Queering a tudor warship

I read an article on this when the story first broke. The original article I read quoted at least one gay history professor who considered this approach to be absolutely mental. It always pays to remember that just because a story makes it to the national press doesn’t mean it speaks in any way to the popular (or academic) mind. It made the news in this instance because, it seems, everybody agreed with how stupid it was.

That sports day feeling on God’s team

‘The church is a mixed bunch of people from different ages and stages and so there are naturally different levels of knowledge and experience. Sometimes this can lead new believers to feel “stupid” because they don’t know as much as another person. In some conversations people might feel out of their depth in terms of their understanding of Scripture or their knowledge of church history or theology. Suddenly you’re transported right back to that playing field where you were left in tears as a child, or that meeting where you backed yourself into a corner quietly because you were embarrassed. But the glorious truth is that there are no unwanted people in God’s team, they are no misfits, no unusable people. The Lord uses ordinary people, doing ordinary thing to fulfil His extraordinary plans.’

Being a church planter isn’t always exciting!

Ain’t that the truth! Knowing it helps keep our expectations in check.

How infant baptism came to be

This is both an interesting and compelling one seeking to answer a very particular question: ‘there was no mention of infant baptism for 150 years, then twenty years later there appear mentions of infant baptism, and so what happened in the middle?’

Do not hinder them: why we baptise believing children

The discussion among Baptists on when, exactly, it is appropriate to baptise a professing child rages on. This one offers a case for baptising children who profess faith.

Ten criticisms of John Piper’s preaching

Sticking with Desiring God, here are 10 criticisms John Piper got of his preaching. They are, perhaps both comfortingly and somewhat dispiritingly at the same time, remarkably common.

From the archive: Four ways elders can make their members groan

‘The Bible tells us to obey our elders and to let them watch over our souls with joy, and not with groaning, because this would be of no advantage to you. It is important to make sure that we are those members who do not cause our elders to continually groan. However, it is also true that elders can make their people groan too. Here are four ways that elders can end up doing this among their people.’