Bible
Diversity came far earlier than unity. Appreciating all the different authors, all the different genre and all the different situations – oh yes, any self-respecting student of the Bible has walked the diversity road. That is where we all start. That is the bread and butter of exegesis. We know it is critical. But what…
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It is not quite ‘In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord’, but still, in the year that Rush Hour was released, I played with chairs. I was with some Baptist youth pastors on the Kapiti Coast in New Zealand. After the training day was over, we headed for the movies. 1998.…
READ MOREA gracious little conspiracy has drawn me back to the Psalms… It started with a comment in an email from a friend battling cancer. She testified to the way a line from Peterson’s The Message was strengthening her: ‘I’ve pitched my tent in the land of hope’. Isn’t that beautiful? I tracked it down. It is not in the…
READ MOREI travel a lot in my work. On those occasions when there is time to be a tourist for a day here and there, usually when Barby is with me, an odd pattern has developed. I find that books like Lonely Planet are more meaningful after I have visited a place, rather than before the visit. I don’t…
READ MORESometimes a page is difficult to turn. Like this one. It lists most of the names of those who died in a massacre of 159 missionaries over a few weeks in the summer of 1900 in ‘Shansi’. The right hand side contains the names of those who died from the China Inland Mission, known today…
READ MOREWe’ve had our fill of separations – or, so we thought. All those agonising good-byes to parents during our boarding school years. UGH. Goodness me – Barby has not lived within two long-haul flights of her parents since she was in her mid-teens (and that was when she was at boarding school!). But as we…
READ MOREI may have gone through my entire education without ever asking a single question in the classroom. I certainly never did it in my MDiv (theology), or my BSc (chemistry) days – and I have no memory of ever doing it in high school. The reasons are partly physiological. The anticipation of speaking-up led to…
READ MOREIf I was ever to paint a painting, my only option would be to paint by numbers. The entire endeavour is beyond me. However, if I was ever to write a book on preaching – something I think about periodically … but briefly – the latest option to come to mind is how to preach…
READ MOREIt is like recalling a car with a deficient part. I would love to recall all our graduates and put a new part in them – an expository one. These are the words of a president of a leading theological college in the Middle East North Africa region – words which I heard with my…
READ MOREWhen things get tough I try to look in two directions. One is horizontal. Maybe chronological is a better word. I bring to mind the way God works with a 24 hour day and how dawn follows midnight. Always. Without Fail. Then in many countries, far from the equator, He works with a 4 season…
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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.