This post will serve as the final installation in my series on the Old Testament book of Kings. The purpose throughout has been to apply King’s theology of leadership to...
In Between Two Worlds, John Stott defines satire as a literary device or tool that uncovers folly. It subversively exposes the fallen human condition, which tends to make us resist...
Have you heard about the mighty Omridic dynasty in the ancient Near East? No? Don’t worry. I hadn’t either before completing the readings for my course on the Old Testament...
When it comes to contemporary Christian leadership material, experience has unfortunately lead me to expect two things: (1) sparing as well as shallow biblical exegesis; and (2) an oversubscription to...
In The Benedict Option, Rod Dreher prophetically cites Matthew 16:18, where Jesus promised, “I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Dreher warns...
I started this series for a handful of reasons. One of the more important of those is my conviction that the Old Testament is Christian Scripture, which makes it indispensable...
Normally when we read the Old Testament (which doesn't happen too often for most of us), we are moving too quickly to notice details that make sentences sound weird. We...
Motivating a building project at your church? Preaching series in Nehemiah. Financial giving is dropping off? Pulpit thumping sermons from Malachi. And whatever the occasion, in and out of season,...
Habakkuk opens with a question, “O LORD, how long shall I cry out for help and you will not hear?” But I imagine many people were asking another question as...
Appearing repeatedly on my social media feeds this week was Chris Pratt’s speech, after accepting the MTV Generation Award. What has garnered a lot of attention was his ninth rule...
Two months ago I responded to an article posted by Tim Challies. He developed a few points made by Christopher Ash, in Married for God, arguing that it is sinful...
Have you ever read the Bible and thought, “why is this even here?” Me too… and that is especially true when I read Numbers 7. But, I have just found...
Max Bemis, of the band Say Anything, sings: “God and death are none of my concerns / I’m no philosopher”. And these words have often struck an uneasy chord with...
Despite the difficult details and apocalyptic flavour of Daniel, the overarching theme is not too complicated and I think correctly summarised as: “God is sovereign. He overrules and eventually will...
I few weeks back I posted in the wake of completing Robert Alter’s The Art of Biblical Narrative, noting his method and drawing out some theological conclusions. The experience implicit throughout...
I recently posted some gleanings from The Art of Biblical narrative by Robert Alter, highlighting his convincing exhibition of a literary approach to Old Testament narratives and a selection of...
“Religious tradition has by and large encouraged us to take the Bible seriously rather than enjoy it, but the paradoxical truth of the matter may well be that by learning...
We're doing a series on the Psalms at Trinity Hilton and for my preaching slot, I decided to do Psalm 114 because it looked like the least insurmountable of these...
I had the opportunity to present an assembly at Grace College. Given the lead up to Easter, I was asked to talk about sacrifices. I decided to tackle the distance...
The adventures of leaving theological training to starting in full time church ministry present to me familiar challenges that my three years of training could not solve. And one such...
Hebrew authors, it seems, have a propensity towards the prodigious use of direct speech but rarely reported speech and it seems clear that they were willing to summarise conversations into...