Category Archives: People

How our view of the gospel affects our reading of Scripture

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Chris Tilling puts it well, I think: our understanding of what Scripture means is very much influenced by our understanding of what the gospel is.

If, for example, we think that the gospel is primarily about how individuals get saved from their sin, enter into a personal relationship with Jesus and go to heaven when they die, then this becomes the lens through which everything else is seen.  So,

If Paul speaks about ‘new creation’ in 2 Cor 5, this must be another way of speaking about something that happens to me in my relationship with Christ.

…

The Word made flesh

Walking With Giants Posted on by

This is based on an article by Prof Donald MacLeod in The Monthly Record, Jan 1981.

Christmas is ‘that curious amalgam of paganism, commercialism and Christianity which Western civilisation has invented to tide it over the darkest days of winter.’

‘The church…appears content to leave the supreme mystery of its faith only vaguely hinted at in the glitter and gaity of what it calls its greatest festival.  Christmas is a lost opportunity, a time when the world invites the Church to speak and she blushes, smiles and mutters a few banalities with which the world is already familiar from its own stock of cliches and nursery rhymes.’…

Derek Kidner, 1913 – 2008

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Derek Kidner, the Old Testament scholar and teacher, has died recently, at the grand age of 95.

I only heard him preach once – a number of years ago, at Holy Trinity Norwich.  But I have acquired most of his commentaries on various parts of the Old Testament and they are all gems.

Kidner’s contributions to the Tyndale Old Testament Commentary series (Genesis, Ezra/Nehemiah, Psalms and Proverbs) and to the Bible Speaks Today series (Hosea, Ecclesiastes, Jeremiah) are models of their kind. …

On loving the person and propositions of Jesus

Walking With Giants Posted on by

In chapter 3 of Why we’re not emergent (by two guys who should be), Kevin DeYoung explains why he loves ‘the person and propositions of Jesus’.  What follows is based on part of that chapter.

All Christians claim to have a high regard for the Bible, and emerging Christians are no different.

Brian MacLaren says:

‘I believe [the Bible] is a gift from God, inspired by God, to benefit us in the most important way possible: equipping us so that we can benefit others, so that we can play our part in the ongoing mission of God. 

…

On travelling hopefully AND arriving

Walking With Giants Posted on by

According to an ancient Taoist saying, “the journey is the reward.”

And Robert Louis Stevenson wrote in Virginibus Puerisque (1881), “to travel hopefully is better than to arrive.”

Not very new, then, the post-modern preference for journey over destination.  But it’s a favourite idea of emerging church people.

Kevin DeYoung discusses the emerging preference for seeing Christian faith as journey rather than destination in chapter 1 of Why we’re not emergent – by two guys who should be. …

Mountains and why we love them

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Well, it’s off to Zermatt with my son David for some skiing early in the New Year. I’ve visited that gorgeous Swiss resort a few times now with various members of the family, but this will be the first time in the middle of winter, with lots and lots of snow to play in.

When I’m not dreaming of skiing in the mountains in winter, I’m dreaming of walking in them in the summer. Which brings me to a fascinating account of mountain-climbing by that redoubtable evangelical apologist, J.…

Science: the last nail in God’s coffin?

Walking With Giants Posted on by

‘Humanity should accept that science has eliminated the justification for believing in cosmic purpose, and that any survival of purpose is inspired only by sentiment.’ (Peter Atkins, Oxford Chemistry Professor)

‘It is fashionable to wax apocalyptic about the threat posed by the AIDS virus, “mad cow” disease and many others, but I think that a case can be made that faith is one of the world’s great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate. …

Romans 6:14 – ‘You are not under law’

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Paul writes in Romans 6:14, ‘sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.’

What does this mean?

1.  Christians are not under law, in the first place, in the sense that they are no longer bound by the ceremonial law of the Old Testament.  This law dealt with the Temple and its ritual and, according to the Letter to the Hebrews and other New Testament writings, has been fulfilled in Christ.…

Unlocking the mind of the unbeliever

Walking With Giants Posted on by

In a recent article in Evangelicals Now, Andrew Baughen reports on a gathering of UK evangelists with Tim Keller.  The Clerkenwell Sympsium, as the gathering was called, explored an approach to evangelism that seeks to uncover the various barriers to belief and to suggest ways of overcoming these, so as to lead a person, using a conversational approach, towards an understanding of God’s point of view.

A.  RELATIONSHIP BUILDING – Go to people as Christ’s ambassador

Lock 1: Truth suppressed by wickedness (Romans 1.18)

  • Unbelievers avoid Christians when they know they will be challenged about their lifestyle.
…