The groaning of creation

We screened the People’s Emergency Briefing film in the week before this message, so the climate crisis loomed menacingly. In the film, Jennifer Saunders of Absolutely Fabulous fame asks a good question: “What’s the matter with us?” What is the matter with us as a civilisation?

There is no eco-crisis in the New Testament, but we often read Romans 8:19-21 as an expression of Paul’s conviction that the whole of creation will eventually be set free from the consequences of the fall of humanity.

I think that misses the point.

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Where does authority lie? Peter Enns on historical criticism and evangelicalism
Peter Enns has written a clear, concise and sensible piece on the uneasy relationship between historical criticism and evangelicalism that I think is well worth reading. ( | 5 comments)
Three ways to put ourselves in the story
In response to my argument that what we have in the New Testament is a “narrative for the early churches as they confronted the frightening hegemony of classical paganism”, Evelyn asks, quite reasonably: “but then how can it serve as a narrative for us?” I will suggest here that… ( | 9 comments)
Would God have got excited about the conversion of Constantine?
Someone recently got in touch with some pertinent questions about my contention that the main trajectory of New Testament eschatology lands not at the end-of-the-world but firmly in the muddy battle-field of history, at the conversion of Rome.This is not just a question about New Testament… ( | 16 comments)
Does James preach the gospel?
It may sometimes appear that the narrative-historical approach to reading the New Testament throws up more questions than answers, but one point that I am pretty confident about is that what the modern evangelical world generally means by “gospel” is not what Jesus or Paul meant by “gospel”.… ( | 5 comments)
Creation, fall, redemption, and new creation is not much of a metanarrative
I came across this somewhat at random, but it illustrates a point. In an article on the role of theology on the Gordon Conwell website John Jefferson argues that a sound biblical theology is like the backbone in the human body—it provides “support, shape and stability to the Body of Christ”.In the… ( | 7 comments)
Does the gospel first appear in Genesis 3:15?
Another good example of how theology gets read back into texts where it doesn’t belong is provided by the argument that the gospel first appears in Genesis 3:15. The singular “seed” of the woman, who will crush the head of the serpent, is taken to be a prophecy of the coming messiah. It… ( | 11 comments)
The Gospel Coalition gets the gospel back to front
A while back Daniel asked me what I thought of a Gospel Coalition video called "Did Jesus Preach the Gospel?" The question which John Piper, Tim Keller, and Don Carson address is basically this: Is Paul's gospel of justification by faith on the basis of Jesus' atoning death for the sins of the… ( | 24 comments)