Speed bumps

‘Sometime in a Bible reading there is an obvious speed bump that makes the reader, preacher and congregation slow down for a moment to put on their thinking caps and reflect. We had one of these in a reading at church recently.“ But wisdom is proved right by all her children.” (Luke 7:35)’

Fierce Wolves Will Come

‘I am occasionally frustrated as a counsellor of other pastors at the paucity of teaching and training pastors receive to equip them to deal with wolves, false teachers, and other divisive people in the church. I’ve counselled numerous pastors who, in the course of describing their difficulties to me, seem surprised to learn that they’ve been dealing with adversaries who are not only identifiable by biblical standards but are promised to make an appearance in the church.’

Saying “No” To Commercial Surrogacy

‘It is both impossible and ill-advised for all Christians to feel passionately about all ethical issues at all times. And yet, I do think it is valuable for us to become informed about some of the most pressing ones. And frankly, the commodification of children and exploitation of women that is intrinsic to commercial surrogacy—serving, as it does the interests of big fertility, their shareholders, unscrupulous actors and, in the worst cases, human traffickers—seems rather pressing to me. As does the ever-escalating fragmentation of God’s design for marriage, sex, procreation and childraising that is relentlessly promoted by the artificial reproductive technology industry.’

Samson’s Biggest Problem Was…

You are probably familiar with the story of Samson from the book of Judges. This one takes a look at his biggest problem.

Does infant baptism history hold up?

This one looks at some claims concerning the earliest practice of paedobaptism, by way of Timothy Arnold, and asks whether they hold up to scrutiny: ‘very few historians today think that infant baptism was the dominant position until the 5th century. Professor Henry Chadwick said of Augustine in the 4th century that, “At this period it was still rather unusual for infants to be baptised.”’

The Problem of Christian Socialism

You can read the ‘about’ page of this blog to see my own position and can also search the word ‘socialism’ to find muh of what I have written on this question. This one takes a look at what it calls ‘the problem of Christian Socialism’ and ends by asking the question, is it even possible to be Christian and Socialist?

From the archive: Depression slays the idol of productivity

‘If we aren’t busy, we feel guilty. When we are busy, we feel virtuous. In many ways, my depression helps with that. I mean, it doesn’t inasmuch as the illness inevitably makes you feel guilty about everything, even thing which I know logically I have absolutely nothing to do with whatsoever. But it helps in that, despite how I may view productivity as a mark of faithfulness, the truth is I can’t be that productive. I can do some things, but not as much as I can normally. I can get stuff done, but it takes me absolutely ages now. And I still feel guilty about it, but it doesn’t matter, because there’s nothing I can do about it. I can’t make the slowness disappear and the workload increase. It exposes the idolatry of busyness and forces me to slay it.’