Tag: bible
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The healing of Jairus’ daughter – a few thoughts (Mark 5:21-43)
I’ve long been intrigued by the episode in the gospels where Jesus is called by a synagogue leader called Jairus to heal his sick daughter. On the way he meets another woman – a woman who doesn’t even speak to him, but simply touches his cloak and is healed. The whole episode is fascinating –…
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Why we should be grateful for Vicky Beeching
I recently talked a little about Vicky Beeching’s book – Undivided – and why I think it is dangerous for the church. I stand by what I said there – but, at the same time, I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately and I think there are reasons to be grateful to Vicky Beeching.…
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New video series: How to grow as a Christian
I’ve started a new series on my vlog – “How to grow as a Christian”. This was originally an idea for a lent course, but I thought it would work well on the vlog as well.
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Can we be optimistic about 2018?
Happy New Year to all my blog followers! Seeing as my last one seemed to be received well, I decided to do another vlog message thinking about the subject of whether we can be optimistic in 2018. Given that the world is in such a mess at the moment – the bad news seems to…
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Mike Pence, the Billy Graham rule and the gospel
[Jesus said:] ‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery.” But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. (Matthew 5:27-28) If you haven’t seen the news this week, the internet has been astir with the news that Vice President…
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Responding to false teaching: Lessons from 2 Peter
I’ve noticed a disturbing trend amongst evangelicals recently. I encountered it most recently in this blog post by Baptist minister and theologian Steve Holmes. This is how he puts it (you’ll have to read the full blog for the whole context): No, I know Megan and Bill, I know that they call people to believe in…
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The Bible and (same-sex) marriage: Cutting through to the root issue
Long-time readers of this blog will know that I have blogged quite a few times about marriage, and in particular same-sex marriage. You can see my previous posts under the “marriage” tag. Anyway, it seems we are still talking about marriage: the debate has simply moved from society – where same-sex marriage is now a…
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Hymnology: And can it be – ‘My chains fell off…’
Last weekend I travelled down to High Leigh for a residential weekend with my fellow curates in the Chelmsford Diocese. On Friday evening we sang ‘And can it be’, one of my favourite hymns and one of Charles Wesley’s finest (in my opinion). The hymn tells the story of salvation from a first person perspective…
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Christian Zionism vs Biblical Theology
Christian Zionism isn’t something I’ve come across very much. I have a feeling it’s a bigger deal in the USA than it is here in the UK, and as such I don’t recall meeting anyone who was particularly big on it here. Because of this, I hadn’t really read or thought much about it before,…
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Reflections on the same-sex marriage debate within the church
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been involved with a Facebook group set up to discuss same-sex marriage (SSM) within the church. This has been set up as the CofE undergoes a “shared conversations” process to talk about the issue. This has been the first time I’ve really spent much time actually talking with people within the…