Ian Paul

Ian Paul is a theologian, writer and speaker. Associate Minister at St Nic's, Nottingham and Honorary Lecturer at the University of Nottingham. Mac user and chocoholic. Ian Paul on Google+

My top ten books on theology and ministry (1)

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To launch what might be a new mini-series on the blog, my good friend James Blandford-Baker offers his top ten books on theology and ministry that shaped his own thinking and practice. James is Vicar of St Andrew’s, Histon, and Priest-in-Charge of St Andrew’s, Impington, as well as being Rural Dean of North Stowe in Ely Diocese. This … Continue Reading

Do Christians love one another?

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‘And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love, yes they’ll know we are Christians by our love.’

So we sang in the late 1970s, in a culturally appropriate rock ballad idiom, and very real it seemed at the time. I came to faith in an evangelical Anglican tradition which had been shaped by the charismatic renewal movement, and a key sign of this was an authenticity of relationships which had been absent from the starchy formality of much church life.

Tyndale NT Study Group 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 just taken over from John Nolland of Trinity Bristol as Chair of the group. This year’s NT Study Group will be … Continue Reading

Is Tom Wright’s ‘Paul’ convincing?

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Tom Wright, former Bishop of Durham and Professor at St Andrew’s, is often described as a ‘leading New Testament scholar’ in the world today. There is no doubt that he has significantly shifted the debates about Paul and his interpretation, and alongside that has (almost uniquely) popularised his views on Paul and the rest of … Continue Reading

Pruning and fruitfulness

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With the beautiful spring weather, I have just completed my first hour back in the garden since abandoning it (more or less) over the winter. I devoted my time to pruning and offer some reflections here on the process. Pruning needs confidence. You only prune things that you think are going to continue to flower and … Continue Reading

Is ‘discipleship’ Anglican?

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A few weeks ago, Linda Woodhead suggested in the Church Times that discipleship was a ‘theologically peripheral concept’, and the following week Angela Tilby dismissed the ‘d-word’ as ‘sectarian vocabulary that…shows the influence of American-derived Evangelicalism on the Church’s current leadership.’ The short discussions in each place actually raise not one but three, inter-related, questions: … Continue Reading

Does faith come in stages?

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There are a number of reasons why we often feel we want to present the Christian faith to different groups of people in different ways, either expressing ideas by different means or addressing quite different issues. The most obvious context is that of working with children and young people. Young people live in a very … Continue Reading

Good disagreement?

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I spent last Saturday in London at a consultation organised by the Church of England Evangelical Council on (guess what?) the current debate on sexuality. The focus was a new book by Martin Davie, commissioned by CEEC, looking at all the major publications on the Bible and same-sex unions that have come out since the … Continue Reading

Should MPs have second jobs?

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The question of MPs pay and responsibilities came to the fore again last week, with revelations that Jack Straw and Sir Malcolm Rifkind fell victim to a sting operation by newspaper who were pretending to offer payment for lobbying. This was all the more surprising given the reputation and experience of the two MPs concerned—and given … Continue Reading

Expressing God’s welcome

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Thom Shultz has explored the reasons why people both leave and stay away from the church in the West, and proposes Four Acts of Love that could make the church ‘irresistible.’ With a bit of cultural translation, I think he is on to something important. The first Act of Love is called ‘Radical Hospitality.’ Shultz … Continue Reading

Ken Bailey on The Good Shepherd

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The Good Shepherd: A thousand-year journey from Psalm 23 to the New Testament (A guest review by Richard Briggs) Ken Bailey worked for many years in the Middle East, taught the Bible there, and sat with and spoke with those whose ways of life reflected in some measure the perspectives and assumptions of biblical times. … Continue Reading