Lk 7:11-17 – From death to life – sermon notes

Walking With Giants Posted on by

The miracle which is about to be recounted was one of just three occasions that we know of when Jesus raised the dead.  It is therefore one of the greatest of his miracles.  It demonstrates to a remarkable degree his pity mixed with power.  He had, on the previous day, healed one who was on the point of death.  But now he shows himself to be conqueror of death itself.

1.  The widow’s affliction

Picture the scene presented by that funeral procession, with the bereaved mother leading the way. …

Gen 15:1-21 – God’s covenant with Abraham – sermon notes

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Some while ago, the BBC ran a series called ‘Reputations’,  in which famous figures were shown to be perhaps not quite as perfect as they are sometimes made out to be – Bertrand Russell, Dr Benjamin Spock, John Wayne, Martin Luther King.

Hero-worship is always perilous, because sooner or later your hero will let you down.  Abraham had many positive qualities, and these command our respect and admiration.  But he could also be downright deceitful, as when he attempted to pass Sarah off as his sister. …

Mt 6:1-18 – Ways to pray – sermon notes

Walking With Giants Posted on by

The first reference to prayer in the Bible occurs in Genesis 4, which records the time when “men began to call on the name of the LORD”,.  The last reference is in the last verse but one of Revelation, which is itself a prayer, “Come, Lord Jesus”.  In between the Bible is full of prayer.  Even apart from the Psalms, whole chapters record the prayers of God’s people.  Abraham would pray under a tamarisk tree.  Jacob famously wrestled in prayer. …

Preachers and their preaching – John Calvin

Walking With Giants Posted on by

I plan, in this series of posts, to explore different approaches to preaching taken by some of the leading figures (mainly) in the evangelical tradition.

First up, John Calvin (1509-1564).

The Reformers laid great weight on preaching, and the reason for this is found in their concept of the Word of God.  When God’s word is faithfully preached, God himself is speaking.  The preacher is an envoy, an ambassador, of God.  He is called by God and he preaches only what God in Holy Scripture commands him to preach.…

Mk 8:27-38 – ‘You are the Christ’ – sermon notes

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Mark’s Gospel simply bursts with energy.  Compared with the other three Gospels, this one focuses less on what Jesus taught, more on what he did.  Mark rushes breathlessly from one event to another, brandishing his favourite word, ‘immediately’.

It would be a mistake, however, to regard Mark’s Gospel as a mishmash of frantic activity.  The whole of the first half of the Gospel is dominated by a huge question mark.  It’s a question mark about Jesus himself. …

B.M Palmer’s ‘Theology of Prayer’

Walking With Giants Posted on by

I was on holiday in Lochgilphead, Scotland, in May 1981, and called in to the Christian Bookshop to have a browse.  A book caught my eye which I had never heard of, and yet which I knew just from the title that I must buy it and read.

That book was Theology of Prayer, by B.M Palmer (1818-1902).  I was not disappointed with my purchase.  It has remained a special favourite of mine.  Most books on prayer are either a bit vague, or too pragmatic, to give the reader much insight into the theology of prayer. …

Richard Sibbes on the Web

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Richard Sibbes (1577-1635) was a Puritan preacher in Cambridge and London, famous as a ‘physician of the soul’.  Richard Sibbes on the Web helpfully collects together links to Sibbes’ writings (including a full version – with updated language – of his celebrated work, The Bruised Reed.  Secondary sources of information are also listed.

My own opinion is that Sibbes ranks with Thomas Watson and William Gurnall as the most accessible of the Puritans.  His pastoral counsel is outstandingly wise.…

The SCM Press A-Z of Evangelical Theology

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Just over 30 years ago, SCM Press published James Barr’s Fundamentalism.  It’s a bit of a rant, adopting a tone only slightly less dismissive and self-satisfied than that taken more recently by Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion.  Barr maintained that ‘fundamentalism’ does not have a theology at all, it merely has doctrines.

What Barr meant by ‘fundamentalism’ was what you and I know as ‘evangelicalism’.  It is refreshing, then, that the good people at SCM Press have finally decided that not only there is such a thing as ‘evangelical theology’ after all, but that it would be worth their while getting someone to write an A to Z of it.…

Jn 5:1-18 – ‘Not only…but also’ – sermon notes

Walking With Giants Posted on by

John’s Gospel has been likened to ‘a pool in which a child may paddle and an elephant can swim.’  It can be appreciated at different levels, from the relatively simple to utterly profound.  This is certainly the case with this passage.  At one level, we have a fairly straightforward account of the healing of a man who had been disabled for 38 years.  At another level, we have an issue about Jesus performing this miracle on the Sabbath, thus antagonising the Jewish authorities. …

Theological Hair-Splitting

Walking With Giants Posted on by

B.B. Warfield put it well, I think:-

‘Gibbon…made himself merry, or made himself miserable, as the case may have been, over the spectacle of Christianity split to its foundations in violent dispute over a mere diphthong – whether Christ should be said to be homo-ousios or only homoi-ousios with God: whether that is, he should be conceived as all that God is, or only in some greater or less degree, more or less like God.  The whole substance of Christianity was involved, however, in this controversy; the issue was nothing less than whether the world should be Christian or heathen. …