Scholarship • Serving • Ministry – Ian Paul
Yesterday, US President Donald Trump took part in ‘America Reads the Bible,’ a week-long event where the whole Bible is read in public, including by well-known politicians and church leaders. The aim of this movement seems laudable enough: Just as Ezra read the Word aloud to the people of Israel (Nehemiah 8:1–3), awakening revival and …
In our church we have a Spanish-speaking congregation, who join in on Sundays (where we have songs and readings in different languages and simultaneous translation) but who also have their own Spanish-language service on a Tuesday evening. We have been given funding for a Spanish speaking pastor, but also seek to integrate ministry across the …
Mark Bratton writes: In Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, Humpty Dumpty scornfully says to his conversation partner Alice, “When I use a word, it means what I choose it to mean – neither more or less” “The question is”, said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The question is”, …
In 2017, I was invited to a church in Hull to do a morning’s teaching giving an overview of what the Bible said about sex. It was fascinating to have to offer such an overview—not least because it made me realise how important this is, and how rarely it is done. I turned this into …
Last week, the Catholic bishops of England and Wales issued a pastoral document on the question of gender identity in the light of biblical and theological understandings of what it means to be created male and female in the image of God. It is a fascinating, clear, refreshing and helpful statement, and like all Catholic …
Margaret Mowczko writes: There are several women mentioned in the New Testament who in the past have had their ministries downplayed. Even today, some question whether Phoebe was deacon or minister of her church (Rom. 16:1–2), or whether Junia was really an apostle. Junia and a woman named Nympha have even had their gender obscured and …
Mike Starkey writes: In recent years drag has gone mainstream. Actually, it’s bigger than that. Drag has become all-conquering, ubiquitous, the performance art of the moment. The art of cross-dressing for entertainment has a long history, often confined to spaces frequented by consenting adults. By the late 20th century in Britain, drag was drawing an enthusiastic …
My friend Oliver Harrison recently raised an interesting question about the translation of sexed terms: Beautiful June dawn, so up to church to say Morning Prayer. But wait! What’s this? Ps. 119:9 is translated as “How shall young people cleanse their way to keep themselves according to your word?” Now I’m pretty sure that’s not …
Andrew Bunt, who is Assistant Pastor at King’s Church, Hastings and Bexhill, has written a fascinating and helpful Grove Booklet on welcoming and supporting transgender people in the Grove Pastoral series, under the title People not Pronouns: Reflections on Transgender Experience. I asked him about the background to writing the booklet, and the interesting approach that he …
Dr Suse McBay writes: In the past few years numerous stories have finally come out about how church leaders and pastors have abused their power and sexually abused women, men and children. Most recently there has been the truth about Ravi Zacharias, but also Jonathan Fletcher, Jerry Falwell, Jr., Hillsong pastor Carl Lentz and Willow …
In the first part of this two-part post, I set out what I perceive as the first four of eight affirmations about sex and sexuality in the broad narrative of the Scriptures. Look at this ‘big picture’ is an essential complement to the discussions about detailed texts, and without it the debate can sometimes get …
