Esther is a pretty difficult book to preach. It’s set in an obscure time in history; it doesn’t mention God; it’s largely narrative with little theological reflection; and the story takes a while to get going. And on top of that, its first chapter records some pretty negative treatment of […]
This is for our cross-cultural Bible group, made for retelling! Download it here. It’s a story about Jesus from Matthew and the drawings are inspired by Annie Vallotton (see 1, 2, 3).
I follow the M’Cheyne plan for reading the Bible. One beauty of it is that you read parts of the Bible you wouldn’t normally read. And come across interesting things. Today I read Leviticus 11-12 and was fascinated to read about insects that walk on all fours being unclean. Now, […]
Tonight a girl from our Melbourne church asked me how a feminist can read the Bible. In particular, she wondered why the Bible treats women so negatively, as the ones who do the wrong thing. I thought it was a good question and it expresses what I think is a common perception […]
In our Pentateuch class, I was struck by Genesis 22, the story of Abraham’s would-be sacrifice of Isaac. Surely this would be the passage to compare with Jephthah’s daugher in Judges 11! Both involve the notion of child sacrifice, yet the boy is spared and the girl killed. That’s rich fodder for any […]
This is our final year of theological college (third year of the MDiv) and our last 18 months in Melbourne. What will it mean for us to flourish? Space to thrive. We took on heaps last year — ten college subjects is a lot! Having overloaded, we’ve got a bit […]
I was asked to pick a psalm for our home church in Adelaide and chose Psalm 24, one of the ascension songs. The St Matt’s version (2 January) focuses on work and relationships. The first couple of minutes are missing from this recording. The Christ Church Hawthorn version (6 February) focuses […]
Meet Jesus at uni 