My Grandfather and Milton
My grandfather, Stan Claughton, was a Methodist minister in NSW. He retired about 50 years ago and I have only vague memories of going to his church as a young boy. He did baptise me when I was about six…
Here is Wisdom
Last Saturday, 6th May 2023, was the coronation service for King Charles III. Along with millions of people around the globe, I watched as the Bible was presented to the King. It brought to life what I have read in…
Moses struck the rock
“And the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, Because you did not believe in me to uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I…
Packer on Spirit baptism
In Acts 1:5 we read that the Risen Jesus ordered his disciples ‘not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father which you heard from me; for John baptised with water, but you will be…
The Hiding Place
“You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with shouts of deliverance.” (Psalm 32:7). I’m writing on the 15th April 2023. I note that because I discovered that today marks 40 years since the death of…
Whose Story is it?
Who Gets to Narrate the World? This is a great question and is the title of a short and stirring book by Robert Webber. It’s subtitled: Contending for the Christian Story in an Age of Rivals. Webber believed this question…
Living in the cinema
“Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for ‘In him we live and move and have our being’” (Acts 17:28). My wife and I went to the cinema last Monday. We used to go to the…
Genesis 38
Genesis 38 is one of the most intriguing chapters in the book of Genesis. My own take of how to approach it, especially when it came to preaching the passage, has been to summarise the plot in Genesis 38 so:…
The Protestant Story
I’ve been re-reading Alister McGrath’s book ‘Christianity’s Dangerous idea’. I find it so helpful in understanding the story of the origin and development of the church of which I am a part. I’ve read and studied Church History over the…
Who decides?
Alister McGrath’s book is titled ‘Christianity’s Dangerous Idea’ (see last post). Here’s why as he explains in his introduction: “The idea that lay at the heart of the sixteenth-century Reformation, which brought Anglicanism and the other Protestant churches into being,…