The image of the crucifixion at ‘hanging on a tree’ in Acts 5:30; 10:39; 13:29 evokes the words of Deuteronomy 21:25 – ‘anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse’.
This raises the question, ‘Why would the sinless Christ be curses by God?’ Gal 3:10-13 supplies the answer.
The argument is simple: Jesus bore the curse that was due to others, thereby redeeming them from that curse. He bore the penalty in our place.…
D.A. Carson’s Becoming conversant with the emerging church is already a bit dated, since things are moving rapidly in that area. However, it remains a fair and thorough evaluation (unless you’re a big fan of emerging, in which case it’s obvious to you that Carson just doesn’t ‘get it’).…
Paul teaches in Romans that the universal sinfulness of humankind provokes God’s righteous anger. This has both a present (Rom 1:18) and a future (Rom 2:5) aspect.
Moroever, Rom 1-3 makes it clear that God’s wrath is personal and active, and not merely the impersonal outworking of some inevitable process of cause and effect, as C.H. Dodd and others have taught. It is God’s wrath and it is from heaven (Rom 1:18). It is God’s judgment, Rom 2:5f, 16; 3:5, and God’s verdict, Rom 2:26; 3:7; 3:19. …
The Christian church has never reached agreement over the question of remarriage after divorce .
The Catholic church, taking a sacramental view of marriage, has held that a marriage is indissoluble, whereas the reformed churches rejected the concept of indissolubility.
Cranmer had proposed a revised Canon Law (1553), which would have provided for divorce on the grounds of adultery, malicious desertion, prolonged absence without news, attempts against the partner’s life and cruelty.
Some of the issues to be considered are:-
1.…
John Stott has some wise and measured words on this subject. He is, of course, writing from within an Anglican context. But I think that the principles he espouses are worth weighing in other parts of the church too.
…‘What should the contemporary church do with heretics? Is that a harsh word? I think not. A humble and reverent probing into the mystery of the incarnation is the essence of true christological scholarship. But attempted reconstructions that effectively destroy that which is supposed to be being reconstructed is christological heresy.Let
I was struck by John Stott’s comment about the concept of ‘spirituality’:-
…‘I confess that the recent evangelical adoption of the word and concept of “spirituality” troubles me for three reasons.
‘First, it is a traditionally Roman Catholic term, which means that inevitably it carries with it some Catholic baggage. Then we spread confusion by using the same language for different notions.
‘Second, the term spirituality threatens to perpetuate the disastrous dichotomy between the sacred and the secular, the spiritual and the material.
Even to pose the question would lead to incredulity, or scorn, in many quarters today.
But Michael Green reminds us that there are several lines of evidence that agree in affirming the reality of the Devil, or Satan:-
1. Philosophy. The two great givens in the universe are mind and matter. It is reasonable to suppose that behind our own intelligence and will there is a divine Intelligence and Will, to which we give the name God.…
I saw them tearing a building down,
A gang of men in a dusty town.
With ‘yo heave ho’ and a lusty yell,
They swung a beam and the side wall fell.
I asked the foreman if these men were skilled
As the men he’d hire, if he were to build.
He laughed and said, ‘Oh, no indeed.
Common labour is all I need.’
For those men can wreck in a day or two,
What builders had taken years to do.…
John the Baptist introduces Jesus as ‘the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world’ (Jn 1:29). Later, a link is made between Jesus and the lamb sacrificed at Passover. This amounts to John’s endorsement of the penal substitution categories found in Ex 12.
In Num 21:4-9, the Lord rescues his people from a punishment he himself had imposed. John 3:14-18 has a clear echo of this. …
Noel Ford’s cartoon accompanies a story about the atheist bus advert in the Church Times.
It doesn’t need any comment from me.
…
