Scholarship • Serving • Ministry – Ian Paul
In a post-Christendom culture, should Christians look different from those around them and keep their distance, or engage with culture and not look too distinctive? This has been a challenge for the church down the ages, but it has a particular edge to it in times of cultural change, particularly when it feels as though …
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 …
How do we make our minds up about complex ethical issues? How can we decide between people we respect—Christians leaders, friends even—who offer conflicting advice about what the right decision is, what God’s will is in a difficult or challenging situation? An ever more common appeal is made to Jesus’ saying in Matt 7.16: By …
When Justin Welby took office in March 2013, he announced his three priorities for his ministry as Archbishop. Alongside the renewal of prayer and a commitment to evangelism and witness, reconciliation took centre stage. Inasmuch as prayer is about relationship ‘upward’ to God, and evangelism and witness are about relationship ‘outward’ to other people, reconciliation …
I recently visited London to see the sights and go to a show, and as I surfaced from Oxford Circus tube station, I was handed a small magazine. On the front cover was a picture of a child charging through a crowd, clearly out of control and scandalizing all the adults around them. The headline beneath …
Here is the second part of my essay on the kingdom of God in the teaching of Jesus. The first part can be found here. In contrast with Weiss, Dodd’s emphasis was on the present reality of KG in Jesus’ teaching. However, this was not through denying or ignoring Jesus’ eschatological perspective, as had been …
This is a rather unusual post, in that I am offering here a final year undergraduate essay I wrote in 1991. There are several reasons for this: 1. It still offers quite a good overview of the range of themes that are present in Jesus’ teaching about the kingdom. 2. It is missing more recent literature, but …
When considering the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection, we need to separate two issues. First, what are the historical facts that require an explanation? And, second, what is the best, most plausible, explanation for those facts? What are the facts to consider in relation to the resurrection? First, Jesus died on the cross, a victim of …
On Maundy Thursday, it is traditional to focus on the account of Jesus washing the disciples’ feet in John 13—and possibly to re-enact this within a service. But in rushing to the final example, we miss the most important lesson, which comes in the middle, rather than at the end, of the passage. The passage …
If you want someone to tell a good story, then Tony Jordan is your man. Having left school with no qualifications, he has risen to become television’s number one screen writer through his work on Eastenders, Minder, Life on Mars and a host of other hits. He always had a faith of some sorts, but …
Following my discussion of John Barclay’s review of Tom Wright’s Paul and the Faithfulness of God, I have just read a longer review by Chris Tilling (who is on the staff of St Mellitus College in London) just published in Anvil, which is now an online journal. It seems we are entering the season of …
