We are probably stuck with the distinction between “church” and “mission.” I attend a church in Westbourne Grove. I work informally with a mission organisation. But in biblical terms there is something odd about our obsession with mission. The word occurs only four times in the ESV, in a mostly trivial sense. The one New Testament example is 2 Corinthians 11:12, where Paul speaks of the “boasted mission” of his opponents, but there is no word for “mission” in the Greek; the “false apostles” merely “boast.”

What we call “Christianity” is the religion of the formerly Christian West. It survives residually in both the historic and modern churches, and globally as a result of both historic and modern missionary expansion. It is defined by diverse, overlapping systems of belief and practice, which generally speaking determine how the scriptures are to be read.

At the Communitas staff conference in Malaga last week, there was a lot of discussion around two related topics: human sexuality and the surprising interest shown by young people in Christianity in the last few years, which sometimes goes under the label “quiet revival.”

We will be doing some sessions on Philippians at the Communitas staff conference in Malaga next week. Here, by way of preparation, is a quick explanatory synopsis of the letter as a historical document, by which I mean that it emphasises the restricted outlook and experience of Paul and of the community of believers in Philippi. It also incorporates the reading of the Christ encomium in Philippians 2:6-11 put forward in my book In the Form of a God: The Pre-existence of the Exalted Christ in Paul.

I have long held the view that Babylon the great in Revelation 17-18 is the city of Rome as the capital of a decadent imperial power. Jason Staples used to think the same, but in a recent Substack post he explains why he has adopted the minority position that the lurid and dissolute woman depicted in this vision is Jerusalem. He starts out by recognising the force of the leading arguments in favour of the identification with Rome, then he gives the reasons for changing his mind, summarised in bold text here. I’ve gone about this in a bit of rush, but it has thrown up some interesting issues.

This is a half-baked response to someone who got in touch with some questions after reading Why the missional church must also be prophetic…

Given the importance that the Shema would acquire for Jewish religious practice in the rabbinic period and has had for christology among Pauline scholars in the last thirty years, it is remarkable that it is so rarely quoted or discussed, on its own terms, in the literature of second temple Judaism. In fact, the only Jews of the time who show any interest in it are Jesus and a certain scribe who came and asked him, “Which commandment is first of all?” (Mk. 12:28). Jesus answers the man by reciting the Shema.