Category Archives: Christian Life

Spirituality, or discipleship?

Walking With Giants Posted on by

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.

…

Am I a builder, or a wrecker?

Walking With Giants Posted on by

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.…

Theology of Prayer 9 – Objections to Prayer (v)

Walking With Giants Posted on by

B.M Palmer, Theology of Prayer, ch 9

The fifth objection is that prayer leads to fanaticism and mysticism.

This objection states, ‘that the claim to such personal and intimate communion with the Divine #Being open the door to the dreamiest mysticism or the wildest fanaticism.’

The objection is shallow, in that it overlooks the important checks thrown around prayer, guarding against such a result.

1.  ‘All true prayer is bounded within the limits of God’s sovereign will.’ …

On loving the person and propositions of Jesus

Walking With Giants Posted on by

In chapter 3 of Why we’re not emergent (by two guys who should be), Kevin DeYoung explains why he loves ‘the person and propositions of Jesus’.  What follows is based on part of that chapter.

All Christians claim to have a high regard for the Bible, and emerging Christians are no different.

Brian MacLaren says:

‘I believe [the Bible] is a gift from God, inspired by God, to benefit us in the most important way possible: equipping us so that we can benefit others, so that we can play our part in the ongoing mission of God. 

…

On travelling hopefully AND arriving

Walking With Giants Posted on by

According to an ancient Taoist saying, “the journey is the reward.”

And Robert Louis Stevenson wrote in Virginibus Puerisque (1881), “to travel hopefully is better than to arrive.”

Not very new, then, the post-modern preference for journey over destination.  But it’s a favourite idea of emerging church people.

Kevin DeYoung discusses the emerging preference for seeing Christian faith as journey rather than destination in chapter 1 of Why we’re not emergent – by two guys who should be. …

Romans 6:14 – ‘You are not under law’

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Paul writes in Romans 6:14, ‘sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.’

What does this mean?

1.  Christians are not under law, in the first place, in the sense that they are no longer bound by the ceremonial law of the Old Testament.  This law dealt with the Temple and its ritual and, according to the Letter to the Hebrews and other New Testament writings, has been fulfilled in Christ.…

Theology of Prayer 8 – Objections to prayer (iv)

Walking With Giants Posted on by

B.M. Palmer, Theology of Prayer, ch. 8

The 4th objection is that the prayer of the wicked is an abomination.

‘Acceptable prayer presupposes a proper state of heart, in the absence of which it becomes an abomination to God, to be suppressed rather than encouraged.’

The principles here affirmed leads to conclusions so appalling, that a fallacy must lurk somewhere:-

1.  It does not hold in the sphere of our earthly relations, and is unsound in reference to human law. …

Theology of Prayer 7 – Objections to prayer (iii)

Walking With Giants Posted on by

B.M Palmer, Theology of Prayer, ch. 7

The 3rd objection is that prayer is unwarranted from answers witheld.

This objection might be stated thus: ‘In the very instances where we might have antecedently anticipated the divine interposition we are often disappointed; leaving the alternative, either that God was unrighteous in his denial, or that his providence did not cover the case, and the prayer was unwarranted and gratuitous.’

1.  We may err in assuming the request to be right, and that God was under obligation to hear and grant the request.…

Theology of Prayer 6 – Objections to prayer (ii)

Walking With Giants Posted on by

B.M. Palmer, Theology of Prayer, ch. 6

The 2nd objection is that prayer has no place in a government of law.

This objection may be thus stated: ‘As God governs the universe by determinate and fixed laws, there is no place in such a system for prayer; which is without significance, in that it demands continual intervention in the mechanism of nature.’

We are not obliged to show how or why prayer articulates itself in the government of God, but only to investigate the claim that prayer cannot have a place in that government.…

Theology of Prayer 5 – Objections to prayer (i)

Walking With Giants Posted on by

B.M Palmer, Theology of Prayer, ch. 5

Once the duty of prayer has been established in its own right, no number of objections can militate decisively against it.  B.M. Palmer writes:-

Truth is not to be weighed in a pair of scales balancing duty against difficulty, as though the one can be cancelled by the other; for no positive duty can be dislodged, until the evidence on which it rests shall be itself swept away.

…