Talk like a Babylonian

Walking With Giants Posted on by
[relink id=”886″]

We read that Daniel and his three friends were educated in, among other things, ‘the language of the Babylonians’ (Daniel 1:4).

There is great pressure on us today to avoid the language of the kingdom of God and to adopt instead the language of our culture.  John Lennox observes that ‘the wave of relativism now swamping Western thinking has increased the pressure to drop certain words from our languages and replace them with others that drive forward the secularist agenda of deconstructing the very nature of human beings and the society we live in.’…

Jesus, the ineligible bachelor

Walking With Giants Posted on by

In the Jewish society of Jesus’ day, it was almost unthinkable that a man would remain unmarried beyond the age of 20 or so.  After all, the very first commandment of the Torah is to ‘go and multiply’).  Few indeed are the recorded instances of unmarried men.  There was a studious rabbi by the name of Simeon ben Azzi.  And even he probably had been married, but had become a widower.

Girls were usually married by the age of twelve, and men by the age of twenty.…

‘The Sin of Certainty’ – 9

Walking With Giants Posted on by

So, finally, to the ninth and last chapter of Peter Enns’ book.

The need for certainty (according to Enns) fosters a number of unholy and unhealthy traits, such as: the ‘vigilant monitoring of who’s in and who’s out’, preoccupation with debating and defending the faith, over-valuing of logical arguments, and unquestioning conformity to intellectual authorities.

Such a faith does not promote trust either in God or others.  It provokes, rather, by fear and anxiety.  Trust does not grow in an atmosphere of dogmatic certainty.  …

Jesus: a ‘new and improved’ Moses?

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Should we regard the Old Testament and the New Testament as continuous, or discontinuous, with one another?  The standard evangelical approach is to regard the relationship between the two as that between bud and flower, source and stream, promise and fulfilment.

But many are troubled by the moral teaching and actions recorded in the Old Testament, and ask how this can be reconciled with the teaching and actions of Jesus.

Taking the difficult matter of the destruction of the Canaanites as his starting point, Peter Enns looks at Matthew’s Gospel, asking, ‘What would Jesus do?’…

PYO gender, kids?

Walking With Giants Posted on by

As noted recently by Sam Hailes on the Premier Christianity blog, issues relating to transgenderism have been hitting the news with considerable frequency:-

Transport for London recently announced they’d no longer use the phrase “ladies and gentlemen” when making public announcements. TFL said the phrase was “outdated” and “belonging to yesterday”.

Last month a Canadian transsexual refused to give their baby a gender. Kori Doty complained the baby had not been issued a birth certificate because officials say a gender of either male or female must be registered.…

‘The Sin of Certainty’ – 8

Walking With Giants Posted on by

In chapter 8 (‘Cultivating a habit of trust’), Peter Enns bares his heart.  We learn that in his forties, he went through a bad time.  His daughter had developed an anxiety disorder so severe that she had to be sent away to a boarding school far from home.  A seemingly co-incidental and almost trivial incident struck him as a ‘God-moment’ that helped him to see that we do not have to know and understand before we commit to God in faith.…

Is religious belief just a matter of cultural conditioning?

Walking With Giants Posted on by

‘If you were born in Saudi Arabia,’ the argument goes, ‘you would probably be a Muslim.  If you were born in the Bible Belt of the US, you would probably be a Christian.’  Conclusion: religious belief and commitment are conditioned by one’s culture and environment.  Truth, evidence, reason and personal decision have nothing to do with it.

But the argument cuts both ways.  A person born in France, for example, would probably be a secularist rather than either a Muslim or a Christian.  …

The good shepherd

Walking With Giants Posted on by

‘The good pastor…models his ministry on the good shepherd,’ writes John Stott in The Contemporary Christian (pp 280-290).  As such, he has the following characteristics:-

  1. The good shepherd knows his sheep, Jn 10:3, 14f.  He will know them by name, and he will know them personally and intimately.
  2. The good shepherd serves his sheep, Jn 10:11.  This is in contrast to false shepherds, who serve themselves, Eze 34:2; June 12.  It may be unrewarding, sacrificial work, but he is following Jesus’ example in doing it.
…

To what are we called?

Walking With Giants Posted on by

We are called to

  1. fellowship with Jesus Christ, Mk 3:14; Jn 17:3; 1 Cor 1:9;
  2. freedom, Gal 5:13;
  3. peace, Col 3:15;
  4. holiness, 1 Cor 1:2; Rom 1:7; 1 Pet 1:5; 1 Thess 4:7; 2 Tim 1:9;
  5. witness, 1 Pet 2:9;
  6. suffering, 1 Pet 2:20f; Jn 15:18,20;
  7. glory, Heb 3:1; 1 Pet 5:10; Rom 8:17.

(Stott, The Contemporary Christian, 133f)…

Prescriptions for depression drugs double in decade

Walking With Giants Posted on by

It is a well-known fact that prescriptions for antidepressants have double over the past ten years.

I’ve been reading a short article in the Daily Mail (June 30, 2017).

Various reasons have been put forward to explain this, and there’s probably truth in many of them: many women, for example, are struggling with the pressures of trying to raise a family, hold down a job, and look after ageing relatives.

Another factor may be that mental health conditions are more frequently recognised these days, and there is less of a stigma attached to seeking help.…