When I started with the idea of having a separate blog for things I wanted to write specifically about matters related to Theological and Biblical matters I did so in the hope that it would turn into a place where not only could I post my own ideas but also where I could interact with others, so we'll see how it goes.

I read a lot of Christian blogs, I have almost nothing in common with some of them, but most of them I'll happily read and digest all the live long day. Here's a summary of the blogs I visit regularly and what sort of stuff you can expect to find there. Read more...

Jesus heals a paralytic

A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. So many gathered that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. Some men came, bringing to him a paralytic, carried by four of them. Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus and, after digging through it, lowered the mat the paralyzed man was lying on. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are forgiven."

Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, "Why does this fellow talk like that? He's blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?"

Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, "Why are you thinking these things? Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up, take your mat and walk'? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins . . . ." He said to the paralytic, 11"I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home." He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, "We have never seen anything like this!" Read more...

The debate on Calvinism and the Atonement continues over at the Thinklings Weblog, which is fast becoming one of my favourite regular reads. By way of my own investigation into the matter, I wrote this article which analysed the perspective of Anglican theologian Tom Smail. Next up is German theologian Jürgen Moltmann. Moltmann is one of my favourite theologians and whilst I don’t agree with everything he says, he is a fascinating writer. Read more...

There’s been a lot of discussion in the Blogosphere lately on the theology of N T Wright. Jollyblogger posted an article on the matter, and Adrian Warnock and John over at Blogotional has also dealt with the issue this last week. Wright has caused quite a stir in Reformed circles because not only does he insist that the idea of justification by faith is not central to Paul’s theology, but also that Paul’s ideas about justification and righteousness do not mean what centuries of theology have read them to mean. Read more...

There’s an awfully long discussion going on over at the Thinklings Weblog over the issue of God’s sovereignty, although as with so many debates of this nature it eventually comes down to a confrontation between Calvinists and Arminians over the issues of God’s sovereignty, human free will and predestination and election. Of course Christianity had been around for 1500 years before Calvin and then Arminius came along, so it’s hardly as those are the only two options one may take and still call oneself a Christian. Of course both claim to be ‘biblical’ (Lately I’m so sick of that adjective being used as a carte blanche for people to believe whatever they want as long as there’s a Bible verse that seems to say what they’re thinking) but then every theology claims to be ‘biblical’ so I’m a little wary of embracing a theological standpoint simply because its proponents claim that it is the ‘biblical’ way to believe. Read more...

This post forms a hardly-related sequel of sorts to my last Carnival entry on the relationship between 'being' and 'doing' in Christianity. It looks at the relationship between past and future, and to live for the future without getting bogged down in the past. Read more...

And so went many of the sermons I heard during my teenage years as a Christian. We didn’t please God more by ‘doing’ things for him; we were simply to ‘be’. Confusion would arise however, when a few weeks later another (or sometimes the same) preacher would try and motivate us with a sermon that chastised ‘some of you’ in the church (meaning all of us) for “talking the talk but not walking the walk”. Being a Christian, we were told, means living radically: giving more, praying more, witnessing more, and so on and so on. After all, Jesus said that not everyone who said to him ‘Lord, Lord’ would enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but only those who do the will of God. The service would close with dozens going forward for prayer, to make re-commitments and tearfully repenting of not having done enough. Read more...

Many moons ago, Jared over at the Thinklings Weblog wrote an article in which he criticised the theology of people such as Kay Arthur for their uncritical political and financial support for the nation of Israel. There is a prevalent theology (mostly in the US, but also here in Europe) known as two-covenant theology, where it is held that the Old Testament covenants made with Israel are still in operation in parallel with the New Covenant of Jesus Christ. Apart from having very little (if any) biblical basis (more to come soon), the idea that the modern nation of Israel is especially privileged by God often leads certain Christian groups to have a rather peculiar tolerance for some of the injustice perpetrated by the current Israeli government against the Palestinians. Combined with a somewhat wacky view of eschatology that eagerly anticipates a huge Middle Eastern conflict centred on Israel that will lead to the mass conversion to Christianity of thousands of ethnic Jews, followed immediately by the Second Coming of Jesus to Jerusalem. Read more...

Richard linked to a great interview with charismatic Anglican theologian Tom Smail last week. I've spent most of my Christian life in the charismatic church but increasingly I get really fed up when people see 'theology' as something dangerously evil and sinister that is opposed to the 'spirit'. It is of course a stupid and false dichotomy to offer to people, and Christianity with no theology (if that's even possible) eventually descends into directionless enthusiasm, or worse, directionless unenthusiasm. Read more...

Here's an essay that I researched and wrote during a trip out here to Germany last year. It is about a small group of self-appointed prophets who took over the town of Münster in the 1530s, declared it to be the New Jerusalem and opposed everyone who criticised them. The early enthusiasm for the Kingdom of God was replaced by the personality cult of the head 'prophet' Jan van Leiden. A tragic story that still warns against the dangers of private interpretation of scripture, the problems caused by the lack of an accountable church structure and a good lesson on why you shouldn't be taken in by charismatics (as in strong personality, not happy-clappies) who don't practice what they preach. Read if you enjoy history, tyranny and controversy over infant baptism. Read more...

A few weeks ago, the people over at U2 sermons covered Bono's comments on President Bush's Christianity. Bono pointed out that whilst Bush and the American Right may appear very devout, the USA is ranked 22nd out of 22 nations who make donations to poorer nations (although this rises to the giddy heights of 15th overall if private giving is taken into account - not good for the world's largest economy and most 'Christian' nation in the world.) Jesus' teaching in Matthew 25 and indeed the whole biblical narrative teach that acting kindly towards the poor is one of the true marks of those who claim to know and follow God. Small surprise then that Bono criticised the US President for 'making his faith look stupid' by pursuing policies that are overwhelmingly disinterested in the world's poor, despite having the resources at his disposal to help them. Read more...

I’m feeling better today than I have done for a long time, so I’m going to get back into the discussion on penal substitution, which continues on Adrian's blog. To bring you up to speed, here’s my position in a nutshell: I don’t believe that on the cross Jesus Christ was subject to a vindictive and retributive punishment from God the Father that was necessary to satisfy God’s wrath against humanity in order for him to be forgiving towards us, to satisfy God’s honour or to change his mind as far as humanity is concerned. This is the normative evangelical and fundamentalist position on the atonement, though I object to it on several grounds. Read more...

When feeling uninspired to write anything on theology, I've just cut and pasted one of my papers from a couple of years ago. Jesus' preferred title for himself is 'Son of Man', and not as you may expect 'Son of God' - though in the original sense they mean the same thing, which is why Jesus' identification of himself as the Son of Man was enough for him to be condemned for blasphemy.

When my inspiration returns, I want to write some more on the Coming of the Son of Man (e.g. Mark 13) and what Jesus meant by it. It's now widely held that Mark 13 and the 'Coming of the Son of Man' is to do with the Second Coming of Jesus and the end of the world. I don't think it is, and we may have to do some re-thinking. Read more...

The location of Christian Hope

This isn't the time or place to write about Jesus and hell and heaven etc, but talking to someone today set me to thinking on the idea of Jesus and the afterlife. I'm not sure how we have somehow managed to turn everything Jesus said and did into either a timeless and contextless systematic theology or a simple set of teachings about where we go when we die. Read more...

Adrian has posted the second installment in his story about his journey of faith, in particular about his experience with charismatic gifts. Although we have theological disagreements on some issues, we both are part of a church movement that maintains that charismatic gifts operate today just as they did in the New Testament church. There are of course those who maintain that this particular ministry of the Spirit died out with the last Apostles. I think that exegetically, experientially and historically it's a very difficult case to make, but that's not the issue in this post.

My favourite modern theologian is Jürgen Moltmann. He's a rarity amongst modern theologians in that he has engaged widely with the charismatic movement and is sympathetic to it. He also brings with him a well developed systematic theology that is well connected to historical doctrine and across the ecumenical spectrum, though he himself is Lutheran. The only (British) charismatic I've ever come across who seems to have interacted with Moltmann is Greg Haslam in one of his recent articles. Read more...

And what did you do with your Saturday night Sven? Well I stayed in and puzzled some more over penal substitution and how I don't think it's necessarily a biblical idea, thanks for asking.

This is the second part in a series of posts on some key biblical texts relating to atonement. Though there are many, many themes and texts I need to address though this week my doctor told me it is likely to be at least two months before I am fit enough to go back to work, (though given that I work with food I have to be certified infection-free to return to work in my restaurant, I may be off work a great deal longer as the infection can stay in my system from anything from 8 months to 2 years, so I'll probably have to get a non-food related job. Yay!)...so bottom line is I'll have plenty of time to write out some ideas on the atonement. Read more...

Well after a long time spent discussing side issues, I actually intend to get on to discussing the main subject that I wanted to, namely the doctrine of penal substitution. I intend to mainly use biblical texts but where necessary and useful I will supplement my points with theological extras. Of course the classic penal substitution proof-text is Isaiah 53, so why not start there? Before I start however, I want to make some things clear: Read more...

Sola Scriptura is latin for 'scripture only,' and was most famously used by Martin Luther in the Reformation when he was arguing against the Catholic theological order of the day that said that church councils and decrees issued by the Pope were equal, or even superior to, the Bible. Of course, given the state of the church in his day, one can easily see why Luther wisely chose this approach.

I would argue that now however, to say 'the Bible only' for discussing theology is not only impossible but also undesirable. Read more...

Adrian responded to my earlier post on sola scriptura on his blog (read his response here). He rightly points out that I have not yet interacted fully with the biblical data as regards penal substitution. I will of course do so, but I feel I need to explain the authority of the Bible and the role it plays in the formation of doctrine a little more clearly. I am fully aware of the arguments for penal substitution from scripture and from theology, though I remain unconvinced by them. Scripture is fully authoritative, but it does require some interpretation. If everything were so clear cut, then you would have to account for how two people can read the same verse and yet come to different conclusions. Read more...

Misunderstandings between Adrian and myself seem to have been cleared up. It can often be hard to read what people are actually trying to say when you can only read text and not hear the tone of their voice. Anyhoo, on with the main point which is the authority of scripture and eventually penal substitution. I'm going to post in bullet points because it's late and I have a bazillion things to do before tomorrow: Read more...

Too tired to post a full article on this but I'll respond to some comments Hobbit posted in response to what I wrote about penal substitution:

On point 2 Sven, I think you've overexagerated it and distorted the argument ever so slightly!!

Penal substitution does not say that "God is still mad at us". Read more...

My post a few days ago on God and Suffering got mentioned on Douglas' blog and received a few comments. The aim of what I wrote was not to offer textbook answers on God and the nature of evil and so forth, but rather to offer something altogether a little more pastoral and practical that was centred on the cross of Christ. I received the following comment from Ginelle:

When God inflicted Job with diseases and killed his children to show Satan that he could not make him curse God, was God being " capricious and unfair, subject to whims and tantrums"?

Or when He says:
And I will punish the world for [their] evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible.Isa 13:11

I wish people like yourselves would stop trying to waterdown God's word. Only picking out pleasing verses. He is an AWESOME GOD! He knows of everything and allows what He wills. Even when it looks like total devastation one should consider the souls He is rescuing from eternal destruction.

Jam 5:20 Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins. Read more...

This article is written partly out of my own thoughts on the Asian disaster, but also partly after reflecting on the questions posed by this article in The Guardian. Judging by the lack of comments, my posts on theological stuff tend to be less popular than the other things I write about, but please take time to read this one and let me know what you think. Ta.

I spend a lot of time on this blog pondering about various things to do with theology and my faith and trying to tackle the various questions I often ask. Having spent the last few days watching the results of the huge Tsunami in Southeast Asia, I have to ask again about the problem of suffering and a God of love. I don't have all the answers, and I suspect I never will, but such huge suffering caused by natural disasters causes both Christians and non-Christians alike to ask big questions of God. Read more...