Month: May 2025
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Romans 16 shows Paul’s support for women leaders
In this series of articles about Romans, I’m planning to jump around. It’s because I buy into Scot McKnight’s view that the book is much more understandable when reading it backwards – digging early on into the effective conclusions in the final few chapters. Some read Romans as though Paul was writing it to defend…
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Romans 1 introduces a pastoral letter to Jews and Gentiles
The big risk in reading Paul’s letter to the Romans is not realising its context. This is a letter with a pastoral intent: Paul is trying to help Jewish and Gentile followers of Jesus to get along. As Scot McKnight has noted, parts of the letter are really aimed at only one of the two…
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The eye-opening communion after Jesus preached
What does the Eucharist, or Holy Communion, mean to you? I’ve always thought it as one of my favourite parts of a church service, and I think this is because it offers guided space for reflection. At the same time, something spiritual happens when we consecrate the Holy Communion, which John Calvin thought of as…
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Sacraments help fuel harmony in churches
In an attempt to develop an ethos of “real”, modern Christianity, churches sometimes wipe away liturgy and relegate communion to a once-a-month endeavour. But there’s a real danger that, far from improving the culture of a church, it actually creates division. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the great Lutheran theologian, pastor and opponent of Nazism, suggested in his…