Have you noticed that Jesus hardly ever gave a straight answer to a question? I think we can learn a great deal from the way he refused to pander to idle curiosity, but instead gently probed the attitude and intention of the questioner. Here are some examples:-
Mt 18:1ff “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”
A – He called a little child and had him stand among them.
Mt 21:23 “By what authority are you doing these things?”…
Mark Cosgrove, himself a Professor of Psychology, has helpfully outlined some of the major tension-points between psychology (as taught in its behaviourist, humanistic and transpersonal forms) and Christian theism.…
To pray is to be identified with God’s will. (Alan Redpath)
Prayer is nothing but the promise reversed. (William Gurnall)
Prayer is something more than asking God to run errands for us. (Anon)
Prayer is the key of heaven; faith is the hand that turns it. (Thomas Watson)
Prayer in its simplest definition is merely a wish turned Godward. (Phillips Brooks)
Prayer is a shield to the soul, a sacrifice to God and a scourge to Satan. …
Mt 7:1 – “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.”
I once heard it said that a generation ago the most celebrated verse in the Bible would have been John 3:16 – “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” But nowadays, the speaker went on to say, most people’s favourite verse is possibly Matthew 7:1 – “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.”…
‘Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last.’ (NIV)
This is the last of Christ’s seven sayings from the cross. These are the final words of Jesus before he died. They were uttered as he completed his life’s work and stood on the very border between this world and the next. Ponder them with me for a few moments.
These are words of calm restfulness. …
1. Puritan exegetes are pre-modern, in the sense that they emphasise the similarities between their culture and that of biblical times rather than the differences. They felt a kinship with biblical characters and their experiences because they belonged to the same human race, worshiped the same unchanging God, and struggled with the same spiritual problems.
2. Puritan grammatical-historical exegesis is remarkably competent, as an informed reading of Matthew Henry’s commentary demonstrates.
3. Puritans exegeted Scripture in order to apply it.…
Erwin Lutzer, in his book Christ Among Other Gods, outlines the ‘ideological megashift’ that has taken place in modern thinking:-
1. From a God-centred to a man-centred worldview. That has been a particular effect of the Enlightenment, which, although not opposed to religion, undermined the revealed religion of Scripture. The end has been a disowning of God, and a claiming of freedom that leads in the end to dreadful slavery. For, notwithstanding the tyranny of religion, the tyranny of atheism is a far worse evil.…
The relationship between science and Christian theology is much closer than many – including Richard Dawkins and the other New Atheists, would have us believe. Colin Russell, Emeritus Professor of the History of Science and Technology at the Open University, has a number of ways in which Christian theology has influenced the growth and development of science:-
1. The elimination of ‘myth’ from nature. An animate nature is not susceptible to scientific enquiry, not compatible with the biblical injunction to treat nature as a dependent creation of God, Psa 29, 89, 104, 137, who alone is to be worshipped, Deut 26:11; Isa 44:24; Jer 7:18.…
E.C. Hoskyns put it forthrightly: ‘When a Christian man declares that the four times repeated response in the Litany of the English Church – “Have mercy upon us miserable sinners” – has no meaning for him, he proclaims that he has as yet no understanding of the Christian religion or that he has apostasized from it.’ (Q in A Dictionary of Christian Spirituality, 308)
Confession of sin may be general. Examples are found extensively in the Bible, and also in most liturgies.…
Christians have often perceived a tension between evangelism and social action. Evangelicals have usually stressed the former, whereas liberals have invariably emphasised the latter. John Stott writes: ‘the evangelical stereotype has been to spiritualise the gospel, and deny its social implications; while the ecumenical stereotype has been the politicise it, and deny its offer of salvation to sinners. The polarisation has been a disaster.’
Speaking at the World Congress on Evangelism in Bertin in 1966, Carl Henry stated, ‘that evangelical Christians have a message doubly relevant to the present social crisis…For they know the God of justice and of justification…Whenever Christianity has been strong in the life of a nation, it has had an interest in both law and gospel, in the state as well as the church, in jurisprudence and in evangelism.’…
