Theology

This sermon or address takes a brief look at the doctrine of the Trinity. The major point being made is that a non-Trinitarian God is incapable of saving humanity from the predicament in which we find ourselves. There are some views of God that are based on a limited or distorted understanding of partial biblical revelation that […]

In an article in The Pulse Paul Cooper, explaining why Jesus had to die, gives an excellent illustration of the immense damage our sin does:
In British Columbia there are many great forest trees. One such variety is the mighty Ponderosa pine so named because of its ponderous size, sometimes growing to a height of fifty […]

Justin Barrett, senior researcher at the Centre for Anthropology and Mind, Oxford University, has conducted research over the last decade which, it is claimed, shows that children are born with a predisposition to see the natural world as designed and purposeful with an intelligent being behind that purpose.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
The preponderance […]

Peter Abbs identifies Jean-Jacques Rousseau as “the first significant philosopher of deep personal autobiography” (”The Full Revelation of the Self” in Philosophy Now [July/August 2008] 17). Rousseau contrasted himself with other Enlightenment philosophers:
I have met many men who were more learned in their philosophising, but their philosophy remained, as it were, external to them. Wanting […]

During former Annual Moore College Lectures Mark Thompson expatiated on the clarity of Scripture. He was later asked whether the dependence of many Christians on experience rather than on Scripture reflected doubts as to the clarity of Scripture. In his answer Mark pointed out that there is no need to set experience against Scripture and […]

In 1969 I wonderfully came to know Christ through the witness of Navigator Christians in the YMCA, Christchurch, New Zealand. Very soon afterwards Sandy Fairservice sat down with me and helped me to grasp the certainty of my salvation. The first verses I memorised were 1 John 5:11-12:
And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal […]

Last week Andrew McGowan, Principal of the Highlands College, delivered the annual Eliza Ferrie lecture at the Presbyterian Theological Centre, Burwood. He sketched the life and impact of Charles Spurgeon. One of the points he made stuck with me. Spurgeon insisted that one must accept the truth of the Bible as a presupposition. The moment […]

It is very important in assessing the moral and ethical quality of people’s lives, outside Christ, to discriminate sharply between our human assessment and God’s assessment. Knowing that all people have been created in God’s image and knowing that this image, while seriously damaged, has not been erased, we are not surprised to find even […]

Today, on the way back from church Barbara and I listened to Sunday Brunch on ABC Sydney. Simon Marnie was interviewing Eva Cox, prominent for her outspoken views on social policy issues. In the course of the interview she reflected on the horrific things people do to each other. She made the point that everyone […]

Christians sometimes make the error of trying to effect spiritual reform by structural change. So we tinker with the format and content of church services. We might try to change denominational church laws by way of trying to entrench practices which we believe presuppose sounder biblical theology, hoping that by so doing the denomination will become […]

In the minds of many today there is nothing particularly unique about humans. We are just animals. Christine Kenneally appeals to hard scientific fact as demonstrating that our supposedly unique qualities are only more sophisticated versions of traits found in the animal world. She describes the human capacity for language as “the last stronghold of human […]

I was reading an interview between Tony Payne and Oliver O’Donovan in some past issue of the Briefing.  O’Donovan was explaining that to be able to live we have to be able to act; that to be able to act we have to be able to form purposes; that in order to form purposes we have to understand […]

In his pastoral ministry Eugene Peterson was struck by how extensively the cultural and spiritual conditions in which he was working matched the sixth century BC experience of the Hebrews in exile:
the pervasive uprootedness and loss of place, the loss of connection with a tradition of worship, the sense of being immersed in a foreign […]

I learnt something today as I was reading Graham Cole’s Engaging with the Holy Spirit on the train. He picks up Mascall’s observation that until the Arian controversy (4th century) churches used the doxology: “Glory to the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit.” But it was found that this played into the hands […]

I enjoyed Tony Payne’s identification of an instance of what he calls the “Gus the Greek Fallacy” (= the etymological fallacy). In a movie which is great for illustrating cross-cultural issues - My Big Fat Greek Wedding - Gus Portokalos’ daughter, Toula, meets resistance from her parents when she wants to marry Ian Miller. Gus is passionately Greek. Indeed, […]

Graham Cole makes an excellent point in his little gem, Engaging with the Holy Spirit (his Oak Hill lectures). There is a basic deficiency with the common acronym for prayer used in evangelical circles - ACTS: Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication.  When we take seriously the many laments in Scripture it becomes “painfully” obvious that the […]

Last night at FIG (Friday International Group) we were discussing “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16). For God to be love does not depend on people first being created. “God is love” is true even before the creation of the universe. Nor is God’s love before creation merely nascent, latent, potential. So Jesus prayed,
Father, […]

In his book Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places Eugene Peterson makes the excellent point that we need to delay answering the question ‘How do we go about living appropriately in this world that has been revealed to us in Jesus Christ?’. At first this might seem strange counsel. But Peterson rightly observes that most […]

Philosopher-theologian Janet Martin Soskice was once asked if she would participate in a radio program considering the issue of whether there are miracles or not. After she agreed she was told that there would be a leading humanist putting the opposite case. She was asked, “What would you say to him?” She replied, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” […]

Many Hindus make a pilgrimage each year to the Indian equivalent of Lourdes, to worship Our Lady of Gunadala Marimatha. The Feast of the shrine is held between February 9-11 so as to coincide with the supposed apparition of the Lady of Lourdes (usually identified with the Virgin Mary) - to a 14-year old girl, […]

In Buddhism the pig, along with the rooster and the snake, represent “the three deadly poisons”, the fuller exposition of the Second Noble Truth, accounting for the cause of suffering. The rooster represents greed and the snake hatred. It is ironic that the pig should symbolise ignorance and that even today we might speak of […]

In God’s Advocates (2005:5-6) Rupert Shortt speaks of a friend who “feels that Christianity in the end entails some kind of dualism” with respect to the relationship of mind and body. Shortt’s friend maintained “that, as physical creatures, we are our mental process - no brain, no mind - and therefore that death means total […]

In his magnificent book The Cruciality of the Cross P.T. Forsyth explains what is meant by atonement:
By the atonement… is meant that action of Christ’s death which has a prime regard to God’s holiness, has it for its first charge, and finds man’s reconciliation impossible except as that holiness is divinely satisfied once for all […]

At FIG (Friday International Group) last week we were discussing how Jesus knew about the background of the Samaritan woman he had met at the well. She was astonished because this complete stranger knew that she had had five husbands and that the man she was now sleeping with was not her husband. The question […]

In Aeschylus’ play Agamemnon at one point the chorus chants:
…though I stand alone,I hold that from one wicked deedA countless family is sown,And, as the parent, so the seed.But Justice hands fair Fortune onAnd godly sire hath goodly son.What is the “one wicked deed” from which “a countless family is sown”? The sacrifice of […]