Bible
Exactly forty years ago, I did not fully appreciate what was up ahead of me… I had been accepted for MDiv studies at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS), near Chicago. All I really knew was that it would start with ‘Suicide Greek’ — learning the language over six days a week for six weeks, under…
READ MOREAt any point in time I have this little stack of books I want to read. Usually there is a certain (sequential) order in mind, but when I am in peak form with my reading, books tend to be assigned to different chairs in the house … and I read them all at the same…
READ MOREIt all started as I was reading Alan Kreider’s The Patient Ferment of the Early Church. On page 92, he quotes Gerhard Lohfink making what seemed to me, on a first reading, to be a most extraordinary claim: “(Is 2:2-4; Micah 4.1-4) is the prophetic passage the early Christian writers cited more often than any…
READ MORE
Television can provide such a window onto the soul of a nation. Whenever I’m travelling in unfamiliar countries, I like having a TV to watch. The content. The style. The advertisements. The agenda. The people. The popular. It goes on and on… It is a window that fascinates me. Over the past seven years, when…
READ MORE‘An explosion of protest, a howl of rage’ was the headline catching my eye this week, especially when in concert with this photo. The Guardian, through word and image, was capturing what is happening in the world today. Hong Kong may well have been the ignition, but the protests have been spreading to Iraq and…
READ MORE
When images like these ones went viral on the internet a year ago, my bucket-list had some serious adjustments made to it. “Some day I just have to go to this place.” It did not take long. On our return to South Asia a few weeks ago, I engineered a right hand turn at Singapore…
READ MOREIt is often a passing phrase that catches the eye, isn’t it? Like when I read Tim Keller’s book, Preaching, four years ago. A little phrase squeezed its way into my imagination. It refused to move. It remained there, sparking away. Page 73: ‘pull on the thread’. This was the month to do something about it. I…
READ MOREWhile we were at meetings in Phoenix earlier this month, my friend, Tony, shared this story with me. I urged him to take the time to write it down. He did so. One thing has led to another and I asked if I could post it here, my first ever guest post! Enjoy it –…
READ MORE
This book will take you less than 10 minutes to read aloud (which is the only way to read it). Once you’ve read it once, you’ll want to read it again and again (so keep it on the coffee table, next to the remote). I promise you. I would do you a great disservice if…
READ MOREIt is a book written over hundreds of years by dozens of authors in numerous cultures. And yet it is one single story, guided by the Best Director, God, and featuring the Best Actor, God. Yes, the Bible is a remarkable book – and it all happened before the globe began to shrink. In training…
READ MOREAbout 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.