Bible
On my recent flight from San Francisco to Singapore I decided to create a conversation in my mind, by watching a movie and reading a book. The movie was Exodus: Gods and Kings. With Batman (Christian Bale) as Moses, it tells the story of the Hebrew slaves gaining freedom from the Pharoah of Egypt. Even on…
READ MORE‘The Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other’. Attributed to Karl Barth, this is the classic cliche about the need for preachers to remain connected to both the Word and the World, the Text and the Context, as they prepare and deliver sermons. Earlier this month in Amman, I heard Dr Yohanna…
READ MOREIt has been hard living so far from New Zealand during the two hundredth year celebrations of the arrival of the gospel – on Christmas Day, 1814. I’ve been following all the facebook chatter closely. I’ve loved that space at Oihi Bay for a number of years, even taking a horde of friends on a…
READ MOREUsing a tap to turn off a waterfall in the monsoon. That is how these twin books felt like to me. The authors are trying to contain trends that have swept through society and church and already taken control. It is too late – surely?! Maybe. But I am happy to help them turn off…
READ MOREI have loved John 1 for many years. This week I have added Mark 1 to my deeper affections. In John 1 we encounter Jesus in the pile-up of nouns which describe who Jesus is. Word, God (1) life, light (4-5, 8-9) grace, truth (14) Jesus Christ (17) Lord…
READ MOREI have lived in the book of Amos for years. Sparked by having a grandson of the same name, it is the ripe time to encounter Amos’ contemporary – Micah. I have been reading and rereading this little book. No commentaries. Just reading it for myself. What have I been discovering? The verse everybody seems…
READ MOREIt is more than twenty years ago now. My first effort at a series called ‘Brightening the Post-Christian Blues’ – through 1 Peter. The opportunities this letter creates for intersections of Word and World are striking. I love 1 Peter. It remains my favourite book from which to teach and preach… Then along comes Everyday Church by Tim Chester…
READ MOREIt all started in the seventies. The 90s helped teach me how to worship. Worship is more than singing, but it is not less. In the seventies I learned to love to sing. A call to worship here: O come let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the Lord our Maker. For…
READ MOREIf Barby and I were able to claim a commission for books we have recommended over the years, the justification for doing so would hover around just two. One would be John Baillie’s Diary of Private Prayer for which Barby has had a standing order in every second hand bookshop in NZ (or, so it would…
READ MORE‘Don’t focus on digging the garden of scripture for them. Give them the tools that can keep them digging the garden for themselves for the rest of their lives.’ This would be one of the first pieces of advice I’d give to theological educators today. Partly because it is what I appreciated so much in…
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.