‘Silence is golden’, we say. And we can agree that silence can have more eloquence than any words, serving (as Francois De La Rochefoucauld said) ‘sometimes to approve, sometimes to condemn; there is a mocking silence; there is a respectful silence.’
But what is the role and value of silence in Christian prayer and worship?
In the Middle Ages, silent prayers were added to the liturgy, and these were taken up by the Tractarians, and in the Roman Ordo. …
During a 3-month sabbatical earlier this year, Revd Canon Dr Tim Bull visited a couple of different places of worship.
One was the Sunday Assembly, a secular gathering established in 2013 by comedians Sanderson Jones and Pippa Evans. The other was Holy Trinity Brompton.
Tim Bull was struck by the similarities between the two:-
And there were more significant parallels:-
Curiously, only the Sunday Assembly included personal testimony (when someone told about the time she ‘had tried her best’)
In terms of the underlying message, the Sunday Assembly’s Sanderson Jones declared that ‘we are obsessed with helping you live your life as fully as possible’, which sounds like a distinct echo of Jesus’ words recorded in John 10:10.…
After his resurrection, Jesus declared that ‘all authority is heaven and on earth’ had been given to him (Mt 28:18). As Christians, then, we confess that ‘Jesus Christ is Lord’ (Phil 2:9-11).
How does Christ exercise his authority in the church today? Four possible answers have been given:-
‘The good pastor…models his ministry on the good shepherd,’ writes John Stott in The Contemporary Christian (pp 280-290). As such, he has the following characteristics:-
It is sometimes thought that because the ‘charismata’ are directly discussed only infrequently in Paul’s writings, they were regarded by the apostle as the marks of an immature church, and needed to be discouraged or actually suppressed.
However, it is at least as plausible to argue that Paul took the exercise of spiritual gifts more or less for granted in the churches, and he felt the need to discuss them in detail only when there were problems (as at Corinth).…
A summary of a sermon preached by John Stott at All Souls, Langham Place, in 1984. A recording of the sermon is available here.
It was a miracle that there could be a church in such a place as Corinth. It was notorious for sexual immorality, overseen by the Temple of Aphrodite. If a church can be planted in Corinth, it can be planted anywhere.
Paul had been called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God. …
Ian Paul summarises a section of Colin Buchanan’s recent Grove Booklet on ‘Worship in the Letter to the Hebrews’ (The following quote is slightly reformatted):-
The New Testament never uses the hiereus stem, which is translated as ‘priest’ in the English versions, to denote ordained ministers of the church. However, the English word ‘priest,’ which is used to translate hiereus in the Scriptures, is itself etymologically a corruption of the Greek presbuteros, which the Bible translates as elder.
I am reminded by this post by Justin Taylor that it is 50 years ago today – Tuesday, October 18, 1966 – that an event took place that shook British evangelicalism to the core. The after-shocks can still be felt today.
That event was a meeting of the National Assembly of Evangelicals, held at Westminster Central Hall, London. At that meeting, Martyn Lloyd-Jones was understood by many to be appealing for evangelicals to secede from doctrinally mixed denominations, and should come together in a ‘fellowship, or an association, of evangelical churches’.…
Here’s a selection of resources that explore biblical teaching on the role of women and men in Christian ministry.
Two views on Women in Ministry, ed James R. Beck & Craig L. Blomberg. Zondervan, 2005. (Egalitarian and complementarian).
Recovering Biblical Manhood & Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Feminism, ed. John Piper & Wayne Grudem. Crossway, 1991. Available online at http://cdn.desiringgod.org/pdf/books_bbmw/bbmw.pdf (Complementarian)
Biblical Foundations for Manhood and Womanhood, ed. Wayne Grudem. Crossway, 2002. (Complementarian)
Discovering Biblical Equality, ed.…
Ephesians 4:1-16
Ephesians the Switzerland of the NT.
But Switzerland isn’t all mountain peaks, and Ephesians isn’t all lofty doctrine.
We move from belief to behaviour, from principles to practice, from our wealth in Christ to our walk in Christ, from doctrine to duty, from exposition to exhortation, from the indicative to the imperative, from what God has done to what we must do, from the credenda to the agenda
Yet the two parts of Ephesians are closely connected. …
