Scholarship • Serving • Ministry – Ian Paul
Ian Paul
The reading for Trinity 12 in Year A is Matthew 16.13–20. It is Peter’s confession of who Jesus is as Messiah, but it also contains Matthew’s unique material in which Jesus calls Peter ‘rock’, gives him the keys to the kingdom, and commissions him to bind and loose. But these three ideas are much misunderstood, …
As we approach the feast of ‘The Blessed Virgin Mary’ in the calendar, I offer my annual repost of the exploration of whether the Assumption is actually something recognised and celebrated by the Church of England. What is the Assumption? Does the Church of England mark it? Should we be believe it and mark it? Andrew …
Andy Burnham has made a promise to end rough sleeping as a priority. Although this sounds good, such promises have been made before—and failed to deliver. The danger is that focussing on such headline issues diverts resources from where they are really needed. But in fact the church has something significant to offer to address …
The first part of our passage is claimed to show that Jesus overturned the Jewish food laws. The second part is claimed to show that Jesus was racially prejudiced just as we are. Neither is true. The lectionary gospel reading for this Sunday, Trinity 11 in Year A, includes one mandatory pericope and an optional …
The gospel lectionary reading for Trinity 11 in Year A is Matthew 15.[10-20] 21-28. If we take the whole text, there are two episodes which are both commonly misinterpreted. The first part concerns the dispute between Jesus and the Pharisees about the washing of hands, and his teaching of the disciples about whether ‘unclean’ food …
Dr Zachary Ardern writes: The Nicene Creed affirms: We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen. The BBC Science Unit apparently neither shares nor countenances this belief. 45 seconds into the first episode of the beautifully produced new five part series “Evolution”, …
The gospel for Trinity 10 in Year A is Matthew 14.22–33, Jesus walking on the sea to the terrified disciples. The episode has parallels in Mark and John, but only Matthew includes the further account of Peter stepping out of the boat to meet Jesus—and this raises import issues of interpretation. Should we focus on …
The discovery of the Vindolanda tablets in the 1970s, and since then the Uley tablets and the Bloomberg tablets, has transformed our understanding of ordinary, functional literacy in the Roman world. This has a major impact on how we understand the world of the New Testament and the way that the New Testament was written …
The common reading of Jesus (and Peter) walking on the water is: when there is a storm, and you get out of the boat, keep your eyes on Jesus. But the passage is more intriguing than this, and the danger is that, in reading it this way, we are precisely repeating Peter’s error! The Sunday lectionary …
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Sarah Mullally, has been visiting west Africa, and was pictured meeting both the King of the Ashanti (above) and visiting the sites of slave trading, in particular the embarkation points for the Transatlantic slave trade, where she was clearly personally moved. I noticed this comment from Father Richard Woods, a retired …
In July of this year, the General Synod voted to ‘hear’ the Kairos II Palestine document as a ‘cry’ of their Palestinian Christian brothers and sisters. This caused serious offence amongst the Jewish community, and was claimed to be deeply antisemitic by some commentators, whilst others welcomed it as a necessary step in listening to …
