Geoff Chapman - Theology Blog

Spurgeon On Loving Sinners

O ye that are now in the flock, think of the love of Christ to you when you were outside the fold; when you had no wish to return; when seeing him pursuing you, you only ran faster to escape his almighty love!  Notwithstanding all my rebellion, and all my wilful transgression, he still loved me with his heart, and pursued me with his Word.  Oh, how we ought to love sinners, since Jesus loved us,…

The invisibility of God is a great problem. It was already a problem to God’s people in Old Testament days. Their pagan neighbours would taunt them, saying, “Where now is your god?” Their gods were visible and tangible, but Israel’s God was neither. Today in our scientific culture young people are taught not to believe in anything which is not open to empirical investigation. How then has God…

Cultural Humility and Same-Sex Marriage

Gavin Ortlund writes: 99.8%+ of human cultures have considered gender diversity to be of the essence of marriage, and even in our culture almost everyone understood marriage this way, until the last 5-10 years, including President Obama. As Chief Justice John Roberts put it, this view of marriage has “formed the basis of human society for millennia, for the Kalahari Bushmen and the Han Chinese,…

Thick Communities and The Future of The Church

Most of us do not live in thick communities.  My contention is that if we do not develop these communities, then our faith, over a generation or two, will be lost. Modernity is that corrosive of the faith’s foundations. More here: (a useful summary of Dreher’s ideas and response to critique: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/noah-the-benedict-option/)

The Next Culture War – Rod Dreher

by ROD DREHER: David Brooks points out that orthodox Christians have lost the culture war decisively, and ponders three futures for our tribe. Excerpt: The Supreme Court’s gay marriage decision landed like some sort of culminating body blow onto this beleaguered climate. Rod Dreher, author of the truly outstanding book “How Dante Can Save Your Life,” wrote an essay in Time in which he argued that…

The Church In Exile

Carl Trueman writes: The Christian church on earth is always, in a sense, in exile. Whatever the incidental identities of her members may be—whether of nationality, race, class, or gender—their ultimate identity is that they are in Christ and belong to him. Compared to the ephemeral categories that human cultures have created for distinguishing one from another, this foundation in Christ is…

Something Greater Than Marriage

Rosaria Butterfield & Christopher Yuan write: The Supreme Court of the United States of America has made gay marriage legal in all 50 states, and much of our country celebrates. The world with its rainbow flags waving proudly and plentifully was our world. We locked arms with our LGBT loved ones and friends and believed they were truly and honestly our family of choice. This is the world that we,…

The discussion regarding Jesus’ relationship with the Father in John 10:22ff happens, according to the Johannine author (v.22), against the backdrop of the Feast of Dedication (or Hannukah).  This editorial note by John is quite possibly a deliberate parallel reference to the resurrection of Jesus.  If this is the case then it sheds further light on the authorial purpose of this difficult passage.

Something strange is happening—there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. God has died in the flesh and hell trembles with fear.

He has gone to search for our first…

My Brothers and Sisters, who can speak of Jesus but Himself? He masters all our eloquence. His perfection exceeds our understanding! The light of His excellence is too bright for us, it blinds our eyes! Our Beloved must be His own mirror. None but Jesus can reveal Jesus!

He sets Himself forth by many choice metaphors and instructive emblems by which He would make us know some little of that love…

What words can adequately describe God’s gifts? They are so numerous that they cannot be numbered. They are so great that any one of them demands our total gratitude in response.

Yet even though we cannot speak of it worthily, there is one gift which no thoughtful man can pass over in silence. God fashioned man in his own image and likeness; he gave him knowledge of himself; he endowed him with…

Who can express the binding power of divine love? Who can find words for the splendour of its beauty? Beyond all description are the heights to which it lifts us.

Love unites us to God; it cancels innumerable sins, has no limits to its endurance, bears everything patiently. Love is neither servile nor arrogant. It does not provoke schisms or form cliques, but always acts in harmony with others.…

All the feelings and passions that lead us into sin were really made to serve righteousness, says Gregory of Nyssa:

I advise that love’s passion be placed in the soul’s purest shrine, chosen as the first fruits of all our gifts, and devoted completely to God. And once this is done, I should be kept untouched and unstained by any secular impurity.

Then indignation and anger and hatred must be…

Ignatius was Bishop of Antioch from 67 to 100 AD.  On his way to martyrdom in Rome he wrote a letter to the church at Ephesus urging them to unity. In practical terms this comes from spending time together with other Christians, a natural consequence of faith seeking love.  He writes:

Try to gather together more frequently to give thanks to God and to praise him. For when you come together…

Christ is bathed in light; let us also be bathed in light. Christ is baptized; let us also go down with him, and rise with him.

John is baptising when Jesus draws near. Perhaps he comes to sanctify his baptiser; certainly he comes to bury sinful humanity in the waters. He comes to sanctify the Jordan for our sake and in readiness for us; he who is spirit and flesh comes to begin a new creation…

Even if you do not confess, God is not ignorant of the deed, since He knew it before it was committed. Why then do you not speak of it? Does the transgression become heavier by the confession? No, it become lighter and less troublesome.

And this is why He wants you to confess: not that you should be punished, but that you should be forgiven; not that He may learn your sin -how could that be,…