if you don't find my voice whiney, nasal, dull, or patronising, you may be tempted to listen to some of my sermons which are available to download.
09 Mar 2008 Grace that Works Philippians 2:12-30
i particularly liked the way Daniel 12 helped us think through what this meant.
15 Jun 2008 Between A Rock & A Hard Place Exodus 16-17
i tried something quite different here - i tried to start with the OT, jump to the NT and explain how that increased our understanding of what is going on in the OT. i wanted to get away from the 'here's the OT, but don't worry about that so much: here's where it points to in the NT' - as if there were no value in it of itself, as if the OT were only of value for showing us the NT. tell me if you think it worked!
20 Jul 2008 The King with Authority Luke 4.1-13
how to do a sermon on Isaiah 61 without really going there properly
11 Jan 2009 The Blessing of Forgiveness Psalm 32
interestingly, i did a sermon in October on Matthew 18 also on forgiveness (the guest speaker in the evening is the one who made the web page, mine obviously didn't make the cut), so i really enjoyed having a second dip into this really tough topic.
19 Apr 2009 The value of wisdom Proverbs 1-3
an introductory sermon on the prologue to Proverbs, focussing on ch3
i'm also on tonight, talking about prayer as mission, but the boss is speaking (as i write this!) on the same topic: i'm assuming i won't make the cut, but thinking about how our prayers promote the gospel has been quite rebuking for me as i think through it. perhaps i'll post some thoughts on it sometime.
UPDATE:
24 May 2009 Promoting Jesus :: Our prayers Matthew 9:35-10:5
trying to think through where prayer fits in in promoting the gospel. i wonder where you might have gone, what you would have emphasised, whether you would have done a bit more of a systematic theology of prayer.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Thursday, May 21, 2009
a new reading group
a friend has asked if i want to come along to an LXX (the greek translation of the hebrew scriptures) reading group.
cool!
apparently only few are christians; most are jewish, trying to get a different perspective on their scriptures.
i've never made much effort to get into the septuagint, except to have a look when the hebrew just seems wacky.
unfortunately whenever i think that the LXX will fix it up, it generally doesn't.
some things have been quite interesting however, such as in Deuteronomy 30:14(13)
so it's actually just making a bit clearer that doing it (the commandment that Yhwh commands Israel) isn't just about your words or your thoughts but your hands - something that could actually be implicit in the 'do it' - indeed the LXX could be a little tautologous by adding that. although at the very least poetically, it's good to have 'mouth, heart and hands' - a real sense of completeness.
anyway, that's on tomorrow. no idea how it'll go. but do pray that some great conversations may come out of it as we chat about how God reveals himself in his Word.
cool!
apparently only few are christians; most are jewish, trying to get a different perspective on their scriptures.
i've never made much effort to get into the septuagint, except to have a look when the hebrew just seems wacky.
unfortunately whenever i think that the LXX will fix it up, it generally doesn't.
some things have been quite interesting however, such as in Deuteronomy 30:14(13)
ESV: But the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it.
LXX: The word is very near to you, in your mouth, and in your heart, and in your hands to do it.
so it's actually just making a bit clearer that doing it (the commandment that Yhwh commands Israel) isn't just about your words or your thoughts but your hands - something that could actually be implicit in the 'do it' - indeed the LXX could be a little tautologous by adding that. although at the very least poetically, it's good to have 'mouth, heart and hands' - a real sense of completeness.
anyway, that's on tomorrow. no idea how it'll go. but do pray that some great conversations may come out of it as we chat about how God reveals himself in his Word.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
walk to beautiful
we're putting the band back together. we're playing at a fund raiser for the fistula hospital in Ethiopia. if you don't know what a fistula is or why they would have a hospital for them, you should probably find out.
we're playing and then they're screening the film about women who've been involved with the hospital:
This award-winning feature length film tells the stories of five Ethiopian women who suffer devastating childbirth injuries and portrays the hope provided by Dr Catherine Hamlin A C & Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital (The Hospital by the River).
Date: Thursday 28 May
Time: 7:15 pm refreshments & jazz band
8:00 pm screening
Venue: St Alban's church hall
Corner Lindfield Ave and Tryon Road, Lindfield, Sydney, Australia
Price: $20; $15 concession, includes refreshments
Tickets: Available after each service from Sunday 3 May or from the church office from Tuesday 5 May - call in or phone +61 2 9416 1703
Find out more about the film at www.walktobeautiful.com
This screening is a fundraiser to mark the Hamlin Golden Jubilee of 50 years in Ethiopia. See www.fistulatrust.org
Please come and celebrate the occasion.
And, as i said, you can hear the band. Back together.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
David Hume could out-consume
6. Locke, Hume and empiricism: In what ways do these thinkers differ from Descartes?
It seems the empiricists, most especially in Locke and Hume, were the new sceptics. They sought to question knowledge, truth, work out on what basis we know things. Locke questioned in particular how we connect with objects in the real world – and decided that we didn’t! Rather, we have ideas in our heads of objects, and it is in the world of ideas that there is interaction, rather than physically coming into contact with another physicality. However these ideas we contract from experience (a posteriori), and only after seeing something can we have an understanding of that object and others like it. It is as if we are blank slates, who accumulate forms as we go, and build on these more simple ideas to understand more complex ideas.
However, Hume’s thinking in light of Locke about how we gain knowledge led him to question the idea of causality – concluding that we believe the idea of cause and effect, but only from habit, not from any abstract reasoning. In the famous billiard-ball analogy, we may expect a certain result from one striking another, but there is nothing inherent in one billiard ball that should mean its interacting with another ball should have the expected result.
From a small amount of reading, it seems as if the empiricists are leaning towards an atheistic, or at least deist, world-view, whereas the rationalists (in Descartes) saw God as the glue that held everything together. When Descartes asks why a thought leads to an action, he cannot see this as anything but secondary to the will of God who first thought and acted, and from whom all thoughts and actions stem. The empiricists however, although publicly agreeing (Locke more than Hume) that the idea of God ‘makes sense’, see God as having no part in the process – the mind wills and the arm moves. Why does it happen? Because we’ve seen it happen before.
This idea of a general movement towards atheism (or deism) is further shown in Hume’s discounting of miracles – his experience tells him that the normal way of things is for miracles to not happen. If given the choice between miraculous and the empirical, he concludes, the sane man has only one choice.
this is part of a series
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Oliver Cromwell
Hi.
i've been pretty busy
drowning in a church history essay
there's no answer.
so i turned to my old friends, monty python, for some themed comic relief.
this is a pretty nice little vid put together by 4x4wheeldrive productions, whoever he/she/it is.
the song was on a CD i had called 'monty python sings'. i don't know who borrowed it. it's sad. so long ago. and i probably used to know this song off by heart too!!!
for those interested, my (unanswerable) question is, How important was Geneva in shaping English Protestantism? possible answers so far: not very. heaps. a bit. depends who you ask. depends how you define 'geneva', 'english' 'protestantism' 'important' and 'shaping'. tho i'm sure there are some nuances to 'how', 'was' and 'in' that i haven't thought thru yet.
i've been pretty busy
drowning in a church history essay
there's no answer.
so i turned to my old friends, monty python, for some themed comic relief.
this is a pretty nice little vid put together by 4x4wheeldrive productions, whoever he/she/it is.
the song was on a CD i had called 'monty python sings'. i don't know who borrowed it. it's sad. so long ago. and i probably used to know this song off by heart too!!!
for those interested, my (unanswerable) question is, How important was Geneva in shaping English Protestantism? possible answers so far: not very. heaps. a bit. depends who you ask. depends how you define 'geneva', 'english' 'protestantism' 'important' and 'shaping'. tho i'm sure there are some nuances to 'how', 'was' and 'in' that i haven't thought thru yet.
Monday, May 04, 2009
The Reason for God - a review
I did a pop quiz at 6pm church this Sunday. I asked, ‘What are the top 5 reasons that people think Christianity is unreasonable, not even worth thinking about? what are the top 5 arguments that knock Christianity out of the water?’
I got four hands in the air:
They weren’t primed, but coincidentally, these were four of the seven topics that Tim Keller, the author of The Reason for God (Penguin: London, 2008), deals with. He doesn’t dismiss them, but essentially says – no, wait, don’t write us off that easily – we HAVE thought about that – we don’t exist in a cocoon – we HAVE thought about these issues, and are Christians not just despite these problems, but indeed, often because of them.
Apart from engaging thoughtfully and rigorously with these questions that would disprove God’s existence, he also raises suggestions why we should at the very least consider Christianity anew. Quite cheekily, he even suggests that the most hardened atheist, deep down inside of them, knows that there is a God (check out ch12 – the Knowledge of God).
Keller talks through all the big things. He goes places others might be scared to; he is open in sharing his own doubts and struggles, but he also shares with us the vast time he’s spent not running away from these questions, but chatting through them, reading through them, and praying through these issues.
At the end of the day, when everything else has been stripped away, we’re left with the cold realisation that “if there is a God, you are, in a sense, alone with him.” (p256)
The Reason for God helps us all to think through how we are going to respond to this God. In what is arguably the most important decision we will make in our whole lives, we need to ask ourselves whether we are going to obstinately refuse to think seriously about him, or whether we’ll give him an honest attempt.
I got four hands in the air:
- Science has disproved Christianity
- Christianity is a straightjacket, it curtails your freedoms
- how can we say Christianity is right and all the others wrong
- suffering and evil show there’s no God
They weren’t primed, but coincidentally, these were four of the seven topics that Tim Keller, the author of The Reason for God (Penguin: London, 2008), deals with. He doesn’t dismiss them, but essentially says – no, wait, don’t write us off that easily – we HAVE thought about that – we don’t exist in a cocoon – we HAVE thought about these issues, and are Christians not just despite these problems, but indeed, often because of them.
Apart from engaging thoughtfully and rigorously with these questions that would disprove God’s existence, he also raises suggestions why we should at the very least consider Christianity anew. Quite cheekily, he even suggests that the most hardened atheist, deep down inside of them, knows that there is a God (check out ch12 – the Knowledge of God).
Keller talks through all the big things. He goes places others might be scared to; he is open in sharing his own doubts and struggles, but he also shares with us the vast time he’s spent not running away from these questions, but chatting through them, reading through them, and praying through these issues.
At the end of the day, when everything else has been stripped away, we’re left with the cold realisation that “if there is a God, you are, in a sense, alone with him.” (p256)
The Reason for God helps us all to think through how we are going to respond to this God. In what is arguably the most important decision we will make in our whole lives, we need to ask ourselves whether we are going to obstinately refuse to think seriously about him, or whether we’ll give him an honest attempt.
as soon as church's website is back up, this review should end up there.
my first poll (ahhh) reprieve.
Friday, May 01, 2009
minor change
after a recommendation from Reuben, i've decided to add RefTagger to my blog.
it basically means when i write a bible reference like Ezekiel 33:11, if you move your cursor over it, it should just pop up! it's that easy. no running around to find a bible, no opening a bible gateway (or your bible viewer of choice's) window. just hover. like a hovercraft.
speaking of which, what ever happened to hovercrafts?
anyway, talking about minor change, here's Django Reinhardt (legend) with minor swing:
it basically means when i write a bible reference like Ezekiel 33:11, if you move your cursor over it, it should just pop up! it's that easy. no running around to find a bible, no opening a bible gateway (or your bible viewer of choice's) window. just hover. like a hovercraft. speaking of which, what ever happened to hovercrafts?
anyway, talking about minor change, here's Django Reinhardt (legend) with minor swing:
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Alone
as mentioned, i'm reading Tim Keller's the reason for God for a book review. and just made it to the half-way point this afternoon (before succumbing to swine flu for an afternoon nap).
in it, this masterful quote from C.S. Lewis (who i think Keller really likes for his apologetics):
this is from Lewis' Mere Christianity (Macmillan: 1965 p168), which (so it was sold to me) is what Tim Keller is trying to perhaps not emulate in the Reason for God, but retell, from his own perspective; to set out clearly, and carefully, just what it is that makes Christianity not stupid, but reasonable, and sensible.
i think Keller wants the non-Christian to pick up this book and say firstly, 'that's a stupid title - as if there's a reason for God'. then he wants their Christian friend to say, 'why's it stupid?' and then whatever their answer, be able to say, 'no, he talks about that too - he's thought about that, we - Christians - HAVE thought about that. you're not the first or the only one to ask that. read his answer. than come back to me'. or something like that.
if you're reading, Mick, i'll have that review out for you soon!
in it, this masterful quote from C.S. Lewis (who i think Keller really likes for his apologetics):
If what you want is an argument against Christianity... you can easily find some stupid and unsatisfactory Christian and say ... "So there's your boasted new man! Give me the old kind." But if once you have begun to see that Christianity is on other grounds probable, you will know in your heart that this is only evading the issue. What can you ever really know of other people's souls - of their temptations, their opportunities, their struggles? One soul in the whole creation you do know: and it is the only one whose fate is placed in your hands.
If there is a God, you are, in a sense, alone with Him.
You cannot put Him off with speculations about your next-door neighbours or memories of what you have read in books. What will all that chatter and hearsay count when the anaesthetic fog we call "nature" or "the real world" fades away and the Divine Presence in which you have always stood becomes palpable, immediate, and unavoidable?
this is from Lewis' Mere Christianity (Macmillan: 1965 p168), which (so it was sold to me) is what Tim Keller is trying to perhaps not emulate in the Reason for God, but retell, from his own perspective; to set out clearly, and carefully, just what it is that makes Christianity not stupid, but reasonable, and sensible.
i think Keller wants the non-Christian to pick up this book and say firstly, 'that's a stupid title - as if there's a reason for God'. then he wants their Christian friend to say, 'why's it stupid?' and then whatever their answer, be able to say, 'no, he talks about that too - he's thought about that, we - Christians - HAVE thought about that. you're not the first or the only one to ask that. read his answer. than come back to me'. or something like that.
if you're reading, Mick, i'll have that review out for you soon!
Monday, April 27, 2009
3 John Analysis
Greeting
1 The elder to the BELOVED Gaius, whom I love in truth.Walk in Truth :: A Prayer
2 BELOVED, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health, as it goes well with your soul.3 For I rejoiced greatly when the brothers came and testified to your truth, as indeed you are walking in the truth.
4 I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.
Walking Well
5 BELOVED, it is a faithful thing you do in all your efforts for these brothers, strangers as they are,6 who testified to your love before the church. You will do well to send them on their journey in a manner worthy of God.
7 For they have gone out for the sake of the name, accepting nothing from the Gentiles.
8 Therefore we ought to support people like these, that we may be fellow workers for the truth.
Walking Wickedly
9 I have written something to the church, but Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first, does not acknowledge our authority.10 So if I come, I will bring up what he is doing, talking wicked nonsense against us. And not content with that, he refuses to welcome the brothers, and also stops those who want to and puts them out of the church.
Walk Well Not Wickedly
11 BELOVED, do not imitate evil but imitate good. Whoever does good is from God; whoever does evil has not seen God.Witnesses (3)
12 Demetrius has received a GOOD TESTIMONY from everyone, and from the truth itself. We also add our testimony, and you know that our testimony is true.Farewell
13 I had much to write to you, but I would rather not write with pen and ink.14 I hope to see you soon, and we will talk face to face.
15 Peace be to you. The friends greet you. Greet the friends by the name.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
books books everywhere
reading three good ones at the moment:
lots to read about, lots to think about, lots to chat about.
- Reformation, by Diarmaid MacCulloch (Penguin: Victoria, 2004)
you may remember it from here!
i'm really enjoying it - it's engrossing, thorough, and good at drawing together various threads. - also on my stack is The Reason for God, by Timothy Keller (Penguin: London, 2008)
i'm reviewing it for church, where we're trying to get regular book reviews going. if you've read his ground breaking article (download here i think), Deconstructing Defeater Beliefs, you'll know what it's about. - last on my list is a book that my friends at AFES ordered me a review copy of! It's called What are we waiting for? Christian Hope and Contemporary Culture, eds. Stephen Holmes and Russell Rook (Paternoster: Bucks, 2008)
i originally heard about it from Chrisendom, and have already read the first three chapters - getting it only late last night!
when i've finished and reviewed it, assuming i don't upset anyone in the upper echelons of AFES, it should turn up here, at the AFES online magazine, webSalt. (where you can sign up to get RSS feeds - you can even check out my old reviews of Lee Strobel's the case for easter and Peter Bolt's Living with the Underworld)
lots to read about, lots to think about, lots to chat about.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Proverbs 3:1-12 Chiasm
yes, i know, it's been too long between chiasms. here's a little sugar for you all:
as you can see from what i've bolded, the structure presents itself:
1&11 - my son
5&9 - Trust/Honour the Lord
7&8 - the central idea
yep, we've got a typical A B C B' A' chiasm
i'm actually preaching on proverbs 3 this week (see post below), here are my notes that i plan to preach from for this section:
i think that with our new website at St Albans Lindfield, there may be the opportunity to listen to my sage words. check there in a week or so. or just check out the site anyway - it's pretty!
1 My Son, do not forget my teaching,
but keep my commands in your heart,
2 for they will prolong your life many years
and bring you prosperity.
3 Let love and faithfulness never leave you;
bind them around your neck,
write them on the tablet of your heart.
4 Then you will win favour and a good name
in the sight of God and man.
5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
6 in all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make your paths straight.
7 Do not be wise in your own eyes;
fear the LORD and shun evil.
8 This will bring health to your body
and nourishment to your bones.
9 Honour the LORD with your wealth,
with the firstfruits of all your crops;
10 then your barns will be filled to overflowing,
and your vats will brim over with new wine.
11 My Son, do not despise the LORD’S discipline
and do not resent his rebuke,
12 because the LORD disciplines those he loves,
as a father the son he delights in.
as you can see from what i've bolded, the structure presents itself:
1&11 - my son
5&9 - Trust/Honour the Lord
7&8 - the central idea
yep, we've got a typical A B C B' A' chiasm
i'm actually preaching on proverbs 3 this week (see post below), here are my notes that i plan to preach from for this section:
- My son - tefillin, t-shirt. v3b,c - breath, heart.
- maybe mention Hebrews 12 - the good father, the son who can trust in his father
- Trust - lean = chair
- Honour --> generosity
- Central idea = 7-8 = Don’t determine for yourself what wisdom is. but fear the Lord, knowing he is the one with power over life and death, he is the one who by means of a crucified Palestinian carpenter was able to reconcile a sinful humanity to himself.
- What healing and refreshment this will bring!
- It’s not all about us.
- We need to keep remembering our poverty, our inability to create a universe – let alone to keep a family functioning. But we have God’s wisdom – revealed ultimately in Christ.
- So we keep turning away from evil, and to this omniscient (all wise) God.
i think that with our new website at St Albans Lindfield, there may be the opportunity to listen to my sage words. check there in a week or so. or just check out the site anyway - it's pretty!
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Paraphrasing Proverbs
The worshippers of Yhwh counted the wise among them, and the wise faced the realities of experience from the point of view of the Yahwist faith that was theirs.i'm trying to work out (preferably before Sunday @8:30am!) what the relationship is between
R.E. Murphy, Proverbs WBC 1998, i think describing G. von Rad's understanding of OT wisdom
do you think the above quote is right?
i'm thinking in particular about Proverbs 3:13-26, and throughout proverbs - i take it that instruction for the man is general advice to humanity, whilst that to the son is specific for the follower of Yhwh. but why would the man care unless he followed Yhwh?
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
backmasking for beginners
a post on Led Zep IV over at F&T reminded me about the eerie art of backmasking. my old music teacher once put on Queen's another one bites the dust, which when backmasked (ie, unmasked by playing it backwards i presume), appears to say 'start to smoke marijuana'. we then got to try it ourself, doing it both backwards and forwards (ie saying 'start to smoke marijuana' and seeing if it said 'another one bites the dust'). we did it on a cassette player with an adjustable head so you could read the tape going the other direction. it was pretty cool. a few years ago i tried the same thing with the Beatles' i'm so tired, which pretty obviously says 'paul's dead man. miss him, miss him' as i recall. Revolution 9 also says 'turn me on, dead man' under 'number 9'
as a youngin', i was pretty freaked out. we were played a gospel choir, and that was backmasked, and the subtitling told us we were hearing them say good things about God. even backwards! however when played death metal, they all seemed to be saying that Satan was a swell guy and they had fun serving him. [i'm not quite sure then where the other popular idea going around back then came from, that people in satanic churches read the bible back to front - is it back-to-front or all thru?!]
for your paranoid pleasure, check out this guy's site for a dozen more obvious songs backmasked (without you having to destroy your dad's records!)
it did put a lot of fear in me, but in retrospect it shouldn't have, for several reasons:
it seems you can separate this into two groups: some are really bored people putting things into their music (including things really really slowly such that it just sounds like bass, or the converse - really fast so it seems like a quick electronic squeak - both needing to be played at an appropriate speed to get any meaning from them), or it's the paranoid people imagining things.
but i don't know - maybe there is something to it. but i doubt it. it's cool tho!
[i hope the thing with the tape made sense. there's two sides to a cassette reel, normally only half is played, whilst the other returns to the spool. when you spin it, that bit gets played. but if you move the head that reads the tape to the 'returning side', you are backmasking. easy!]
as a youngin', i was pretty freaked out. we were played a gospel choir, and that was backmasked, and the subtitling told us we were hearing them say good things about God. even backwards! however when played death metal, they all seemed to be saying that Satan was a swell guy and they had fun serving him. [i'm not quite sure then where the other popular idea going around back then came from, that people in satanic churches read the bible back to front - is it back-to-front or all thru?!]
for your paranoid pleasure, check out this guy's site for a dozen more obvious songs backmasked (without you having to destroy your dad's records!)
it did put a lot of fear in me, but in retrospect it shouldn't have, for several reasons:
- enough songs are, and always have been, explicitly immoral and crude, and generally against the very idea of God, that putting messages in backwards isn't really necessary
- you have to be a] paranoid, and b] have someone tell you what it says in most cases for you find it plausible
- who says we can hear stuff backwards anyway? it's not like it's straightforward - it's not like reading a word backwards, it's a completely different thing
it seems you can separate this into two groups: some are really bored people putting things into their music (including things really really slowly such that it just sounds like bass, or the converse - really fast so it seems like a quick electronic squeak - both needing to be played at an appropriate speed to get any meaning from them), or it's the paranoid people imagining things.
but i don't know - maybe there is something to it. but i doubt it. it's cool tho!
[i hope the thing with the tape made sense. there's two sides to a cassette reel, normally only half is played, whilst the other returns to the spool. when you spin it, that bit gets played. but if you move the head that reads the tape to the 'returning side', you are backmasking. easy!]
Thursday, April 09, 2009
Maundy Thursday's Watchword
Thursday, April 9Maundy Thursday
Watchword for the Day
He has gained renown by his wonderful deeds; the Lord is gracious and merciful. Psalm 111:4
Psalm 47
Job 12:13-13:19; Romans 15:17-29
'Am I a God near by,' says the Lord, 'and not a God far off? Do I not fill heaven and earth?' Jeremiah 23:23-24
Jesus said, "Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done." Then an angel from heaven appeared to him and gave him strength. Luke 22:42-43
Atoning Saviour, may your will be our will; may our lives reflect your love and compassion every day. Amen.
this is today's daily reading from the Moravian Church in North America .
as far as i can gather, these watchwords are put together by lay-people, and are sent out daily, and anonymously, which continues a tradition of almost three hundred years.
i started receiving the daily watchwords after doing some wiki-research about the Moravians and Count von Zinzendorf - absolutely the most astonishing missionary source in the last half millennium at least. have a read through. really fascinating.
the reason i haven't posted for sometime is i've been away. talking to people about Jesus. more about that later.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)