Clone wars … when preachers sound the same

On Friday I wrote about whether or not Christian publishers should be putting new books out there when the topic concerned has already been covered helpfully and sufficiently by another book.  This was in response to this tweet from my friend Alistair Chalmers. One of Alistair’s main reasons was that he observed as he read,… Continue reading Clone wars … when preachers sound the same

Biblcal Theology and Isaiah

Biblical Theology helps us to see God’s big story of redemption unfolding on the pages of Scripture.  There are a couple of aspects to this.  First of all, authors such as Graeme Goldsworthy and Christopher Wright have identified three themes running through Scripture.  We can talk about The story that the Bible tells us the… Continue reading Biblcal Theology and Isaiah

TV, culture and curiosity

I’m following up on the discussion around TV and pastoral visits from the other day with some further thoughts, less to try and reach a definitive answer on the original question and more to work through some things that started to come out of the discussion. One key thing that I think came out of… Continue reading TV, culture and curiosity

Should publishers only publish genuinely original books?

My friend and fellow writer/blogger Alistair Chalmers, shared this tweet recently. Now, Alistair as well as being a great writer is a phenomenal reader (the two often go together).  So, he reads and reviews a lot of books, far more than I get through, so I suspect his comments reflect some observations he is seeing… Continue reading Should publishers only publish genuinely original books?

Why it might be good to switch the TV off when the pastor visits

Jeremy Walker posted on twitter recently that a particular challenge with modern pastoral visiting is the phenomena of the TV being on continuously in the background.  Now, I presume that by “modern” he’s referring to the past 50 years or so because this isn’t a particularly new thing. Steve Kneale has written here about why… Continue reading Why it might be good to switch the TV off when the pastor visits

The promised king and the promised Spirit

How would God’s people know that the promises were coming true and that they no longer needed to fear judgement.  Isaiah makes it clear that there were two crucial people who would come to confirm that hope had arrived. There was the promised king and the promised Holy Spirit. Read Isaiah 32 God promises that… Continue reading The promised king and the promised Spirit

Endorsements

One fall out from the recent TGC debacle over the article that was pulled, replaced with a longer book extract and then replaced with a resignation announcement has been greater attention on the Christian publishing world and how book endorsements work. A couple of the people who endorsed Josh Butler’s book have since withdrawn their… Continue reading Endorsements