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Observations

Not ‘Why?’ But ‘Where?’

If you happen to be wondering why I’ve not reviewed a book for a few weeks, it’s mainly because I am ploughing through The New Testament in its World by NT Wright and Michael Bird. At 900+ pages in hardback, it will take me a while to finish it. However, while it is literally a […]

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Observations

Books I Have Read: Biblical Theology According to the Apostles

Generally, sometime in the spring, I start a book review with the words, this may just be the best book that I read all year. This is that point for 2020. IVP has provided me with a pre-publication pdf of Biblical Theology According to the Apostles: How The Earliest Christians Told The Story Of Israel […]

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Do Not Use

Throwback: Tom Wright on the Resurrection

First-century Jews who followed would-be messiahs knew that if your leader got killed by the authorities, it meant you had backed the wrong man. You then had a choice: give up the revolution or get yourself a new leader. Going around saying that he’d been raised from the dead wasn’t an option.

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Observations

Jesus Can Calm The Storm, But It Doesn’t Mean That He Will!

Our job, is to trust and to bring glory to God in whatever circumstances we find ourselves, but – you know what? – it’s tough. It would be lovely to write that I know that God is going to preserve us all through this crisis, that he will still the coronavirus storm and that we will be unharmed – but I can’t.

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Observations

We Are With Jesus

At key points in his life on earth, he sought out the company of his disciples and friends. The Incarnate Son did not need human company, but he wanted it.

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Observations

Why I Am (Still) A Christian

I’ve decided to trust my life to a set of beliefs that I believe make sense of the world as I observe it and which are based on evidence which anyone can investigate.

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Observations

It Wasn’t A Christmas Card Scene

Eventually, after who knows how long (but it seemed longer to Mary) the little boy was born. The midwife slapped his bum, cleaned him up and passed him to his mum.

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Observations

Books I Have Read: Abide and Go

The central thesis of this book has been the following: Johannine spirituality fundamentally consists in the mutual indwelling of the Triune God (Father, Son, and Spirit) and Jesus’ disciples such that disciples participate in the divine love and life, and therefore in the life-giving mission of God, thereby both demonstrating their likeness to God as God’s children and becoming more and more like God as they become like his Son by the work of the Spirit. This spirituality can be summarized in the phrase “abide and go,” based on John 15.

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Do Not Use

Throwback: Christmas, Why the Big Fuss?

Too often, the Christian response is to insist that we have to put “Christ back into Christmas”. Pointing us back to some mythical time in the past when the celebration revolved around Jesus. If that time ever existed (and I’m far from convinced it did), it was in a society very different to our own and the solutions from those days are not the right ones for today.

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Observations

Unity and Mission in John 17

According to John 17, the deepest desire of Jesus is to create a community of disciples who participate in and manifest the unity of God, who continue the mission of God, and who will one day know the full glory of God.