Category Archives: People

Does the end of slavery spell the end of patriarchy?

Walking With Giants Posted on by

The argument goes like this: the Bible does not outright condemn slavery, but it sows the seeds for its eventual demise.  There is a ‘hermeneutical trajectory’; a ‘redemptive spirit’ that leads inexorably (if painfully slowly) to abolition.

The same is true (it is argued) with regard to male and female roles.  The Bible assumes, but does not prescribe, some kind of hierarchical structure.  But the same ‘trajectory’, or ‘redemptive spirit’ leads us to abolish that structure, and to treat men and women just the same.…

Christ’s humiliation in his incarnation

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Extracts from The Fountain of Life, by John Flavel.  Ch. 18, Christ’s Humiliation – In His Incarnation.

“And being found in fashion as man, he humbled himself, and became obedient to death, even the death of the cross.” Phil. 2:8.

Here is the sun almost under total eclipse. He that was beautiful and glorious, Isa. 4:2, yea, glorious as the only begotten of the Father, John 1:14, yea, the glory, James 2:1, yea, the splendor and brightness of the Father’s glory,” Heb.…

What is sanctification?

Walking With Giants Posted on by

It is a principle of grace savingly wrought, whereby the heart becomes holy, and is made after God’s own heart. A sanctified person bears not only God’s name—but his image. In opening the nature of sanctification, I shall lay down these seven positions:

(1.) Sanctification is a SUPERNATURAL thing; it is divinely infused. We are naturally polluted, and to cleanse, God takes to be his prerogative. “I am the Lord, who sanctifies you.” Lev 21:8. …

Signs of life

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Regenerations, according to T.C. Hammond, is ‘a spiritual resurrection into a new sphere of life, in which he is alive to God and united to him in Christ.  God has implanted in the new-born soul a totally new principle of life.’ (In Understanding Be Men).

We look, accordingly, for signs of life in the new-born Christian.

J.I. Packer writes that ‘the signs whereby a regenerate person may be known correspond to the natural actions of the newborn child.’…

The unborn baby is a person

Walking With Giants Posted on by

John Stott:

‘The author of Psalm 139 looks back to the antenatal stage of his existence. Three words sum up what he affirms. First, creation. He seems to liken God both to a potter who “formed” his inmost being and to a weaver who “knit him together” in his mother’s womb (v. 13). Although the Bible makes no claim to be a textbook of embryology, here is a plain affirmation that the growth of the fetus is neither haphazard nor automatic but a divine work of creative skill.…

Male headship before the Fall

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Egalitarian writers often claim that male headship did not come about until after the Fall, and is, accordingly, a consequence of the Fall.

This view goes back at least as far as Chrysostom, who represents God as addressing the woman thus:

‘In the beginning I created you equal in esteem to your husband, and my intention was that in everything you would share with him as an equal, and as I entrusted control of everything to your husband, so did I to you; but you abused your equality of status.

…

Abide in Christ

Walking With Giants Posted on by

What does it mean to ‘abide in Christ’?

Sinclair Ferguson writes:

The exhortation to “abide” has been frequently misunderstood, as though it were a special, mystical, and indefinable experience. But Jesus makes clear that it actually involves a number of concrete realities.

First, union with our Lord depends on His grace. Of course we are actively and personally united to Christ by faith (John 14:12). But faith itself is rooted in the activity of God.…

‘The Lost Message of Paul’ – The neuropsychology of sin

Walking With Giants Posted on by

One of the strangest chapters in Steve Chalke’s The Lost Message of Paul is chapter 24 – ‘Wired’.  Strange because it doesn’t really belong in a book about Paul and his theology.  Also strange because one has to wonder how competent Chalke is to deal with some of the subject-matter of this chapter.

Let me see if I can make some sense of what he’s trying to say.

While we all tend excuse our own bad behaviour (we are good people affected by bad circumstances), we are much more ready to attribute others’ bad behaviour as due to failed personal morality (they are bad people). …

The reliability of recollective memory

Walking With Giants Posted on by

What factors tend to increase the reliability of recollective memory, and how do these relate to the historical reliability of the Gospels?

Richard Bauckham identifies the following:

  1. Unique or unusual events. The gospel stories clearly fit this category, as many of the events, such as healings and exorcisms, are unmistakably unusual.
  2. Salient or consequential events. Gospel stories often involve landmark or life changing events that would create vivid memories in people who witnessed them.
  3. An event for which a person is emotionally involved.
…

The threefold use of the law

Walking With Giants Posted on by

According to the Calvin’s classic formulation, God’s law has a threefold use (Institutes, II.vii.6-12).

These are helpfully summarised in the Reformation Study Bible:

Scripture shows that God intends His law to function in three ways, which Calvin crystallized in classic form for the church’s benefit as the law’s threefold use.

Its first function is to be a mirror reflecting to us both the perfect righteousness of God and our own sinfulness and shortcomings.…