Category Archives: People

Genesis 1:27 – a hint of male headship?

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Genesis 1:27 God created humankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them,
male and female he created them.

Raymond Ortlund argues that this Scripture, in referring to the human race as ‘man’ (and not ‘woman’, or ‘person’) is hinting at male headship. (Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, p97f.).  This view is repeated by the Kostenbergers (God’s Design for Men and Women).

Although I regard this view as rather speculative, I think that Giles (What the Bible Really Teaches on Women) is quite wrong to dismiss it as ‘special pleading’, and not based on ‘serious scholarship’.…

Is the Trinity a biblical doctrine?

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Challenged by a Jehovah’s Witness heckler to find the doctrine of the Holy Trinity in the Bible, J.I. Packer responded along the following lines:

Jesus

(i) endorsed Old Testament monotheism (Mark 12:29), yet
(ii) regarded Himself as ‘the Son’ in a unique sense (Matt. 11:27; Mark 12:1-12; 13:32), and prescribed and accepted worship of Himself as Son of God, treating this as a proper expression of faith (John 5:23; 9:35-38; 20:28); and
(iii) promised the Holy Spirit as ‘another Comforter’ in succession to Himself, to carry on His own many-sided ministering role (John 14:16); and
(iv) bracketed Father, Son and Spirit together as the triune ‘name’ (singular, note, not plural) into which – that is, into a relationship with which – future disciples were to be baptized (Matt.

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George Whitefield: slaveholder and evangelist

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George Whitefield (1714 – 1700) was an outstanding evangelist.  When, in 1740, he first traveled to North America he was appalled by the way slaves were treated:

‘Your dogs are caressed and fondled at your tables; but your slaves who are frequently styled dogs or beasts, have not an equal privilege. They are scarce permitted to pick up the crumbs which fall from their masters’ tables.… Although I pray God the slaves may never be permitted to get the upper hand, yet should such a thing be permitted by Providence, all good men must acknowledge the judgment would be just.’

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Compositional devices in ancient biographies

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How do we account for difference between the Gospels?

Michael Licona, in his book, Why Are There Differences in the Gospels? What We Can Learn from Ancient Biography (2017) argued that the Evangelists would have been acquainted with, and would have utilised, compositional devises that were ‘practically universal in ancient historiography’.

These include:

  • transferal (attributing words spoken by one person to another),
  • displacement (placing something spoken in one context to another),
  • conflation (combining elements of two different events or people as one),
  • compression (describing events as taking place in a shorter period of time than actual),
  • spotlighting (focusing attention upon a particular person),
  • simplification (omitting details in order to focus attention),
  • expansion of narrative details (the creative reconstruction and free composition of plausible circumstances),
  • paraphrasing (creative retelling of an event to emphasize a point),
  • the law of biographical relevance (the addition or omission of biographical information according to the purpose of the author)

Robert Stein (from whose review the above list has been taken), comments that a number of these are not only uncontroversial, but by no means limited to ancient Greco-Roman historiography (we find just such spotlighting in the Old Testament stories of Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, Samuel, David, Solomon and others. …

Abandoning hell

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A while ago, Dr Sam Wells wrote this article for the Church Times in which he explores the implications of a Christianity without belief in hell.

Wells begins with the words of Jesus in Jn 10:10 – “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”  This, he says, supplies an excellent mission statement for the church:

‘Jesus is our model of abundant life; his life, death and resurrection chart the transformation from the scarcity of sin and death to the ab­un­dance of healing and resur­rection; he longs to bring all humankind into reconciled and flourishing relationship with God, one another, themselves, and all creation.’
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Christian ethics – creational or eschatological?

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In seeking to develop and refine biblical ethics, are we supposed to look back, to how things were when God created the heavens and the earth, and pronounced all things good?  Or should we look forward, to our perfected life in the new heavens and new earth?

Sam Wells would like to see ‘backward-looking’ thinking replaced by ‘forward-looking thinking.’

There is no getting away from the fact that Jesus and the apostles do look back to creation to support and explain their ethical teachings.…

Simon Peter – fall and rise

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Robert Traill invites his hearers and readers to consider the following aspects of Peter’s failure and restoration:

1. His reaction to being called by the Lord Jesus, Lk 5:8f.  Is there any hope that Christ and this man will ever be acquainted together, when at his first meeting, the first prayer that the man makes is, Lord, be gone, and leave me?

2. The bad counsel that he gave to his Master, Mt 14:22f. …

Homosexual relations: the argument about justice and rights

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Some argue for homosexual relations on the basis of justice.  John Stott examines this argument:

‘The justice argument runs like this: “Just as we may not discriminate between persons on account of their gender, colour, ethnicity or class, so we may not discriminate between persons on account of their sexual preference. For the God of the Bible is the God of justice, who is described as loving justice and hating injustice. Therefore the quest for justice must be a paramount obligation of the people of God.

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Sexuality: is Paul’s teaching clear?

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Ian Paul notes that, in the recent past, two responses to same-sex relationships have been prevalent:

  • In the wider society, same-sex marriage has provided gay relationships with the respectability and status that many desired;
  • In the UK church, questions have been asked about whether the New Testament writers understood sexuality in the way that we understand it today, and, consequently, whether their negative assessments are well-founded.

Today (Ian Paul is writing in 2019), another response has come to the fore:

  • Is the teaching of Scripture (and of Paul in particular) sufficiently clear and coherent for us to be able to follow its teaching on same-sex relationships?
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Ryle on encouragements to prayer

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God has provided us with powerful encouragements to prayer (writes J.C. Ryle in Practical Religion).

I summarise.

  1. We have a way opened up for us by Jesus Christ.  ‘The name of Jesus is a never-failing passport to our prayers. In that name a man may draw near to God with boldness, and ask with confidence. God has engaged to hear him.’
  2. We have an advocate and intercessor presenting out prayers to the throne of grace. 
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