‘The word of their testimony’

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According to Revelation 12:10,11, a loud voice from heaven announces that the ‘accuser of our brothers’ has been ‘hurled down’, and that ‘they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.’

The idea of ‘testimony’ is often taken to mean ‘speaking about what God has done for me in my life.’  A quick Internet search will throw up web sites devoted to, for example, ‘publishing testimonies of persons who have accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior, and who have experienced miracles in their lives.’ …

Prophets today?

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‘Christ,’ says Paul in his Letter to the Ephesians (Eph 4:11f), ‘gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up.’

Most Christian teachers would agree that the office of apostle was limited to those who were the first witnesses of Christ’s resurrection.  On the other hand, they would take it for granted that evangelists and pastor-teachers are found in every era and place.…

Donald Macleod to retire as College Principal

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Back in 1982 or thereabouts, I hired a car and drove from my home in Norwich (in the South-East of England) – to Carlisle (in the North-West of England) in order to attend a conference organised by the Banner of Truth Trust.  I particularly wanted to hear Donald Macleod speak.  I was not disappointed.  To be sure, you don’t listen to Macleod for the beauty of his voice (once referred to as a cross between a fog-horn and a set of bagpipes), but rather for his penetrating insights into the Christian faith.…

Tom Wright – a biography

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Shame on me.  The name of Tom Wright features prominently on this web site, and yet I missed, until very recently, the excellent biography that has been posted on alistair.adversaria.  This tracks the development of Wright’s thought, and offers some insightful comments on his relationship with evangelicalism.

The ways in which Wright has deliberately set out to question and re-think his evangelical heritage is well set out.  He himself is quoted as saying:-

I continue to respect the Reformers, and men like Charles Simeon, of 200 years ago, John Stott, Jim Packer and Michael Green, at whose feet I was privileged to sit, and whose work in a variety of ways created space for me to do things differently.

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No religion please – it’s Easter

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Bible Society NSW has been told that it cannot have a stall at this year’s Sydney Royal Easter Show.  The stall was to have been on the theme of ‘Jesus All About Life’, but the organisers banned it on account of its ‘religious’ theme.

As CEO of Bible Society NSW, Daniel Willis says,

It’s a curious thing that an event bearing the name “Easter” has disallowed anything to do with the very thing Easter is all about – the death and resurrection of Jesus.

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Isaiah 14:12 – Is Satan a fallen angel?

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Isaiah 14:12 Look how you have fallen from the sky,
O shining one, son of the dawn!
You have been cut down to the ground,
O conqueror of the nations!

Since God created everything, Gen 1:1, Jn 1:3, Col 1:16, and everything he created was good, Gen 1:3, Ps 104:24, 1 Tim 4:4, it seems reasonable to suppose that Satan was originally part of that good creation, but ‘fell’ into evil.

Many interpreters have seen in this prophecy (and also Eze 28) a cosmic dimension, although its primary reference is clearly to a man – the king of Babylon, Isa 14:4.…

Thoughts on sermon structure

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Structure is of the essence in communication. According to Haddon Robinson, a good sermon structure (a) helps the speaker to see the relationships between the various parts of the sermon; (b) enables the speaker to see the sermon as a whole; (c) ensures that the hearer will receive the ideas in the appropriate sequence; (d) identifies those places in the sermon where additional supporting material is needed to develop the points.

1.  What are the qualities of an effective structure?

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The resurrection an historical fact

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It is not difficult to find sceptics who will dismiss the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus with a casual wave of the hand.  Richard Dawkins, for example, says:-

I don’t know where the story of Jesus rising from the dead comes from. The actual documentary evidence is very bad as historical evidence goes, and so, given its enormous inherent implausibility, I’d be much more inclined to suspect it. You needn’t go as far as to say ‘hoax’ – it’s just that when very, very charismatic people die, legends grow up about them in a very mysterious way.

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Paul and the empty tomb

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There are those (including some Muslim scholars) who like to drive a wedge between the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ resurrection and those of Paul.  ‘Paul,’ they say, ‘never mentions the empty tomb; therefore, he must have believed in a very different kind of resurrection – a ‘spiritual, rather than a physical kind’.  This impression seems to be strengthened by Paul’s insistence that resurrection bodies (of both Christ and others) are ‘spiritual’ rather than ‘fleshly’.

Bultmann famously asserted:

‘The accounts of an empty  tomb are legends, of which Paul as yet knew nothing.

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Justification – a peripheral doctrine?

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A couple of years ago Roger Forster, founder of Ichthus Christian Fellowship, discussed the atonement with atheist Marilyn Mason on Premier Radio’s ‘Unbelievable’ show.  I’m normally a big fan of ‘Unbelievable’, but this was not, I think, one of the more enlightening episodes.  Marilyn Mason’s stock response to any and every point made from the Christian perspective tended to be, simply, ‘That doesn’t make sense to me’, and so little progress could be made.

More disappointing still, however, was Roger Forster’s dismissal of justification as a central element in the atonement:-

I could run you off a list of some fifteen words which are used in the New Testament to try and explain what is going on at the cross, showing that there are at least fifteen – probably a lot more – models of actually what is taking place.

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