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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One important point of biblical interpretation that came up during the course of a recent TREK gathering with the Christian Associates team in Gothenburg had to do with the meaning of Jesus’ story of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25:31-46. It is remarkable how this passage is widely and… ( | 1 comment)
Reading Ed Stetzer’s reflections on the ‘meanings of missional’ from a year or so back provoked a familiar sense of bewilderment. How is it that five lengthy posts on the meaning of such terms as ‘missional’ and missio dei, plus a large number of appended comments from leading… ( | 4 comments)
I recently came across - I guess my ears were burning - a brief discussion initiated by Stephen Murray about the difference between a ‘narrative-historical’ or ‘narrative-realist’ approach to biblical interpretation and classic Preterism. The question is pertinent, so I will attempt here to outline… ()
My name is Andrew Perriman. My wife, Belinda, and I have lived in various parts of the world over the last 30 years: the Far East, Africa, the Middle East, the Netherlands, and now London. ()
Duncan’s post on the narrative of Revelation has sparked an interesting dispute about the relationship between an emerging theology and preterism. Since the conversation isn’t directly relevant to the post, I wonder if we might explore its implications separately. It’s an opportunity to think a bit… ()
The Christian Associates Thinkings group will be getting together in the Hague in October to explore the question of what it means to proclaim Christ as Lord in a post-Christendom, post-modern and religiously pluralist Europe. With that in mind I recently got hold of a copy of a smallish book… ()
Jesus’ image of a tree in which birds make their nests (cf. Matt. 13:32; Lk. 13:19) recalls passages in the Old Testament in which Babylon and Egypt are depicted as trees that provide a home for the birds of the air and shelter for the beasts of the field (Ezek. 31:6; Dan. 4:12). Conceivably Jesus… ()