The Holy Spirit – before and after Pentecost

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J.I. Packer writes:-

‘Prior to Pentecost…the Spirit sustained creation and natural life, renewed hearts, gave spiritual understanding, and bestowed gifts for service both in leadership and in other ways, and all this he still does.  The difference since Pentecost is that all his present ministry to Christian believers relates not to Christ who was to come, as was the case when he ministered to Old Testament sains (see, for hints of this, John 8:56-59; 1 Corinthians 10:4; Hebrews 11:26; 1 Peter 1:10); nor as it did when Simeon and Anna recognised him (Luke 2:25-38), and during his three years of public ministry; it relates now to Christ who has come and has died and risen and now reigns in glory. 

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‘The world’

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‘The world’ usually means for us the sum total of things and people around us. The focus may be

(a) physical and geographical – this planet, with its chemistry, climate, population, raw materials;

(b) racial and anthropological – people of all nations, as when we speak of ‘world health’, ‘world peace’, or ‘world opinion’.

(c) sociological and cultural – an outlook and pattern of communal life, as in our notion of the ‘civilized world’, the ‘communist world, or on the contrast between the ‘ancient world’ and the ‘modern world’.…

‘Myths About Calvinism’

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My eye was caught by a review in Christianity Today of a recent book by Kenneth J. Stewart entitled Ten Myths About Calvinism.  Stewart writes as a Calvinist himself, but is somewhat critical of some trends and tendencies within the latest resurgence of the movement, especially as represented by the ‘young, restless and reformed’ brigade.

Here are some of the ‘myths’ about Calvinism, as identified by Stewart.  These ones, he says, are all held by Calvinists themselves.…

Jn 21:15-25 – “Do you love me?” – sermon notes

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I recently heard a true story about a bishop and a dentist. The dentist had just finished fitting the bishop out with a complete set of new teeth. As soon as the dentist had finished, the bishop went over to a mirror. And as looked at himself and inspected his mouthful of fine teeth, he said, “Jesus Christ.” And then again: “Jesus Christ.” The dentist was rather appalled when he heard such profane language coming from a man of the cloth.…

Love Your Logic

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A lot of everyday thinking, and not a little academic thinking, is riddled with logical fallacies.  It pays to know what counts as logical thinking, in order to keep one’s mind on the straight and narrow.

Here are some notes, helpfully summarised from Peter Kreeft’s book Socratic Logic by Justin Taylor:-

There are three kinds of thoughts, or three acts of the mind:

  1. Simple apprehension [understanding a simple term—e.g., “man”]
  2. Judging [relating two concepts by predicating one term of the other—e.g.,
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Rob Bell and Brian Maclaren – Unbelievable?

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I’ve been listening to a pair of recent episodes of Premier Christian Radio’s Unbelievable show.

The first was a discussion between Rob Bell and Adrian Warnock.  Rob Bell was being quizzed about his recent book Love Wins, which, rather notoriously, appears to entertain a doctrine of universalism.  Unusually for a presenter who is usually very even-handed Justin Brierley, seemed rather keen to side with Adrian Warnock against Rob Bell.  And both of them seemed rather too keen on trying to work out whether Rob Bell is ‘in’ or ‘out’, ‘one of us’ or ‘one of them’, an ‘evangelical’ or a ‘liberal’. …

Genes: masters or slaves?

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In Richard Dawkins’ celebrated book The Selfish Gene, there is a passage which (rather typically for him) smuggles non-empirical assumptions into a statement that purports to be a scientific one.

The passage reads as follows:-

[Genes] swarm in huge colonies, safe inside gigantic lumbering robots, sealed off from the outside world, communicating with it by tortuous indirect routes, manipulating it by remote control.  They are in you and me; they created us, body and mind; and their preservation is the ultimate rationale for our existence.

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Oral tradition and the Gospels

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Craig Blomberg has written extensively on the historical reliability of the Gospels.  In the relevant article in the Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, he identifies a number of factors that support the probability that the Gospels faithfully preserve the oral traditions on which they are based.

1. Jesus was perceived by his followers as one who proclaimed God’s Word in a way which demanded careful retelling.

2. Over ninety percent of his teachings has poetic elements which would have made them easy to memorize.

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The moral argument for God’s existence

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The moral argument, stated at its simplest, asserts that moral facts, or imperatives, exist, and that the best way of explaining these is in terms of a supernatural moral Being (i.e. God).

In asserting that moral facts exist, the Christian apologist is on common ground with the majority of philosophers, including those who are not theists.

Fewer, however would accept that the existence of moral facts necessarily entails the existence of God.

Some would try to explain the moral impulse in terms of social pressure and cultural conditioning. …

Mt 27:11-25; 33-54 – On trial – sermon notes

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Note: this short message was delivered in two parts during the course of an all-age service.  The service was held on Palm Sunday, but the Anglican lectionary set this passage, covering the trial and crucifixion of Jesus, and I was anxious to try to do something worthwhile with it within the time (2 x 6 minutes) available to me.

Text: Matthew 27:11-25; 33-54

1.

This is, of course, the most famous trial in history. And it’s obvious who is on trial here.…