Category Archives: Theology

On misusing the Bible to deny the divinity of Christ

Posted on 30/01/2024 by Jon Garvey

Richard Bauckham’s Jesus and the God of Israel (which I briefly mentioned here) is an excellent study on how the Gospels establish the deity of Jesus through the acts he did that were seen by his followers to be exclusive to the God of Israel. The New Testament recognises Jesus as divine through his identity with Yahweh.

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How academic groupthink always impedes progress

Posted on 27/01/2024 by Jon Garvey

Gary Habermas has just published the first 1100 page volume of his magnum opus on the Resurrection of Jesus, with four more volumes to come. That may seem overkill, but in the scheme of things it is not, because without the bodily Resurrection, Christianity is just another successful world religion – but with it, Christianity is the historical foundation on which the universe is built.

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An object lesson in testing the spirits

Posted on 22/01/2024 by Jon Garvey

There’s a discussion on YouTube (no great benefit in linking to it) between a conservative Evangelical and a gay pastor also claiming the “Evangelical” label. As you might already have anticipated, the discussion is on the biblical basis for their opposite positions; on the one side that homosexual relationships are universally discountenanced by Scripture, and on the other that loving, monogamous homosexuality has the Bible’s blessing. Those familiar with me will know that I judge the first to be the case (and I start the pastoral aspect from there, which is a topic for another day, perhaps). I will add that what I’m about to describe has more general application … Continue reading →

Posted in Philosophy, Politics and sociology, Theology | 2 Comments

Two words from Jesus sum up salvation history

Posted on 20/01/2024 by Jon Garvey

Here is another example of Jesus’s use of apparently casual Old Testament linguistic allusions with a huge depth of meaning. Once more, a hat-tip to Peter J. Williams for recognising it.

Posted in History, Theology | 5 Comments

The pathways of meaning

Posted on 18/01/2024 by Jon Garvey

Not long ago, during a conversation about young adults working from home, my wife surprised me by saying, “The trouble is today, the chaps aren’t keen.” What surprised me was not the literal meaning, but the fact that she’d tapped into a catch-phrase I have (very occasionally) used, which I sourced from my late father.

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Where did this man get all these things?

Posted on 15/01/2024 by Jon Garvey

Here’s a plug for a book I’ve not yet read, based on this interview with the author, Peter J. Williams, by Sean McDowell.

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What if the Bible isn’t a fairy-tale?

Posted on 05/01/2024 by Jon Garvey

The brief answer to the title above is that two hundred years of sometimes savage critical examination have proved that it isn’t, but old habits of hyper-scepticism die hard, and are reinforced by deliberate deception, as I’ll briefly outline towards the end of this piece.

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Did Jesus catch colds?

Posted on 31/12/2023 by Jon Garvey

Here’s an exploration of a theological conundrum that will have occurred to some people (after all, it occurred to me) and perhaps troubled them. If Jesus is truly human, having taken on the “very nature” [morphe] of man (Philippians 2:7), is “like his brothers in every way” (Hebrews 2:17), and was “tempted in every way, just as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15), did he not inherit original sin, and hence incur the penalty of death?

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Are we in a simulation? Materialist and theist approaches

Posted on 29/12/2023 by Jon Garvey

The idea that the world is nothing but a “simulation,” akin to that in the Matrix films, has cropped up over the last few years in serious academic papers, in many YouTube videos, and even in comments by Elon Musk. And now it has reached the popular press in the form of this Daily Mail article.

Posted in Creation, Philosophy, Science, Theology, Theology of nature | 2 Comments

Factors in foresight

Posted on 28/12/2023 by Jon Garvey

Clare Craig’s book, Expired, contains the interesting statistic that only 2% of people in the UK opposed lockdown at the time it started. Having been one of that tiny minority, I am greatly surprised that I was quite such an outlier to the norm, and thought it might be worth trying to understand, in retrospect, why it was. I was not, after all, a leading expert in anything apart, perhaps, from the irrelevant content of my published books. Perhaps such an analysis might help others – and even me – to be better prepared when the next catastrophic mistake is advocated by government.

Posted in Medicine, Politics and sociology, Science, Theology | Leave a comment