I’m Not a Handyman

I recognise myself in this one. I have never been very able, nor enjoyed, the stuff my HVAC Dad could do. I sometimes wish I had those gifts but mine lie elsewhere. This is an excellent one about the use and exercise of gifts and the dignity of labour.

A Stunning, Stupid, Sinful Thing to Say

‘Every Greek lexicon or dictionary of the NT, together with the more reputable commentaries, are in agreement, that porneia refers to any form of sexual activity before or outside the relationship of monogamous marriage between a man and a woman. It can refer to pre-marital sex, adultery, homosexual practice, prostitution, bestiality, and all other expressions of sexual activity outside the marital relationship between a husband and wife.’

Spiritual Formation and Artificial Intelligence

This one takes a look at AI and thinks through implications for higher education and learning, particularly given the fallibility of the models things like Chat GPT use.

When Young Kids Ask Questions About LGBT+ Adults They Know

‘The question to ask about each person is not “Is this a good person or a bad person?” but “Have they heard about the good King and Saviour, Jesus?” And “Have they said, ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to his offer of rescue and kingship?” By offering her this category of kingship, we were giving her a way to understand why some people followed Jesus and obeyed him, and others did not. If we say “Yes” to Jesus, then we say “Yes” to his plans for our bodies, for our money, for our time, for everything. But if someone has not said “Yes” to Jesus, it makes sense that they won’t obey his plans for their bodies, their money, or their time. This is not a safe place for anyone to be because only in Jesus are we saved from our sin and the judgement that God will bring. But it does help us recognize why there are people—even nice, friendly people—who live so differently than Christians try to live.’

Why the Qur’an Doesn’t Seem to Know There Are Four Gospels

This is a fascinating and helpful little post that takes in a bit of church history, missiology, comparative religion and makes some really helpful application to the unforeseen issues of pragmatism in mission.

The Defensive Pastor – seven deadly mistakes

A very helpful one this. Doesn’t say everything we might hope on the subject (but what blog post ever does). But helpful as far as it goes.

From the archive: The ultimate priority of the church

‘The Christian life consists of more than just evangelism, discipleship, praying, reading the Bible, or whatever good thing you want to make into the ultimate thing. The problem with making any of these things the main priority is that none of them can ever be said to be done or enough. You will never have prayed enough, or read the Bible enough, or done enough evangelism or whatever. Which means, if you make any of those things the main priority, everything else will get pushed out to accommodate it. Which might mean you do well in that one area whilst failing to do a whole load of other things Jesus calls all of us to do too. But there is, indeed, one priority of the church. It is the same priority for every single Christian, past, present and future: the call to faithfulness.’