Category Archives: Church

Those imprecatory psalms

Walking With Giants Posted on by

The Psalms are the best-loved and most-used part of the Old Testament.  But from time to time they flare up in fierce expressions of anger against the psalmist’s enemies.  See, for example, Psa 5; 11; 17; 35; 55; 59; 69; 109; 137; 140.  To many readers, these ‘imprecations’ are ‘barbarous’, ‘vindictive’, and even ‘a disgrace to human nature’.  Some churches direct that they should not be used liturgically.

But, at the very least, these imprecatory psalms serve to remind us that life is not a bed of roses, and troubled Christians need the opportunity to express their fears and frustrations to God in worship.  …

Rom 15:1-13 – When Christians disagree – sermon notes

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Romans 15:1-13

I’ve sometimes thought nursing might be OK without patients, teaching without students, and Christianity without Christians!

However, ‘There is no way of belonging to Christ except by belonging gladly and irrevocably to that marvellous and extraordinary ragbag of saints and fatheads who make up the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.’ (Geoffrey Paul)

Unity: prayed for in the Gospels, modelled in Acts, urged and encouraged in the epistles.

Conclusion of the section beginning at 14:1, about the weak and the strong. …

Paul and women’s ministry

Walking With Giants Posted on by
  1. Phoebe a ‘servant’ (deacon?) of the church, Rom 16:1-2.
  2. Women commended by Paul, Rom 16:3-16.
  3. Euodia & Syntyche fellow-workers with Paul, Php 4:2-3.
  4. Prophetesses recognised, 1 Cor 11:5 (cf. Acts 2:17-18 21:9)
…

Shall we dance?

Walking With Giants Posted on by

The Shakers of the late 18th and early 19th centuries put forth a number of arguments in defence of dance in worship:

1.  It is a gift of the Holy Spirit and is not to be neglected.

2.  It is in accordance with the OT precedent.

3.  It is a ‘natural impulse of joy’ suitable for the last days in which we live.

4.  Jere 31:13 foretold that this form of worship would be restored to the people of God when the eschaton came.…

The people of God: fulfilled in Christ

Walking With Giants Posted on by

One of the central themes of the Bible is God’s promise that he would make a great people for his praise, and the fulfilment of that promise.  Key Scriptures are Gen 12:1-3 (God’s promise to Abram), and 1 Pet 2:9f (the declaration that the followers of Jesus constitute ‘a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession…the people of God’.

Back in Gen 1-2, God’s purpose for his people was ‘be fruitful and multiply’ (Gen 1:28), to ‘rule’ and ‘subdue’ the earth (Gen 1:28) to ‘cultivate’ and ‘keep’ the garden (Gen 2:15), and to live in community with one another (Gen 2:18-25).  …

The temple: fulfilled in Christ

Walking With Giants Posted on by

All God’s promises (including those relating to the temple, the people of God, and the land) are fulfilled in Jesus, 2 Cor 1:20.  It is in him that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden, Col 2:1-3.  It is this which gives a reliable hermeneutic for understanding the entire Bible.  We are not at the mercy of idiosyncratic interpretations of individual verses.

How are we to understanding Christ as the fulfilment of the Bible’s teaching about the Temple?…

To the edge of faith, and beyond

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Kent Dobson, who succeeded Rob Bell as pastor of influential Mars Hill Bible Church, has recently announced his decision to step down.

He had begun, he says, with a desire to follow Paul by offering the traditional gospel in culturally-relevant dress.  But he had come to question not only the packaging as traditionally offered by the church, but also the message.

“I have always been and I’m still drawn to the very edges of religion and faith and God.

…

The ‘heresy’ of inerrancy

Walking With Giants Posted on by

[Note: I’m using the word ‘heresy’ in the old-fashioned sense of ‘divisiveness’ as in Titus 3:10 (Authorised Version): ‘A man that is an heretick after the first and second admonition reject.’]

When Mike Licona published his book on the resurrection, he ventured to suggest that some elements in the Gospel story might be symbolic in character, rather than strictly historical.  The passage which has received most attention is the one in Matthew 27:52f, about the raising to life of many dead saints.  …

1 Tim 4:9-16 – What kind of church do we want to be? – sermon notes

Walking With Giants Posted on by

[Note: this sermon was preached the Sunday after the appalling killings carried out by ‘Islamic State’ in Paris on Friday 13th November, 2015.  Hence the introductory comment.]

There was ‘a moment of relative calm’ in Paris yesterday afternoon as Davide Martello played his piano outside the concert hall where dozens of people had been killed just a few hours earlier.  The song?  John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ – ‘Imagine there’s nothing to kill or die for.  And no religion too.’…

Purgatory

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Elgar’s ‘The Dream of Gerontius’ is a wonderful piece of music.  For me, however, its story-line requires a considerable suspension of belief.  Based on John Henry (Cardinal) Newman’s poem of the same name, it describes the journey of a Christian soul from his death-bed to Purgatory.

The Roman Catholic doctrine of Purgatory took shape in the Middle Ages.  The Council of Trent (1545-1563) pronounced as ‘anathema’ those who rejected it.  The doctrine states that the intermediate state for Christian believers consists not of unmixed rest, but rather of punishment for post-baptismal sins.  …