Scholarship • Serving • Ministry – Ian Paul
I write a column for Preach magazine, in which I explore a significant word or phrase in the Bible and the ideas that it expresses. I have written for them on the phrase ‘Word of God’, on the theme of ‘Mission’, on the meaning of ‘Apocalypse‘, on the ministry of ‘Healing’, on the question of ‘Welcome’ and on …
This week I was engaged in two unrelated tasks—appearing on a US podcast about the Book of Revelation, and writing some Bible reading notes—but their juxtaposition suddenly pressed a question about Revelation in a fresh way. One of the key questions for the podcast was ‘So how is Revelation relevant today?’ and I was considering …
John Leach writes: The role of the ‘worship leader’ and the ‘worship band’ are relatively new on the church scene, coming into mainstream denominations with the rise of charismatic renewal from the 1960s. Before that a worship leader, at least in Anglican circles, was the minister (often but not exclusively ordained) who led the congregation …
A couple of years ago, I was exploring the anthropology of the Book of Revelation, and it is quite a challenging topic; the result can be found in my chapter in the volume Anthropology and New Testament Theology. In exploring how a text depicts human existence, you might (for example, in Paul’s letters) look at theological terminology …
At the beginning of August, Jude Smith (who is team rector of Moor Allerton and Shadwell in North Leeds) wrote an intriguing and slightly pessimistic article on the challenges facing the idea of the gathered church meeting on a Sunday morning, and I have been pondering it over the last few weeks. The context was …
I’ve recently had two very interesting discussions on the question of whether we can interpret Scripture faithfully and look to Scripture itself to guide us, or whether we need some sort of control on interpretation by the institution of the Church. What was particularly interesting was the fact that these two conversations happened on two …
The Church Times has been running a series of interesting article on the state of the Church, with some significant insights from Linda Woodhead, Professor of the Sociology of Religion at the University of Lancaster. Previous articles have explored issues of church growth, leadership, and some of the reasons behind the decline in church attendance. …
Kate Bottley, who trained at St John’s five years or so ago, has been getting her fifteen (or more) minutes of fame as a video of her leading a ‘flash mob’ dance routine at a wedding she was conducting. If you haven’t seen it yet, enjoy! Predictably, there has been a range of reactions. From …
