Skip to content

5

John Brand at Cutting it Straight asked me the following questions:

1. How did you get into blogging?

2. Why do you blog? What is, if you like your ‘Mission Statement’ as a blogger?

3. What do you see as the strategic benefits of Christian blogging?

4. What are some of the problems and weaknesses you see as you survey the Christian blogging scene?

5. Is there a gap in the scene; an area of Christian life or ministry that is not being adequately addressed?

6. What advice would you give to someone considering starting blogging?

7. What are your favourite 5 Christian blogs?

.

Here are my responses...

.

Two wonderful posts at Christocentrism:

The Fatal Wound

...What is the great problem within evangelicalism today?  A lack of convincing action in the world that would back-up our faith?  Increasing laxity on doctrines such as hell and the atonement?  The decline in church attendance, giving, and sending?  Perhaps these are serious problems.  But they’re just irritating shards of shrapnel compared to the seriousness of the mortal wound: evangelicalism is Christless.  Not everywhere, and not everyone– but evangelicalism is walking wounded with a limping Christless gospel, biblical hermeneutic, and discipleship....

...Even Christians need Christ.  And so long as Christ is not the context, content, and control on all we think, say, and do, then we are a dying–if not already dead–evangelicalism.

Christ in the Temple

When Christ was taken to the Temple to be circumcised eight days after he was born of Mary, it was by no means his first visit.  Christ had dwelt in the Holy of Holies enthroned on the ark of the covenant in glory from the time the Tabernacle was built by Moses.  The pre-incarnate Christ was the LORD, the God of Israel, and the Tabernacle/Temple was a living sermon on the subject of his Person and work....

.

Go and visit Christocentrism which promises more of the same.

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus!” – Hebrews 12:2

For every look at self—take ten looks at Christ!

–Robert Murray McCheyne

Hin-Tai and Chris have a brilliant new blog that you should all add to your readers.  It promises to be Christ-centred, trinitarian, affective  and pastoral.  Four thumbs up.

In his latest post, Hin-Tai wrestles with the desire to have a Christ-exalting blog while resisting the self-absorbing pull of blogging.

2

Well it's up.

Now I've just got to write 365 posts.

Here's my page about the blog.

And here's my page about Jesus.

Please link to it if you can.  And if anyone has ideas about design (header, etc), let me know.

:)

 

Well it's up.

Now I've just got to write 365 posts.

Here's my page about the blog.

And here's my page about Jesus.

Please link to it if you can.  And if anyone has ideas about design (header, etc), let me know.

:)

 

In the new year I'm planning on starting another blog - The King's English.  I want to blog on a phrase a day that has passed from the King James translation into common parlance (2011 is the 400th anniversary of the translation).

I'd like it to be as jargon-free as possible and aimed at non-Christians - though I hope Christians might find it nice and devotional.

Once I secure the right domain I'll let you have the link and if you can publicize it on your own blog / facebook / twitter I'd be really grateful.

I've whittled down the phrases to 365 below.  I'm sure I'm missing loads from the prophets and kings/chronicles.  But it's interesting that Jesus' words in the Gospels are at least half of all the Bible's quotable quotes!  Are there any glaring omissions you can spot?

-----------------------------------------------------------

...continue reading "King James Phrases"

My wife has now transitioned from Blog Widow to Blog Wonder.  Emma's website is called A New Name and I'm letting you all in on the ground floor!

There'll be lots of discussion about the gospel and food, the body, gender, identity, that kind of thing.  When you read her story you'll know why.

Through her own testimony and wisdom she has helped so many other women through struggles and I'm praying that this will be a way she can bless more.

She's speaking at a big conference tomorrow on some of these issues (hence getting the website up in a hurry).   I'm sure she'd value your prayers about that too.

Go over and encourage her with a comment.

.

Have I ever mentioned how ramshackle the whole christthetruth enterprise is?  I'm sure you've noticed it's basicallly held together with bluetac and prayer.  I edit my website in miscrosoft word, I produce my videos in powerpoint and tape my songs on a little dictation recorder.  And, yes, I know that it shows.

So anyway, my technical know-how is zero!  This is where you come in.

For a new little (ramshackle) adventure I have purchased a domain name and I'd like to get a website up and running in the next three days.

It needs to:

  • Be a website with a blog section.  i.e. Not exactly a blog, but a website with a prominent blog section.
  • Be attractive - especially to teenage girls (all will be explained!)
  • Have a fixed homepage
  • Be easy to navigate in order to find informative papers.

So, something like a homepage with a tab at the top for the blog and a sidebar down the side for papers - something like that.

I've looked at a lot of wordpress templates but, while they'd be fine as blogs it seems difficult to have more than a few pages displayed on them.

I'm willing to spend a little bit of money.

Any suggestions?

.

 

Blogging has its problems, but besides trying to have a laugh, this is what I've been trying to say:

I'm essentially a grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone guy.  And I believe that this is true just as much for revelation as it is for salvation.

Therefore Christ the Truth means Jesus is not just the one Way or one Life, but the one Truth of God.  All truth - is in Jesus. This means all our thinking about God must begin with HimNot some Christ-principle but Jesus of NazarethNot some divinized ideal but the actual Jesus of the Gospels.

When we do this we realize that Jesus is God-sized and God is Jesus-shaped.  Thus we see the cruciformity of the Christian GodThe Lamb is at the centre of the throneGod's perfection is in His mercyHis glory is His self-giving.  This is unlike popular teaching on God acting with ultimate self-regard.  His glory is NOT His self-centredness but His other-centredness.  (Don't worry, I'm still a Trinitarian hedonist.)

Our God, most fundamentally, is trinity.  He is One and ThreeGod's One-ness and Three-ness are not un-coordinated perspectives.  Rather the unity of God is always and irreducibly a tri-unity.  To approach God's oneness in this way guards against many errors and brings many benefits. (It can also teach some lessons about marriage, family and church).

Of course this christocentric, trinitarian approach is not a New Testament novelty.  Christ has always been the object of faith and hope for Old Testament believers. He is the Hope of the Ages - just study Exodus to see an example of it.  Revelation has always been on a trinitarian dynamic.  The Hebrew Scriptures give us a trinitarian witness on their own terms and in their own context.

From this it becomes obvious that there are no true understandings of God that are not Christ-centred, trinitarian revelations.  Neither reason, nor creation, nor religion (be it biblical or unbiblical) can offer us stepping stones towards true knowledge.  We either begin with the Christ, the Son of God or we don't begin at all.

This has important implications for apologetics and evangelism.  For one thing, Christ alone and Grace alone means we must believe in Revelation alone.  The direction of travel is always down from on high.  The Gospel is not a good idea instead it is proclamation of things that have already taken place.

Yet this does not make us reductionistic.  No, from Christ we can reason truly and understand the wealth of God's revelation in all the universe. But actually all worldviews are religious - even the materialist ones.   And all modes of enquiry follow a theological method: faith seeking understanding.

All of which is to say that 'Christ the Truth' is the true lens through which to see all of reality, be it science, marriage, gender, porn, sickness, tragedy, comedy, whatever.

In all things we must realise that the God with Whom we deal is never an abstract deity but always the very concrete Jesus with His Father and Spirit - He is always and at all times irreducibly the God of the Gospel.  And His being is unfolded and expressed precisely in the gospel economy.

Because He is love - a spreading goodness - His being is always towards our salvation. This is the way of the LORDHe determines to rescue us because He delights in us.

Thus the Father sends His Son to lay hold of our humanity in incarnation, to live our life through trial and temptation and to work out our righteousness in our place and on our behalf.   Then He died our death in crucifixion.   He pioneered our new birth when He rose again as Head over creation and ascended to the Father's right hand in glory.

Humanity is not free to choose participation in this lifeWe contribute nothing to this salvation.  Rather we are freed by the Son to enjoy His statusI am in Christ and Christ is in me.  Thus we find ourselves as those already embraced by this triune God.  We find ourselves participating in this divine nature - loved with the eternal love of the trinity.  This is not a mush of groovy feelings but is enjoyed concretely as a cruciform life of cheek-turning.

Faith is not a thing we contribute to this salvation. It is a looking unto Jesus - the very opposite of self-regard.

In this we find our identity - not in personality types but in Jesus.  We find our assurance - not in personal piety but in our perfect Priest.  We find our encouragement - far above and beyond ourselves, in Christ who is our righteousness. Since this is so, sinning really isn't the worst thing - refusing His forgiveness is.   We respond to sin by looking away from self to our Champion.  This is not cheap grace, but true discipleship and in this we resist the devil.  In such discipleship boasting is out and humility is in.

Such a gospel overflows in our hearts with singing and poetry and other creative things.   But most of all with proclamation - we believe therefore we speak.  Preaching is basically the heralding of our Champion's victory.  You can listen to my own approach with these evangelistic talks or with sermon series such as Church in the Wilderness or Gospel alone.

There are ten things you should definitely avoid with preaching and there are ways of getting better at it - but we need to think carefully about themOur proclamation is itself the Word of God.  And there is incredible power in it.  What we need is truly Christ-centred preaching and evangelism.  And this is our task as we await the return of Jesus - not the moral/social/political reformation of society (or even ourselves), but the proclamation of King Jesus.  And its point (its application if you will) is not moralism but always to look to Him.

.

Twitter widget by Rimon Habib - BuddyPress Expert Developer