Leithart again:
Historically, a pastoral candidate’s desires often had little to do with the Church’s call to serve in pastoral office. Far from seeking out positions of leadership, the greatest of the church fathers resisted with all their strength.
Lovely quotation from Leithart in Against Christianity on what a Spirit-filled church looks like:
Christian myth and ritual shape the people of God, by the power of the Spirit, into conformity to Christ, creating within the Church a palpable aroma of love, peace, purity, joy, ministry, mission and forgiveness. That aroma spreads from the Church to the city around it.
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Sorry for the extended downtime over the weekend everyone - all the maintenance is now complete. Thanks for your patience.
Enjoying R T France’s commentary on Matthew
Reading him on Matthew 18:15-17.
I haven’t posted for ages – partly very busy, partly nothing to say.
But I thought I’d post briefly now, because this has encouraged me.
The parable of the weeds and the wheat in Matthew 13:24-30 shows (I think) that the world is a mixed place – it contains true disciples and it contains unbelievers. We need to wait until the end of the age to see truly who is who.
CAPTCHA has become a standard device to trap and block spam on sites like this one.
The idea is that if someone writes a computer program to drop spam comments on this blog, the computer program will be asked to solve a problem first. That problem (like “what letters are below in this squiggly image?” or “what’s 4+12?”) is not Turing-computible. So only a human being will solve it.
At long last, I’m please to present a new piece of software, Bible Reading Plan Generator.
There is a page dedicated to it on this site: http://www.oakleys.org.uk/software/bibleplan.
Visit the software’s homepage for more information.
In essence, though, it’s free software that takes a list of Biblical books, and devises a reading plan for you over any number of days you want.
Why does Jesus spend forty days in the wilderness, confronting public enemy number 1 (Satan, the accuser of the people of God), immediately after he has been declared Son of God (echoing Psalm 2) at his baptism?
I know that one answer is that it relates to the 40 years Israel spent in the wilderness. Jesus must be faithful at the exact point at which they failed.
After Saul failed to follow the Lord’s instructions (to destroy Amalek totally, together with their livestock), the Lord rejected him as king. The incident is related in 1 Samuel 15.
Saul’s excuse was that they spared the livestock in order to offer sacrifices to God.
“ 1 Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. 2 For we all stumble in many ways, and if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body. 3 If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well. 4 Look at the ships also: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs.
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