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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The rich man and Lazarus, and what the story tells us about hell
The story of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31 is often cited as evidence that Jesus believed in hell as a place of conscious torment. Ben has drawn attention to it in a comment on my “Kevin DeYoung, Rob Bell, and the argument about hell” post, noting that Jesus appears to affirm… ( | 2 comments)
Kevin DeYoung, Rob Bell, and the argument about hell
I said that I would come back to what Kevin DeYoung has to say about Rob Bell and hell. To his credit, DeYoung refrains from commenting on Rob Bell’s unpublished book Love Wins: Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, and promises not to pick a fight over it… ( | 22 comments)
Rob Bell, Justin Taylor, love fails, and the meaning of salvation
Jim Hoag has highlighted an intemperate reaction by Justin Taylor on the Gospel Coalition blog to a yet unpublished book by Rob Bell entitled Love Wins: Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, and a response by Kurt Willems arguing that Taylor’s critique is… ( | 10 comments)
Where is the gospel that will drive the missional movement?
Alan Hirsch argues in Right Here, Right Now (written with Lance Ford) that the future of Christianity in the West depends on the church becoming a people movement again: “Somehow and in some way, we need to loosen up and learn how to reactivate the massive potentials that lie rather… ( | 4 comments)
The lost and the unlost in the parable of the prodigal son
What is the parable of the prodigal son about? It was cited in a recent comment here as evidence that the gospel is all about sinners repenting and being reconciled to the Father—and that is certainly how it would typically be understood by evangelicals. There may be some disagreement over… ( | 19 comments)
The re-evangelization of the nations
At Holy Trinity Brompton this morning we prayed for—among other things and somewhat in passing—the “re-evangelization of the nations”. That’s a weighty and portentous phrase. What are we supposed to mean by it? Holy Trinity Brompton is a church with an expansive vision, but I… ( | 5 comments)
Scot McKnight and Jesus’ ethic of the kingdom
I really like Scot McKnight’s book A New Vision for Israel. There are a couple of areas of “structural” disagreement, if you like. I touched on the question of the finality of Jesus’ understanding of the coming kingdom of God in a previous post, to which Scot helpfully… ()