Scholarship • Serving • Ministry – Ian Paul
This Sunday’s lectionary reading in Year A is the baptism of Jesus from Matt 3.13–17. It is a short and compact reading, and needs careful reading in its own right. But it only fully makes sense if we know something of the Old Testament backstory and can, as ‘insiders’, spot the key allusions to it. …
If you hear filmgoers talking about ‘Easter eggs’, they are referring neither to chocolate nor the Christian festival. In films, Easter eggs are images, ideas or information that are ‘hidden in plain sight‘ and make reference back to earlier films. They can just be a form of entertaining in-joke for series fans—but they can often …
In many films, writers and directors often include ‘Easter eggs’—allusions to earlier films which help to shape the plot and give depth and interest to the film. In a similar way, Matthew’s quite brief account of Jesus’ baptism by John (the gospel reading for Epiphany 1 in Year A) includes a large number of allusions …
Like many others over the Christmas period, I went with my family to see the final episode of the nine main instalments of the Star Wars saga, the Rise of Skywalker. I wanted to enjoy it, but after an hour caught myself wondering ‘When is this going to end?’ It didn’t feel as though there …
