'Church' in the New Testament

November 20th, 2012

We are all familiar with several contemporary meanings of the word “church” – a building, a Sunday event, a group of people or a denomination. But what did it mean in the New Testament? The Greek word “ekklesia” is often translated “church”, but what did it mean?

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NT Wright on reading the New Testament

November 17th, 2012

. I liked this NT Wright quote, posted on the Enough Light blog.

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Who wrote the Gospel of John?

November 15th, 2012

None of the four gospels explicitly states who the author(s) is/are, and the names given to them reflect the understanding of the early christians. So scholars are left to determine as best they can whether the names we have were indeed the authors. Knowing the author probably doesn’t change all that much, but I have […]

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Obama, ethics and the Christian Right

November 7th, 2012

So Obama has won, more convincingly than many expected. Many christians will be worried by this, yet there seems to be a number of christians taking a different line.

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Learning from Ethiopian kids and their tablets

November 2nd, 2012

One Laptop Per Child is a US-based charity which is seeking to create affordable educational devices for use in the developing world. Due to the difficulty in providing and funding teachers in some locations, it has tried the innovative, perhaps crazy, idea of leaving laptop or tablet computers with kids without any instructions. Outcomes have […]

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Community & discipleship

October 27th, 2012

Another emphasis and core conviction of the Anabaptists that I believe we can all learn from ….

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Forecast: mud and fog ahead

October 17th, 2012

I’ve been a Bob Dylan fan since 1963, when he was often described as a “protest singer”. But after only a few albums of “protest music”, he turned his back on it all, and wrote a song with the refrain: “Ah but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.” Sometimes I […]

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After Christendom

October 10th, 2012

I am looking at some of the core convictions of the Anabaptists, not because I am an Anabaptist, but because I think we learn from them. Today: the relationship of the church and the world.

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The journey of a christian pacifist

October 3rd, 2012

I haven’t posted on pacifism and war, but I believe Jesus teaches non-violence, which would make him very opposed to war. Until I do write on the topic, this blog by New Testament scholar Ben Witherington, The Long Journey of a Christian Pacifist, is well worth reading. Photo: Flickr Creative Commons

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We should all get out more

October 1st, 2012

I’ve just come back from a weekend away at the Black Stump christian music and arts festival near Sydney. It’s the 14th time we’ve been, and as usual, we return tired but satisfied. I won’t bore you with too many details, but one or two interesting thoughts are worth reporting.

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A list of all blog posts, in reverse chronological order, is on the Blog archive page.