Centre for Public Christianity (June 2015)

Among other items, the Centre for Public Christianity has posted an audio download of a conversation between John Dickson and Peter Harrison (formerly Idreos Professor of Science and Religion at Oxford, and now Director of the Centre for the History of European Discourses at the University of Queensland) on ‘atheism, Galileo, Darwin, and the persistence of the science-religion conflict “myth”’.

Robert Plummer on the Etymological Fallacy

For his weekend editions of Daily Dose of Greek, Robert Plummer has promised a short series on common word study fallacies, beginning with the etymological fallacy, the view that the origin and history provides deeper insight into its meaning.

International Bulletin of Missionary Research 39:3 (June 2015)

The latest issue of International Bulletin of Missionary Research carries several feature articles around the broad theme of ‘Mission in History’.

Here is a portion from J. Nelson Jennings’ Editorial:

‘However differently each of us might analyze and explain precisely how Christian mission is interwoven with the fabric of world history, it is helpful to note that the articles in this particular issue relate to people, events, and organizations of the last two centuries. The articles thus provide various examples of how missionaries, churches, and mission organizations have functioned in relation to the transition from the modern Western mission movement to the current multidirectional, worldwide mission movement. Christian mission has always had to adjust to such pivotal and epochal changes. May this issue cast further light on our ongoing journey of navigating the sometimes choppy waters of historical currents, while participating in God’s worldwide mission.

The whole issue is available as a pdf here.

9Marks Journal (Spring 2015) on Expositional Preaching

The latest issue of the 9Marks Journal, available here as a pdf, is devoted to the topic of ‘Expositional Preaching’.

In the Editor’s Note, Jonathan Leeman writes:

‘Nuclear bombs might split or fuse atoms. But they cannot create new-heart atoms out of nothing. Preaching the Bible can, which is why preaching the Bible is central to the life of our churches. Peter says we have been born again through the living and enduring word of God. James says that God brought us forth by the word of truth. Paul teaches that faith comes from hearing. And the apostles learned it from Jesus, who said, “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”

‘The preaching which possesses this greater-than-nuclear power is preaching that exposes the Bible, or expositional preaching. Man’s wisdom does not give new life. God’s Word, accompanied by God’s Spirit, does. It possesses divine power to demolish strongholds and explode hearts of stone.’

But We Do See Jesus

I contributed this week’s ‘Word for the Week’, a weekly email service provided by the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity.

There is a place where someone has testified:

‘What is mankind that you are mindful of them,

a son of man that you care for him?

You made them a little lower than the angels;

you crowned them with glory and honour

and put everything under their feet.’

In putting everything under them, God left nothing that is not subject to them. Yet at present we do not see everything subject to them. But we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honour because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

Hebrews 2:6-9

It sounds great, but it doesn’t ring true. The apparent upshot of Psalm 8 – that men and women are crowned with glory and honour, that we are given dominion over creation – simply doesn’t match our experience. At the same time as the psalm calls us to have a high-enough view of ourselves, it also provokes us to have a realistic view of ourselves.

Though formed in the image of God, our representation of his rule and authority in the world is distorted. To be sure, threads of beauty, compassion, and productiveness are woven into the fabric of our existence; but so are threads of darkness, disease, and disorder. In our more honest moments, we don’t need to go further than ourselves to be confronted with the twists and turns of the human heart. We walk tall, but fall short.

Plus, on top of everything else, death so clearly thwarts human dominion in the world, and no-one has found a way through that barrier.

Except, as the writer to the Hebrews tells us, there is one human being who has fulfilled the destiny for which we were made. Jesus, himself made lower than the angels, who because of his suffering and death on behalf of others, has now been crowned with glory and honour, and reigns over all things, breaking even the power of the devil and death itself (Hebrews 2:14-15). We don’t yet see God’s final plan for humanity and creation completed, ‘but we do see Jesus’. The rule of Psalm 8, which so easily eludes us, has become a reality in him.

It is sometimes suggested that Jesus has completed the command to rule first given to our first parents, and so it no longer applies to us today. But, if anything, his dominion over all things makes the creation mandate even more significant. As Christians, we are being remade in the image of Christ, restored under Christ’s lordship to what was lost in Adam and Eve so as to bring glory to God in all we do!

Precisely because we see Jesus crowned with glory and honour, whatever realm the Lord has placed us in – whatever family, job, school, course, church, and hobby – we can bear fruit in it, as men and women made and then remade in God’s image to represent and reflect the glory of his grace in all the earth.

Knowing and Doing (Summer 2015)

The Summer 2015 edition of Knowing & Doing – ‘A Teaching Quarterly for Discipleship of Heart and Mind’ – from the C.S. Lewis Institute is now available online (here as a pdf), and contains the following articles:

Chris Sicks

Jesus’ Loving Presence in the World – You!

How can believers in Christ do even greater things than Jesus did?

Julianne Panunescu 

Fully to Enjoy: An Invitation to Our Abundant Table

Julianne Panunescu, a C.S. Lewis Institute Fellow, talks about the enduring friendships made in the Fellows Program and how her group came to put together the cookbook Fully to Enjoy: An Invitation to Our Abundant Table.

Bill Kynes

How Can a Loving God Send People to Hell?

Bill Kynes explores the burning question – How can a loving God send people to hell? This article is a slightly adapted version of a chapter in Bill’s recently published book Seven Pressing Questions: Addressing Critical Challenges to Christian Faith (Minneapolis: NextStep Resources, 2015).

Thomas A. Tarrants, III

Are You Growing in Grace?

Tom Tarrants teaches us how to have our lives fulfill God’s purposes for us in the world.

Gerald R. McDermott

A Thumbnail Sketch of Buddhism for Christians

Dr. McDermott provides a tremendously helpful foundational understanding of Buddhism so that we as Christian can better understand our similarities and differences.

Randy Newman

Paving the Way for Gospel Conversations

Randy Newman explains that in our day and age, when people have negative notions about religion, we may need to pave the way for gospel conversations.

Callom Harkrader

How To Speak To Your Buddhist Neighbor

In this short article, Callom Harkrader gives us tips on how to relate well with our Buddhist neighbors.

Joe Kohm 

What the Bird Said Early in the Year

Joe Kohm, City Director, C.S. Lewis Institute-Virginia Beach looks at the meaning behind the poem by C.S. Lewis.

From Dust to Glory

I contributed this week’s ‘Word for the Week’, a weekly email service provided by the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity.

What is mankind that you are mindful of them,

human beings that you care for them?

You have made them a little lower than the angels

and crowned them with glory and honour.

You made them rulers over the works of your hands;

you put everything under their feet:

all flocks and herds, and the animals of the wild,

the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea,

all that swim the paths of the seas.

LORD, our Lord,

how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Psalm 8:4-9

The presence in the current paperback book charts of Human Universe by Brian Cox and Andrew Cohen, and Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, is a small indication of our continued fascination with issues of human identity and purpose.

Like David, here in Psalm 8, we’ve been asking the question ‘what is mankind?’ for centuries. And from David comes the encouragement that we will answer it best in the context of praise for the greatness of God.

But here’s something we might not expect. The majesty of the Lord – his glory – is reflected in human beings who are themselves ‘crowned with glory and honour’ and given dominion over the works of God’s hands. This affirms what Genesis 1:28 says, when God calls men and women to the tasks of ‘filling’ and ‘subduing’ and ‘ruling’, to extend the blessings of Eden to the whole world.

Cultures surrounding Israel told stories of people being made as slaves of the gods, with the language of ‘image’ applied only to kings. In Genesis, however, all human beings are created in God’s image, giving men and women a status and responsibility not found in other worldviews. We are made from dust, yet made for glory. Compared with the immense greatness of God, we are tiny specks; but in God’s good design for all things, we matter. God declares his creation to be very good, but chooses to cultivate it through the activity of human beings created in his image.

An incredible identity aside, God’s first great commission provides a basis for the whole of life – for family, for ecology, for work, for economics, for culture. And it applies to all people. We do any number of ‘mundane’ things every day – looking after children, going to work, cooking a meal, weeding the garden, walking the dog – not because we’re Christian but because we’re human, designed to represent something of his oversight in spheres that lie within our influence. Of course, that we are such stewards raises all sorts of questions about how we do this appropriately. Still, these are the ways in which we, this very day, embody God’s gracious rule in our various activities, in relationship with others, and in a way that reflects God’s own loving hand – that his name might be majestic in all the earth.