There’s an old ‘joke’ – how do you eat an elephant? The answer: slice by slice. We’ve just finished preaching through Isaiah, a book which, whatever way you slice it, is elephantine. Isaiah is a big book in length, in the span of time it covers, in the ways it is picked up and used […]

Christians say some shocking things. But then again, we are followers of a king who was happy to speak of self-mutilation (Mark 9:43) and declare his opponents the spawn of the devil (John 8:44). And yet often it is those ‘shocking’ things which Jesus says that draw us to engage with Jesus and his word […]

There’s a saying ‘don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater’. It’s a recognition that sometimes we lump things together in general terms and don’t take time to think through the subtleties and nuances around an issue The issue of same sex ‘marriage’ and the ordination of people in same sex relationships can be one […]

I was sitting in Christchurch airport a few days ago about to head away for something. I was there on my own, and so actually listened to the announcements being broadcast in the terminal. One went something like this: “Christchurch airport is a safety conscious airport. Therefore we ask you to…”. I was expecting that […]

John Owen, if you don’t know, was a Puritan theologian, preacher, and statesman. He also wrote quite a bit, and to be honest, he can be quite hard to read. J. I. Packer says there’s a clumsy dignity in his style, while another commentator makes the observation that ‘Owen travels through his subject with the […]