Month: May 2015

Living Below the Line

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Today’s is a guest post from Beth Rowland, a student at the University of Nottingham who attends St Nic’s. The concept of Live Below the Line, spending just one pound a day on food, was something I’d heard of before May 2015, but not something I had ever considered doing myself. The idea terrified me – … Continue Reading

Revelation and generosity

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I have just finished writing some notes for the Bible Reading Fellowship. (You can subscribe to Guidelines here.) This is how I ended the series: Goodness—we have reached the end of our whistle-stop tour of the most exciting, influential, complex and engaging book of the New Testament, and perhaps of all human literature. If you … Continue Reading

Tyndale NT study group July 2015

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The Tyndale New Testament Study Group is part of the Tyndale Fellowship for biblical and theological research, based at Tyndale House in Cambridge, and including evangelical scholars from all over the world. I have succeeded John Nolland of Trinity Bristol as Chair of the group. This year’s NT Study Group will be meeting on 8th to 10th July in Cambridge … Continue Reading

The ‘Gay Cake’ ruling

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Thanks to Peter Ould for this guest post on the judgement in the Ashers Bakers case: The judgement on the private case in Northern Ireland between Gareth Lee (from Queerspace) and Ashers Bakers has been delivered and it’s an absolute corker. Some background first. This private case (not a criminal case so any talk of the … Continue Reading

What is the mark of the beast?

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The ‘mark of the beast’ in Rev 13.18 is the most notorious and talked-about aspect of the book. [The beast from the land] also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, so that they could not buy or … Continue Reading

Genuine humility

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I am continuing to work through Thom Shultz’ Why Nobody Wants to go to Church Anymore, and we have been discussing it in our ‘missional community’ in St Nic’s church. Having explored the question of whether church can become ‘irresistible’, we looked at the first two of the four Acts of Love: Radical Welcome and Fearless Conversation. … Continue Reading

Spirituality as a bridge into culture

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Last weekend we had Brian Draper join us for the morning services and a lunchtime meeting on ‘everyday spirituality’. Brian used to work for the London Institute of Contemporary Christianity, but is now a freelance writer and speaker, and has for some years been a contributor to Radio 4’s Thought for the Day. I found Brian’s approach … Continue Reading

Reading Revelation 4–9

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If you make use of Scripture Union’s Encounter with God Bible reading notes, then you will be reading through Revelation 4–9 this week. (If you don’t, why not subscribe?) Here are the comments I wrote on these chapters; for more detailed comment, see my Grove booklet How to Read the Book of Revelation. For my notes on chapters 1 to 3, see my previous post.

The End of Democracy?

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What is the end, the goal of democracy? It is to allow the people to hold to account those who exercise power over them. In our sort of representative democracy it does not mean that politicians simply do what the people vote for. Most of us have neither the time nor the expertise to make … Continue Reading