A new year offers the opportunity for a new look.
The rather lame ‘nice chatting’ was only ever meant to be a transitional name for my blog while I thought of something that captured the essence of why I am blogging. That name lasted three years – UGH!
While it is a technical term that I learned when I studied Greek and Hebrew, ‘exegesis’ is a word that sums up what this blog is about. The idea is one of unpacking – taking what is tightly packed and densely complicated and opening it up and laying it out so that people can see and understand more clearly.
And while it is most often used for tasks associated with the Bible – like interpreting and preaching – ‘exegesis’ is a word I have loved to use more widely. This has been the great love of my working life for two decades now. Our culture needs exegeting. People need exegeting. I need exegeting. On and on it goes… It is as these things become unpacked that the potential for re-packing becomes possible.
So I have settled for exegesis: the art of unpacking because this is something which animates me. I like to see this blog as a service, as a resource that can help readers live a little more faithfully within word & world.
My thanks to my lovely daughter Alyssa for designing the new header for my blog!
nice chatting
Paul
About Me
the art of unpacking
After a childhood in India, a theological training in the USA and a pastoral ministry in Southland (New Zealand), I spent twenty years in theological education in New Zealand — first at Laidlaw College and then at Carey Baptist College, where I served as principal. In 2009 I began working with Langham Partnership and since 2013 I have been the Programme Director (Langham Preaching). Through it all I've cherished the experience of the 'gracious hand of God upon me' and I've relished the opportunity to 'unpack', or exegete, all that I encounter in my walk through life with Jesus.
Recent Posts
Football helps me train preachers. See, when you speak to me about football—or, ‘footie’—I need to know where your feet are before I can understand what you mean. Are your feet in Ireland, or Brazil, or the USA, or NZ—or in crazy Australia? It must be the most fanatical sporting nation in the world. Within…
Having been born in 1959, I don’t remember much about the 1960s. But I have heard a lot. Hippies. Drugs. Rock ‘n Roll. Assassinations. Moon-walking. A quick trip across to ChatGPT informs me immediately that it was ‘a transformative decade across the world’—marked by the civil rights and feminist movements, Cold War tensions, consumerism and…
Love the new look and new title and looking forward to the usuals wit, wisdom and thought provoking content!
Hi Paul
Just wanting to let you know that your use of the Koru imagery at the Gathering went down instantly into my plans for this Sunday’s sermon. I just checked into the PNC website to refresh my memory with what you actually said (thanks for providing the link below) and enjoyed it all over again. You and Barby have a great new year.
Blessings
I like the new look 🙂 Lys is very talented!
Thanks Roger
The koru is just the best. As part of shifting jobs I have to leave my big koru at our front door step. It will be a moment of deep grief!
At least the jacaranda that I planted 11 years ago has burst into its first flowers this past week. Yippee!
Every blessing
[And Lawz… you called Alyssa ‘Lys’ which narrows the field considerably as who you might be. Regardless of that fact, yes – she IS very talented]
great word – great new look.
Hi Paul, have been enjoying your blog lately. Don’t know if you accept ideas for future posts, but am going to suggest one. Was involved in a conversation the other day where the others thought that we (as a church) have lost the concept of the holiness of God. I didn’t know what I thought, but would be interested to hear what you have to say on the matter.
Ryan
Hi Paul
I hadn’t realised your old blog RSS feed no longer worked, so when I looked on my RSS reader and saw nothing I thought you’d fallen off the blogging universe – it was only when I went to the old blog site that I saw the new link, and I realised I was wrong! I am glad to be wrong and have been enjoying reading this and previous blogs. Andrew
Sorry about that, Andrew – it is good to have you back on board, being someone who has consistently encouraged me in my meanderings into the blogosphere.
And Ryan – I’ll think about that one a bit more. My initial response has to do with the pendulum that swings from the immanence of God to the transcendence of God. We are deep in an immanent phase. We like our God near and we like him close. We want him as a friend. We want him full of mercy but we unravel when he is full of mystery. That is a sure sign that the transcendence of God has been lost and that we are making him in the image of what we want. And when you lose transcendence, you lose holiness, you lose justice … you lose a lot! I’ve done a little column in next month’s NZ Baptist magazine that raises some of these issues.
Enjoy the South. Once it is in you, it never leaves you. It’s great.
happy new year, Paul!
i’m enjoying the new look, catching up after the same rss hiccup. i’m also loving the frequency of the posts!