Disciples as the presence of Jesus in Matt 10

The gospel read for Trinity 3 in Year A of Matt 10.40–42 is perhaps the strangest choice in the whole lectionary—at only three verses! And yet this short passage has some really significant features that offer enormous potential for reflection: a. They are very clearly structured as a unit, with an opening and matching conclusion, … Continue Reading

Do the resurrection accounts contradict each other?

If the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth from the dead is the most important and foundational truth of the Christian faith, how come the New Testament accounts of the resurrection and Jesus’ appearances are so contradictory? That is a relatively widespread response in atheist/apologetic circles, and I think amongst Muslim critics of the Christian faith. … Continue Reading

How do we discern ethics in the writings of Paul?

Tim Murray offers this review of Ruben Zimmermann’s The Logic of Love: Discovering Paul’s ‘implicit ethics’ through 1 Corinthians (Lexington/Fortress, 2018). Why care about this book? It seems to me that any of us who care for the state of the church and academic theology (including biblical studies) are likely regularly to find ourselves confronting important … Continue Reading

What is the biblical case for equality between men and women?

I publish here a review by Prof Dorothy Lee of a recent book by Kevin Giles, What the Bible Actually Teaches on Women. It is reproduced with permission from The Melbourne Anglican, February 2020.  This book by Kevin Giles is a biblically based and systematically argued exposure of the theological inadequacies of the so-called “complementarian” position on … Continue Reading

Learning from the case of Jean Vanier

Jean Vanier was a French-Canadian Roman Catholic lay philosopher and theologian, until recently best known for his establishment of the network of L’Arche communities that aimed to integrate the lives of the able-bodied with the disabled, so that each learned from and supported the other. He was originally an academic, completing a PhD on Aristotle … Continue Reading