Fee and Stuart (How To Read The Bible For All Its Worth) outline three benefits of the Psalms for both their ancient and modern readers:-
1. ‘The psalms can serve as a guide to worship. By this we mean that the worshiper who seeks to praise God or to appeal to God or to remember God’s benefits can use the psalms as a formal means of expression of his or her thoughts and feelings.…
The Marriage Foundation have summarised their recent research findings in the form of the following table.
Text: Matthew 5:1-10
Picture a sumo wrestler…an aging rock star…a mad professor…a spiritual person. What did you see? Mother Teresa? A Buddhist monk? The Archbishop of Canterbury? Yourself?
Here is a description of a Christian disciple.
It all begins, not with a set of instructions, but with a pronouncement of blessing. There are people who might be considered unfortunate, pitiable even. But they live under God’s favour. They are the luckiest people in the world.
Does this describe me?…
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. …
‘In Christ alone’ (Stuart Townend and Keith Getty) is a fine Christian song.
But what about the words that stick in the throats of many:-
Till on that cross as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied.
Please don’t tell me you won’t sing these words because you unwilling to think or speak of God’s wrath, and wish to sing only of his love. The song as a whole does a great job in exploring the various dimensions of Christ’s death and resurrection. …
In Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We Don’t Know about Them), Bart D. Ehrman writes about one of his ‘favourite apparent discrepancies’ in John’s Gospel:-
…It ‘comes in Jesus’ “Farewell Discourse,” the last address that Jesus delivers to his disciples, at his last meal with them, which takes up all of chapters 13 to 17 in the Gospel according to John. In John 13:36, Peter says to Jesus, “Lord, where are you going?”
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’ 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.…
So respected a New Testament Scholar as Douglas Moo writes that:-
‘Reconciliation can hardly be given a central place in Paul’s theology. The language is too infrequent and the concepts too undeveloped for such a judgment. It is better to view reconciliation as one image, among many others, that is used to capture something of the meaning of God’s act in Christ for us.’ (The Letter to the Romans, 2nd ed.)
I.H. Marshall, however, contends that the concept of reconciliation may be regarded as central to a biblical understanding of atonement:-
‘The mending of relationships both with God and with our fellow human beings is a central theme in the New Testament and especially in the writings of Paul.…
Derek Tidball outlines six pastoral issues which are often raised as objections to the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement (PSA), but which, actually, count in its favour.
Proponents of PSA can seem to so emphasise the sinfulness of sin that the poor sinner despairs of ever being rid of a sense of guilt and self-loathing.
Correctly understood, however, PSA does not leave people in this abject situation. …
