David C. Mitchell, in Jesus – The Incarnation of the Word, makes a case for the mysterious Melchizedek, priest of El-Elyon and King of Salem in Genesis 18, being a “pre-incarnation theophany” of Jesus.
Continue readingI’m re-reading Köstenberger and Kruger’s 2010 book The Heresy of Orthodoxy, which disposes of the unaccountably popular views of Bart Ehrman et al. that orthodox Christianity was always just one of many diverse versions of Christianity that evolved by oral traditions until (very postmodernly) the brute power of the orthodox suppressed the rest.
Continue readingOne key to understanding Scripture is to develop the habit of noticing apparent anomalies and seeking a biblical explanation for them. An example I found today illustrates the point: the commentary Jesus gives on his model prayer in Luke 11.
Continue readingI wrote back in December about the distrust, by Christians of all people, of the present working class movement towards Christianity.
The veritable Who’s Who of Christian opponents to this groundswell, as it was manifested in Tommy Robinson’s Christmas carol concert in Whitehall, is typical of this distrust. I think I showed in my piece on the latter that there is no evidence whatsoever of cynical racist motivation, though of course pockets of almost any kind of corruption will be seen somewhere in any mass-movement.
Continue readingMy last-but-one post was prompted by my reading of a book on C. S. Lewis’s Narnia series. I’m just completing the inevitable follow-up exercise of re-visiting the series itself, for the first time since I read them to our kids forty years ago. I should add that my parents unaccountably failed to introduce me to the books when I was a kid, so this is only my second time through.
Continue readingOn the YouTube podcast I did recently for Leaving the Message I tentatively suggested that the Anglican clergymen who largely popularised the Charismatic Movement in Britain were reacting to a rather stiff, starchy and unemotional Evangelicalism (though there were quieter rumblings amongst Pentecostals and other Free Church people going back to the 1950s, already exposed to the US Latter Rain Movement).
Continue readingA nice academic-sounding title for a blog inspired by my post-Christmas reading, by dint of an inspired present from my wife’s academic cousin. It is Planet Narnia, by Michael Ward. Ward’s 2008 book proposes that C. S. Lewis built his seven Narnia stories around a secret scheme that based both their distinctive “atmospheres,” and the varying aspects of the Christ-figure, Aslan the lion, on the astrological features of the seven Ptolemaic planets.
Continue readingIn previous posts I’ve covered ground already trodden by many others in pointing out the dangers to individuals and churches of doctrines of Holy Spirit baptism and spiritual gifts that cannot be sustained from Scripture. I’ve also done a few posts (like this one) on how the theology of revival deeply associated with Pentecostalism, which has become the entire “evangelical” model, can actually pitch us against revival happening in other ways, through the Sovereign Lord’s wisdom and power. But today I want to make the claim that the Pentecostal/Charismatic “reclamation of the Holy Spirit” has paradoxically promoted a very low and limited understanding of the the third Person of the Trinity.
Continue readingIn my reply to Steve’s comment on my most recent post, I explain why I’m concerned about the doctrinal errors of even moderate Charismatics. Essentially, my point is that Satan uses apparently small deviations to corrupt entire churches, because contrary to the Hypercharismatics’ advice to “eat the meat and spit out the bones,” discernment is a gift that many immature believers, and not a few mature ones, do not possess.
Continue readingBack on the Charismatic theology wagon, a podcast I did with John Collins of Leaving the Message is now out on YouTube, and seems to have mainly positive feedback so far. It’s here. I’m actually recording a follow-up in January, so we’ll see what that’s all about when we get there.
