James 2: Faith and Works
A few quotations from Douglas Moo's Commentary on the book of James to fill in a bit more background to the material we looked at during Kemsing's Useful! service on the second half of James 2.
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James's Weblog
Fabulous: On Ilkla Moor baht 'at?!
I have once had the fortune to take part in a carol service where While Shepherds Watched was sung to the tune of On Ilkla Moor baht 'at. It was a slight novelty: "Did you know that these words can be made to fit to this tune? What fun - let's do it!"
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Rejoice in the Lord always
Why not join me in being built up by reading Peter Leithart's exhortation on Paul's instruction to rejoice in the Lord always. Always? Yes - always. …
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Caird on Luke's birth narrative
G B Caird is helpful, as ever, in his comments on Luke's account of the birth of Jesus:
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Praying in Public
It is a joy to discover Sam Allberry has a blog. He has a particularly excellent post on there with some very important reminders for those of us who lead public prayer in church. Check them out at: http://allberry.blogspot.com/2009/09/public-prayer.html
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Hymn tunes and meters
I recently received an e-mail asking about how you work out what the "meter" for a hymn is, and how you go about finding a tune that fits the words of a particular hymn.
In case my reply helps anybody else, here's what I said:
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Majoring on the Minors
Doug Wilson says some very helpful things about getting major issues and minor issues the right way around in theology.
Specifically, how sad – and how serious – when people take a minor issue (one on which we may quite respectably agree to disagree) and turn it into a major issue (one on which we do not have the latitude to disagree). As Wilson argues, at that point the issue has to become a major one on both sides. It is a major issue to mis-classify a minor issue as major.
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The Purpose of Philippians
I'm greatly enjoying spending some time in Paul's letter to the Philippians, in preparation for the first of our new quarterly combined services. The two churches (Kemsing and Woodlands) will come together for a shared Communion service 4 times a year. I am really looking forward to the occasion. In many respects, the two churches are very different. However the riches we share in Christ are many, and this quarterly celebration will be the chance to rejoice in that and to commit afresh to serving together in holding out the word of Christ.
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Studying the Word of God
Wayne Grudem is very helpful in his Systematic Theology on what we mean when we refer to "the word of God".
He points out on pages 47-48 that "the word of God" can refer, in Scripture, to the Son of God, Jesus Christ. It can also refer to God's speech in 4 forms: 1. His decrees; 2. His words of personal address; 3. His speech through human lips, and 4. His words in written form, for us the Bible.
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