Scholarship • Serving • Ministry – Ian Paul
I write a quarterly column for Preach magazine, in which I explore a significant word or phrase in the Bible, or a theme or section of Scripture, and the ideas that it expresses. I have written for them on: the phrase ‘Word of God’ the theme of ‘Mission’ the meaning of ‘Apocalypse‘ the ministry of ‘Healing’, …
The theme for the Tyndale New Testament Study group this year is The Holy Spirit in the New Testament, and we are meeting from Wednesday 5th to Friday 7th July 2023 at High Leigh Conference Centre. As in 2022, we will be meeting simultaneously with the other study groups. We are hopeful that we will …
Well, the time has come. The long-awaited (and much leaked) statement from the House of Bishops after the exhausting process of Living in Love and Faith has at least been made public. Before diving into the details, it is worth noting the questions that most people have as they read. Will there be any proposal to …
Dear John Thank you for your open letter explaining the reasons for your change of mind on the status of monogamous, faithful same-sex relationships. I believe that you changed your view some time ago, but this is the first time that you have set out all your reasons. This must surely be a good thing …
One of the challenges in reading the Book of Revelation is that it is very theologically dense in the way it presents its ideas. There are several reasons for this: Its dense metaphorical language (commonly called its ‘symbolism’) carries theological weight. For example, the compressed phrase ‘a lamb, looking as though it had been slain, …
What do you find most irritating about this time of year? The drawing in of dark and cold nights? The hideous adoption of that consumerist import ‘Black Friday’? People putting up Christmas trees when we have only just started Advent? Being urged to spend more money by means of schmaltzy human interest mini-dramas? For me, …
This Sunday was traditionally known in the Church of England as ‘Stir-up Sunday‘, a phrase derived from the BCP Collect for the last Sunday before Advent, which in turn inspired the making of Christmas pudding (which needs plenty of stirring): Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, …
The feast of Christ the King focusses on the kingship of Jesus as demonstrated by his victory on the cross. It is slightly unusual to jump to this theme at this stage in the lectionary, which was previously known as the Sunday Next Before Advent, or ‘Stir-up Sunday. But it arises from the decision of …
A recent essay by Walter Brueggemann on the Bible and ‘homosexuality’ has received wide circulation (I put ‘homosexuality’ in inverted commas since, although it is included in the title to the essay, it is not a word I ever use in this discussion, since it is poorly defined.) Brueggemann sums up his argument in these …
Diana Butler Bass preached a sermon in July that was widely circulated and listened to. The title is simply ‘Mary the Tower’, but the subtitle is more indicative of the thrust of her argument: ‘What would Christianity be like if Mary Magdalene hadn’t been hidden from view?’ This points to two main claims that she proposes: …
I first wrote this post some time ago, in 2014, but the graphic that provoked it is doing the rounds again—and I have thought further about my own response. So I am posting again a revised and expanded version of what I wrote then. There’s a quotation that did the rounds earlier in the year from …
