These three words (writes Jan Johnson) take us to the heart of what contemplative prayer is all about.
Resting in God
‘The shadow of the Almighty is a safe place to rest for a soul that is scattered, parched, guilt-ridden, or uncertain.’
Psa 4:4 – ‘When you are on your beds, search your hearts and be silent.’
Psa 37:7 – ‘Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him;.’
Psa 62:5 – ‘ Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him.’…
Or, to put it otherwise: ‘cancel culture makes liars of us all’.
The current fad for toppling statues of the great and the good when their ‘goodness’ is found to have been mixed with ‘badness’ is chilling in its implications. Yesterday, it was Edward Colston. Tomorrow, it may be John Newton, Winston Churchill, or even Mother Theresa herself. And are you quite sure that there is not something lurking in your Twitter account that will not, one day, be held up to your eternal shame?…
Having compiled a couple of sets relating to texts in the New Testament, I thought I’d take a look at some commonly-misunderstood texts from the Old Testament. These are discussed more fully in the Bible Study Notes.
Here’s a start:-
Genesis 1 – Gap theory. Is there a ‘gap’ between verses 1 and 2? According to some, there first two verses teach that God created the heavens and the earth ‘in the beginning’ and that the earth became (some unspecified interval later) formless and void. …
Robert Banks and R. Paul Stevens write:
In the last book of the Bible we are given an empowering vision of worship in the new Jerusalem. All earthly worship should be inspired by the worship that is already going on in heaven and that we will experience more fully when Christ comes again. In this sense our present worship is like “playing heaven,” as when little children invite each other to “play house,” looking forward to the day when they are grown up and have their own home.…
David Baker writes:
Once, abortion was a feminist issue. Alice Paul (1885-1977) denounced abortion as an evil forced upon women by men. A number of suffragists called abortion “child murder” in Susan B. Anthony’s publication, The Revolution. There are those who still bravely bear that flame today, with Feminists for Life of America, being one such organisation. Feminists for Life of America first revealed and shared many pro-life quotes from the first wave feminists and on its website you can read ‘pro-woman answers to pro-choice questions’…
Let the last words be given to feminist writer and bioethicist Fiorella Nash. …
Here I summarise this essay by Andrew T. Walker, entitled, ‘Gender and Sexuality’.
Gender refers to the biological differences between males and females and to the different cultural ways in which creational distinctions are expressed. Sexuality refers to God’s design for the procreative relationship between men and women and to the experience of erotic desire within that relationship.
Several axiomatic truths related to gender and sexuality are found in the Genesis 1–2 narrative.…
What can the preacher learn from the stand-up comic and other expert communicators?
Not a lot, it might be supposed. The preacher shouldn’t go all-out for laughs: his message is far too serious. He shouldn’t preach time again the same message, honing it until every word is in the right place, and the delivery timed to perfection. He shouldn’t try to create any kind of unnatural persona, but rather be in the pulpit the same person that he is at home, at work, and amongst his friends.…
A few thoughts from Warren Wiersbe.
“The purpose of preaching is not to explain a subject, but to achieve an object.” (Fosdick)
‘We have forgotten that the Bible is an imaginative book. It contains every kind of literature, from funeral dirges and pastoral poems to epigrams, parables, allegories, and creative symbols that have captured poets, artists, and composers for centuries. For some reason, our views of inspiration and inerrancy have robbed us of a living book, a book that throbs with excitement and enrichment.…
As the pages of the New Testament testify, the ministry of the Word encampasses a wide range activities. Over thirty verbs are employed. According to Peter Adam, these may be categorised as follows:
Words of Information: teach, instruct, make known, remind.
Words of Declaration: preach, proclaim, cry out, testify, bear witness, declare, write, read, pass on, set forth.
Words of Exhortation: call, denounce, warn, rebuke, command, give judgment, encourage, appeal, urge, ask.
Words of Persuasion: explain, make clear, prove, guard, debate, contend, refute, reason, persuade, convince, insist, defend, confirm.…
