I cannot believe how often educated people pull out the claim that Jesus probably never existed. Except that it’s not PC to say so, it really deserves the title of Old Wives Tale! (more…)
Category Archives: Jesus
Time to be hated?
Life, Sola Panel
Maybe you’re a people-pleaser (like I am), and like to be liked by the smart and the sensible. If that’s you, then I wonder if Jesus’ words in John 7 will cut you like they did me this morning. (more…)
Christmas Poetry
Life, Sola Panel
Thanks to the CASE team (CASE = Centre for Apologetic Scholarship & Education) at New College, I’ve enjoyed receiving their quarterly journal for the past few years. Each one has a theme, and they’ve had some real winners in the last two years, including on: (more…)
Did the baby Jesus cry?
Thought
In the middle of the classic Christmas hymn ‘Away in a Manger’, there is this one line that doesn’t quite ring true. The second stanza tells us, “The cattle are lowing, the baby awakes / But little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes”. Did baby Jesus really not cry? The hymn author was likely thinking that Jesus did not cry because he was perfect and divine. But does a crying baby Jesus detract from his divinity? I think not, but a non-crying baby Jesus detracts from his humanity. (more…)
Exploding Fenella Souter’s Myths of Christmas
Review, Thought, Sola Panel
Last Saturday, the ‘Good Weekend’ magazine published by the Sydney Morning Herald (and the Melbourne Age?), ran an article by Fenella Souter entitled “Truth, Lies and Santa Claus: Exploding the Myths of Christmas” (not available online). (more…)
Preaching Christ from the Old Testament
Pastoral Ministry
Preaching Christ from the Old Testament is hard. It’s hard because the Old Testament text itself can be hard to deal with—it’s long, complicated, and culturally distant. It’s hard because even when we get to grips with the text, it isn’t always easy to see how it relates to Jesus and/or how we can encourage people with the gospel, rather than simply making them feel guilty and weighed down with impossible requirements. (more…)
Jesus IS a Jew
Thought
Is this a modern scandal for Christians—a truth that some find hard to swallow? I don’t mean that that Jesus was a Jew, but that he is one now.
How to stay in the middle of the road
Life
I have been thinking about the nature of Christian truth recently—in particular, what it means to live the Christian life. And I keep coming across these poles to avoid: one the one hand, legalism, and on the other hand, licentiousness.
But what would happen if you tried to drive your car down the middle of the freeway by adopting this strategy—whatever you do, avoid the right hand and left hand edges of the road? (The golfers all know the answer to this question already: “Don’t hit it left, don’t hit it left … Doh!”).