Luke, symbolised in medieval times as a winged ox, more than any of the other Gospel writers does not bother too much with chronology. That is not the purpose of his writing, it is not an ordered biograph, despite him saying it was an ordered account at the beginning of his account. The way he …
Category: God blogs
What’s it all about, Matthew
What;s it all about, Matthew? Matthew the author of Matthew's Gospel that is. To find out what is important about the life of Jesus to each of the Gospel writers look at what they put first and how this fits in with the overall style of the Gospel. With Matthew it is about teaching. From …
To split or not to split
The Anglican communion is about to split. Or so says yesterday's Guardian newspaper[1]. It says that African bishops will walk out of the Primates Meeting in Canterbury next week over the issue of gay rights. It yet another example of the press giving out speculation as news, the meeting does not start until Monday. Not only that, but …
It’s a Kind of magic.
Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men[a] from the east came to Jerusalem. Matthew 2:1 ESV The footnote is that the word for wise men in Greek was magi. That is mage in singular, the root of the English words magic and Magician. So …
Refugees
A blog for Holy Innocents Day, December 28 All is calm, all is bright. Maybe it is in the sanitised version of Christmas, with a smiling ox and ass and clean straw, but not in the story in the Bible. Bethlehem was buzzing. The town was full of people come for the census. All was …
Party Animal
Party Animal Party animal is not a phrase you think of when you think about Jesus. But you may have to think again. If you are of a puritanical disposition now is the time to stop reading. The thing is that Jesus likes a party, from the wedding party where the people drank so much …
Hope for a better world.
We all hope for a better world. This is what the season of Advent is about for me. Hope. Hope that the world will be better place. Advent looks forward in three ways. To the coming of Jesus Christ 2000 years ago, to the coming of God into our lives and Jesus returning at the …
As we forgive those…
...who trespass against us. We tend to think of the word trespass as something to do with being on private property without permission. There are a number of No Trespassing signs, which include the one above, and one which adds "Violators will be shot, survivors will be shot again." It is offered for sale, so …
Redemption Song
U2 got it right: Over the last 4 weeks my Twitter and Facebook feeds have included something shared by well meaning Christian friends that at the Paris Bataclan concert where on 13th November terrorists killed 89 and injured 99 others. They shared that the band playing at the venue, the Eagles Of Death Metal, were playing the …
Bye bye St. Pixels
I was reading in IDEA, the magazine of the Evangelical Alliance, that some millennials (in their article people now aged 18 to 37) have been badly hurt by church. My experience with internet church St Pixels is that an earlier generation also left for that reason. Last Sunday, 22 November, St Pixels, the Internet church, held …
Making an ass of myself 