesn’t just talk about God in some remote and objective way. No: the preacher expects God to be present with and in his Word by his Spirit.
2. Engaging with the 66 texts of the Bible. …
We spend much of our time, energy and other resources on play, leisure and recreation, and yet rarely reflect Christianly on such things.
Arthur Holmes has some insightful thoughts on the subject of play:-
…‘Play is customarily seen as nonproductive activity. This is not strictly correct, for play can be economically productive for professionals, quiz-show participants, and many others. The intent of the definition is that the purpose of play is not to be found in elements extrinsic to the activity, as supposedly with work, but is to be found in the activity itself and its enjoyment.
I’ve suggested before that some of Hugh Ross’ attempts to harmonise science and Scripture are unconvincing.
In my view, he threatens to brings the Bible into disrepute by imposing interpretative schemes that are untenable. He writes:
…‘My interpretative approach is to identify a passage in Revelation…as symbolic only if its implied symbol is used and defined elsewhere in the Bible or if certain words within the context clearly indicate that the author intended something other than a literal meaning.’
My present interest in the fascinating and yet sombre subject of demonology is due to the fact that I’m preparing to preach on Luke 8:26-39 – the Gerasene demoniac. That passage (together with the parallel accounts in Matthew and Mark) present the most dramatic case of demonisation in the whole of Scripture, and therefore requires that particular attention to the subject of demons and their activities.
One of the seminal works on demonology is that by John L.…
Calvin took the activities of Satan and his demons very seriously, without falling into the superstitions which sometimes appear in Luther’s writings. Calvin’s teaching was, above all else, scriptural, as the following extract shows.
J.I. Packer, who has done so much to revive interest in the Puritans, identifies the following characteristics of Puritan preaching:-
1. It was expository in its method. The preacher’s task was to extract meaning from the text, rather than to impose meaning on it. The preacher seeks the mind of God as revealed in Scripture, and then seeks to express it faithfully. In ‘opening’ a text, the Puritan preacher would explain it in context, extract from it one or more doctrinal observations, and then amplify, illustrate and confirm from other scriptures the truths thus derived.…
In his preface to The Screwtape Letters C.S. Lewis famously wrote that there are two equal and opposite errors in relation to thinking about demons: disbelieving in their existence altogether, and taking an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. Either way, Satan is delighted – scepticism and fanaticism both serve his purposes very nicely.
The sceptical approach is well represented by the New Testament scholar Rudolph Bultmann: ‘It is impossible to use electric light and the wireless and to avail ourselves of modern medical and scientific discoveries, and at the same time to believe in the New Testament world of daemons and spirits.’…
This year’s Greenbelt festival is causing concern in some quarters because of the plans to welcome as a speaker the openly gay Bishop of New Hampshire, Gene Robinson. Greenbelt will also give a platform to other gay rights campaigners such as the Rev Giles Fraser and worship groups OuterSpace and Journey.
By way of response, the Church Mission Society is considering holding seminars in which the orthodox view of human sexuality will be promoted.
One thing that intrigued me about all of this was a comment by the Rev Sharon Ferguson, spokesperson for the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement.…
I’m sure that many of us will have read the famous ‘Narnia Chronicles’ of C.S. Lewis either when we were children, or, as I did, to our own children.
I can remember being intrigued by the fantastic world that Lewis dreamed up in those tales. I found it difficult to understand that even a mind as fertile as Lewis’ could have created such a world without some kind of underlying framework.
The stories work, of course, simply as stories. …
A year or so ago, Trevin Wax suggested that the Emerging Church was in the early stages of decline, offering a number of reasons for this opinion. I summarise:-
1. The Emerging Church does little evangelism.
It’s not the only segment of the Christian Church that fails in this regard. But it has to be said: The Emerging Church isn’t making many converts. It is reaching young, disillusions Christians, but not the unchurched. And part of the problem is its lack of clarity about what the gospel actually is. …
