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“Welcome, Dr Thomas Oden. I have just elected you to a select band of scholars who have transformed my way of looking at the world. The company you keep is an esteemed one, led by the triumvirate of Phillip Jenkins, Lamin Sanneh, and Rodney Stark. [And here I had thought you were just a pastoral theologian…
READ MORE‘Lest we forget’ is the refrain we associate with horrid history like the Holocaust. Keeping alive the memory is designed to help prevent history from repeating. Forgetfulness is just not acceptable. Yesterday I visited Cheoung Ek (The Killing Fields) for the first time and Tuol Sleng (the Genocide Museum) for the second time. It is…
READ MOREDoing serious research has taught be a significant life-skill. If I want my own argument to be robust, then as I encounter those views which I oppose it is wise to paint them in their best light, not their worst light. It is about taking time to find the finest exponents of the views with…
READ MOREIt is a consistent theme. In the churches, mission organisations, and employers with whom I have been associated over the past twenty years, (almost) without exception they have tackled the same issue: identifying what good governance looks like and trying to make the changes to embrace it. I am at San Francisco airport on my…
READ MOREI return to a favourite theme. Has there been a better season for (evangelical) theological education in New Zealand than this current one? I don’t think so (NB: I’ve touched on this topic here and here and here). For example, Carey Baptist College is in full bloom, while Laidlaw College has a compelling vision driving it forward. The two colleges complement…
READ MORESticking with the apocalyptic theme for one more post… As various scholars like to remind us, in the Book of Revelation ‘numbers are symbols, not statistics’. So, for example, the number 4 is a symbol which represents everything, all of something. A bit like the way the four winds, or the four corners, is a…
READ MOREAs I posted earlier in the year, a project for me in 2012 has been figuring out how to preach from the Book of Revelation. I’ve had the privilege of training people in Indonesia, Pakistan, China (in my work with Langham overseas) – and also people in Dunedin, Mt Roskill and New Plymouth (back home…
READ MOREThis week I had the 32nd anniversary of my 21st birthday. Here is the group of friends that celebrated way back then – it was touch rugby on the tennis courts, from memory. BACK ROW Gavin McConnell, together with Michelle, had a lengthy period overseas with Interserve and now run Piringa, a place people can go…
READ MOREWhen it comes to the application of the sermon, it is critical that we consider those unlike ourselves. When it comes to building community, it is critical that we include those unlike ourselves. As a man who both sermonises and builds community this means I must, just for starters, take care to consider and include women.…
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.