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 historical point.

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He shall rule over you
Prompted by reading the chapter in Daniel Kirk’s Jesus Have I Loved, But Paul? on the place of women in the story of God, I recently set out my view i) that andrarchy (in this context, mandated rule by the man) is a consequence of the fall; ii) that it is therefore an aspect of the… ( | 7 comments)
Why I disagree with Tom Wright about the triumphal entry and divine kingship
A key text for Tom Wright’s “gospel christology” is the account of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem (Matt. 21:1-9; Mk. 11:1-10; Lk. 19:28-40). In [amazon:978-0062084392:inline], which is excellent in many ways, this story is the climax towards which his chapter on the “hurricane” of divine… ( | 4 comments)
Who are the 144,000 in Revelation, historically speaking?
Kevin DeYoung asks, “Who are the 144,000 in Revelation?” Are they a remnant of ethnic Jews who are left behind after the rapture, who will evangelize the Gentiles, as presumably dispensationalists would argue? Or does this symbolic number stand for the “entire community of the redeemed”? DeYoung… ( | 15 comments)
The curse of patriarchy and the hope of new creation
What impressed me most in Daniel Kirk’s discussion of the place of women in the story of God was his argument that the church is called actively and concretely to realize in the present a future new creation in which it will be unnecessary for the man to rule over the woman.There are… ( | 3 comments)
The parable of the two houses and the apocalyptic storm
In a brief exchange with Daniel Kirk about the apocalyptic character of the story that is being told in the New Testament I touched on Jesus’ parable of the two houses, which is found at the end of the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 7:24-27). We usually understand this passage as a description of the… ( | 4 comments)
Jesus Have I Loved, But Paul? Chapter 6: Women in the Story of God
Today the Blog Tour for Daniel Kirk’s new book Jesus Have I Loved, but Paul? pulls in at Chapter Six: “Women in the Story of God”. In addition to my contribution here, there will be a piece by Julie Clawson, which I am willing to bet will be nothing like as overwrought and self-… ( | 9 comments)
The fault line between the Reformed and the... er, post-Reformed?
Everyone by now must have noticed that there is a large and unsightly crack running down the middle of that highly vocal and energetic sector of Western Christianity that thinks of itself in the broadest sense as "evangelical". It is not the only fault line—Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Pentecostalism… ( | 16 comments)