Bible
I guess if the church needs to be “reformed, always reforming” – then it might be OK for me to be converted, always converting. Won’t there always be blindspots to be exposed as I slide down the asymptote closer and closer to the full and complete truth of that horizontal line…yes, I think so. I…
READ MOREIn the search for truth, that pursuit of a certain and perfect knowledge of what is really real, I like the way DA Carson uses the image of an asymptote. IF the x-axis measures the passage of time and the y-axis measures how far our understanding is removed from the reality of the thing itself,…
READ MOREIf these billboards from Britain are coming to a bus near you, head for Ecclesiastes and preach your little heart out. I’d start with expounding the text on the side of the bus … then I’d go to the sympathetic approval of such a text in the early chapters of Ecclesiastes … before going to…
READ MOREEver noticed how in our younger student years we gravitate towards the issues and debates which surround 1 Corinthians? They really heat us up as we identify in various ways with the grocery-like list of church-problems which these pages contain… Then after life is lived for awhile, the ups and downs of ministry experienced, 2…
READ MOREI don’t usually rehash sermons on this blog but on this occasion I have found the four imperatives in 2 Timothy 2.1-7 to be so compelling – particularly as I work away at the interface between the Post-Christian West (P-CW) and Post-Western Christianity (P-WC)… “be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus” (2.1)…
READ MOREWhile on the subject of major influences in my life… Dave and Angie Andrews (based now in Brisbane) came to live with us in New Delhi when I was barely a teenager. They view my parents as kinda like surrogate parents so I guess that makes them kinda like surrogate siblings – and they’ve been…
READ MOREThe ‘theology of the word’ is not where it needs to be today. Intimidated as we are by image and event, music and symbol, entertainment and short attention spans, and goodness only knows what else – we tend to lose our convictions about the Word of God and our appetite for it drains away as…
READ MORE“God wants your being more than he wants your doing.”I heard it again last week – and it was one too many times. Sorry, folks – but that statement is a load of rubbish. I just do not know what New Testament these people are reading. Not only is the NT full of the importance…
READ MOREOur 25 years with a NZ-focus in our ministry lives is drawing to a close. I am a sentimental-type and find myself doing a lot of reflecting on these years – and have even been given the opportunity to do so in the company of others. (a) The first opportunity came with the Baptist Historical…
READ MOREWhen it comes to the ‘word’ Jesus told a foundational parable. The writers of the Gospels considered it to be so important that it appears in Matthew (ch13), Mark (ch4), and Luke (ch8). The same parable told three times is unusual. It is commonly known as the Parable of the Sower. It is a story…
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.