Joshua 101 – sermon notes

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Joshua 1

It’s taken us millions of years to discover it, but four days ago it finally became official.  This is the way Reuter’s agency broke the news:-

They were huge, lumbering and certainly not the most graceful of creatures, but when they had to dinosaurs sure could run, scientists said on Wednesday.

Using prints from a fossilised dinosaur track in a quarry from southern England, scientists have calculated that bipedal theropod dinosaurs could run at speeds of up to 30 kilometres (19 miles) per hour.…

Luke 1:5-25, 57-66 – A day to remember – sermon notes

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Is there any one day that stands out in your life?

For Zechariah, that day had arrived.  Except that it would turn out to be far more outstanding than he can have ever imagined.

1. Ordinary people

A humble couple, from the Judean hill country.  Of priestly stock, but did not belong to the corrupt aristocracy of Jerusalem.

Childless.  Elizabeth’s ‘disgrace’, v25.

Getting on in years, v7, must have given up all hope

Faithful, v6, not bitter. …

Christian scholarship needs Christian faith

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Why is it that some Christian scholars engage in what James Barr called ‘maximal conservatism’?  Why is it that, according to Peter Enns, evangelical Christians are far too ready to ‘defend’ the Bible against ‘attacks’ on its (supposed) moral uprightness, historical accuracy, and theological consistency?  Why is it that Kenton Sparks feels the need to accuse evangelical biblical scholars of giving the impression that they accept all the tools of critical scholarship while, on the other hand, blithely insisting that the use of these tools, ‘when properly used’, must uphold their own predetermined views about the Bible does, and does not, teach?…

Rescuing the Bible from its friends

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Enns, Peter (2014). The Bible Tells Me So: Why Defending Scripture Has Made Us Unable to Read It. HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

I offer a summary of some of the book’s main points, and then an assessment.

What the Bible is not

The Bible, says Enns, presents us with at least three kinds of problem:-

  • moral (God is responsible for a great deal of slaughter)
  • historical (many of the events recorded in the Bible did not happen, at least not in the way the Bible describes them)
  • theological (the biblical writers present diverse and contradictory points of view about God and what it means to follow him).
…

God bless the ‘Sunday Assembly’

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Yesterday morning (9th November 2014), the Norwich ‘Sunday Assembly’ held its first meeting.

Describing itself as ‘a global movement for wonder and good’, the Sunday Assembly sets out to offer much that a Christian worship service might offer – including communal singing, time for reflection, an address, tea and coffee at the end (can’t get much more religious than that!) – but without God.

The folks behind the Sunday Assembly are peaceable humanists.  They regard themselves as godless, but not anti-god.  …

The life of prayer

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Albert Barnes offers the following guidelines:-

1. Every Christian should have some time allotted for this service, and some place where he may be alone with God.

2. It is not easy, perhaps not possible, to maintain a life of piety without regular habits of secret devotion.

3. The morning, when we have experienced God’s protecting care, when the mind is fresh, and the thoughts are as yet clear and unoccupied with the world, when we go forth to the duties, trials, and temptations of the day; and the evening, when we have again experienced his goodness, and are about to commit ourselves to his protecting care, and when we need his pardoning mercy for the errors and follies of the day, seem to be times which commend themselves to all as appropriate seasons for private devotion.

…

The grammar of Christology

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Theology teacher Ben Myers has a list of twelve ‘rules’ on how we speak of Christ:-

1. Not to speak of Christ in any way that sidelines his human experience. Jesus Christ is truly human.

2. Not to speak of Jesus in any way that sidelines the divine depth beneath his human experience. Jesus Christ is truly God.

3. Not to divide Christ’s divinity and humanity, or to give the impression that he sometimes functions as God and sometimes as a human.

…

Acts 4:32-5:16 – Ananias and Sapphira (sermon notes)

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Text: Acts 4:32-5:16

It’s a shocking story.  What is our gut reaction?

Disbelief? (a God of love wouldn’t do such a thing)

Dismay? (I’m no better than this pair.  If only you knew what impure thoughts, what insincere prayers, what resentful attitudes I’m capable of…)

1. What was so wrong in what they did?

Collusion: they had hatched this plan together v2.

Deceit: their sin was not in keeping some of the money back.  (Selling off houses and land was neither universal nor compulsory). …

Mark’s Gospel and the ‘invention’ of the historical Jesus

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I have written several posts that support the essential historicity of the events that are recorded in Mark’s Gospel (no less than those that are recorded in the other three Gospels).

I have found it interesting, however, to consider the views of Robert M. Price (one of the contributors to The Historical Jesus: Five Views), who takes the polar opposite view.  For Price, the ‘events’ recorded in Mark’s Gospel (no less that the others) have virtually no basis in history, but were invented by the Christian community on the basis of their reading of (what we call) the Old Testament scriptures.…

Dying and rising gods

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Was the notion of a dying and rising Saviour, as recorded in the canonical Gospels, derived from pagan myths concerning the Canaanite god Baal, the Phoenician god Adonis, the Egyptian god Osiris, and others?  This view was first popularised by J. G. Frazer in The Golden Bough: a Study in Magic and Religion (first published in 1890).  Frazer thought that he had discovered a universal core in religion – a myth about a dying and rising fertility god, along with associated rituals – and this idea was taken up by some others, including Joseph Campbell.…