Category Archives: People

The Great Commandment and the Great Commission

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Is it possible so to emphasise Jesus’ Great Commission that we neglect his stress on the Great Commandment to love our neighbours (second only to loving God with our entire beings)?

John Stott thought so.  Here’s what he wrote about it:-

‘I venture to say that sometime, perhaps because it was the last instruction Jesus gave us before returning to the Father, we give the Great Commission too prominent a place in our Christian thinking.  Please do not misunderstand me.  …

The Holy Spirit in the New Testament

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In the New Testament, the Holy Spirit is given as ‘”another (i.e. a second) Paraclete” (Jn. 14:16), taking over Jesus’ role as counsellor, helper, strengthener, supporter, adviser, advocate, ally (for the Gk. paraclētos means all of these).’

The personality of the Holy Spirit is clear: ‘Like the Father and the Son, he acts as only a person can do—he hears, speaks, convinces, testifies, shows, leads, guides, teaches, prompts speech, commands, forbids, desires, helps, intercedes with groans (Jn.…

The Holy Spirit in the Old Testament

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The ‘Holy Spirit’ is named as such only three times in the Old Testament: Psa 51:11; Isa 63:11, 12. The concept of ‘progressive revelation’ reminds us that the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, like a number of other doctrines, is present in the Old Testament only in embryonic form.

If the Christian era is identified as ‘the ministry of the Spirit’ (2 Cor 3:8) then it is to be expected that that era will be characterised by a clearer and fuller revelation of the person and work of the Spirit.…

Six aspects of the gospel

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Six aspects of the gospel stand out in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8:-

1. It is Christological. It centres on the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ: these emphases are ‘of first importance’, v3.  Christianity is Christ: and it is Christ crucified and risen.

2. It is biblical. The work of Christ was achieved ‘according to the Scriptures, v3,4. Cf. Lk 24:25-27,44-46; Acts 2:25-31. ‘The first Christian evangelists made much of the fact that the death and resurrection of Jesus were corroborated by two witnesses – the prophets and the apostles, or, as we would say, the Old Testament and the New Testament.’…

Proclaiming the gospel

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In Acts 2, Peter ‘focused on Christ and told his story in six stages.’

      1. ‘he was a man, though divinely attested by miracles;
      2. he was put to death by wicked hands, though according to God’s purpose;
      3. he was raised from the dead, as the prophets had foretold and the apostles had witnessed;
      4. he was exalted to God’s right hand, and from there poured out the Spirit;
      5. he now gives forgiveness and the Spirit to all who repent, believe and are baptized; and
      6. he thus adds them to his new community.’
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Richard Rohr’s ‘Universal Christ’

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The Universal Christ (London: SPCK, 2019)

Richard Rohr’s latest offering will, as with his previous books, delight some and perplex others.  His many fans will love his fresh, imaginative, free-association, experientialist approach.  His critics will be distressed by what they see as his careless irrationality.  Count me among the latter; one of those ‘who value plodding virtues such as accuracy and attention to what the scriptures and teachers of the tradition have actually said, [and] will find difficulty with the sweeping generalisations, questionable assertions, and Aunt Sallys that Rohr frequently sets up, so as then to be able, triumphantly, to knock them down’

(Edward Dowler, writing in the Church Times).

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Puritans on penal substitution

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In chapter 15 of The Atonement Debate (2008), Stephen Holmes gives an account of British evangelical accounts of the atonement, with special reference to the doctrine of penal substitution.

Holmes argues three points:-

  1. Evangelical preachers and writers have generally insisted upon substitutionary understandings of the atonement, but with much less emphasis on penal substitution.
  2. Evangelicals have usually taught penal substitution as one of a number of metaphors relating to the atonement.
  3. Evangelicals usually accepted penal substitution without controversy until about 1800. 
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The call to Christlikeness

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A. God wants us to be like Christ

This is his

  1. eternal purpose – we have been ‘predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son’ (Romans 8:29).
  2. historical purpose – ‘we…are being transformed [or changed] into his image’ (2 Corinthians 3:18).
  3. eschatological purpose – ‘we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him’ (1 John 3:2).

Here, then, are three perspectives: past (we have been predestined), present (we are being changed), and future (we shall be like him), which all point to the same thing: that God wants us to be like Christ.…

‘If the church were Christian’ – 1

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In his 2010 book, If the Church Were Christian: Rediscovering the Values of Jesus, Quaker pastor Philip Gulley offers a recipe for, well, making the Church Christian.  Richard Rohr thinks that the recipe is ‘superb’.  (Actually, if these two men are on the same page about what a desirable form of Christianity would look like, then I prefer Gulley’s more straightforward approach.  Rohr’s slipperiness is reflected in this wording…

‘Jesus is a model for living more than an object of worship’ (my emphasis)

…whereas Gulley says that if the church were ‘more Christian’:-

‘Jesus would be a model for living rather than an object of worship’ (my emphasis).…

Biblical words for ‘love’

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In an article in the New Dictionary of Biblical Theology, D.A. Carson warns against ‘word-based reductionism’:-

‘When Amnon incestuously rapes his half-sister Tamar (2 Sam. 13, LXX), twice we are told that he ‘loved’ her, once with agapaō and once with phileō. It is hard to see how this love differs from erōs, acquisitive and sexual love (though the word erōs is never found in the Bible). Twice John tells us that the Father ‘loves’ the Son, once using agapaō (John 3:35), once using phileō (John 5:20), and it is difficult to detect any difference in meaning.

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