"His Blood Is On Us"

Sitting in the midst of Matthew’s passion narrative is a verse that has been referred to as the “darkest and hardest verse in this gospel.”[1] The infamous “blood libel” (Matthew 27:25) has certainly had a dark and unfortunate past in the history of the church. The worst of which involves this verse being used to support the anti-Semitic agenda of those who would want to point the finger towards the Jewish people assigning them perpetual responsibility for the death of Jesus. So powerful has this been that when Mel Gibson produced his The Passion of the Christ in 2004 this verse was spoken in Aramaic (by the Jewish priests) but deliberately omitted from the English subtitles. At the outset such a misinterpretation of this verse must be rejected outright.

What is "Worship"?

"All of life is worship"

I've heard it so many times I couldn't count it. It is true that every moment of our lives is to be spent glorifying and honouring God, but when I hear this I want to ask a follow up question.

"Why, then, should Christians gather for worship?"

I can sing worship songs on my own, read and interpret the Bible on my own, pray on my own and do much of what occurs in the communal gathering on my own. So why should I gather with other Christians for communal worship? 

What's so amazing about "grace"?

I'm finding the word “grace” an interesting one at the moment. In conversations with other Christians, in sermons, books, articles and blogs, this word frequently makes an appearance.

Think about this…

We’re saved by grace (Eph 2:8), amazed by grace, moved by grace, participate in the means of grace, and before we eat we “say” grace. Then if move into the realm of sacramental theology grace can be treated as a “thing” administered with the bread, wine or water (or other sacramental actions);  the “inward, invisible grace” that is represented by these “outward and visible signs”. We go even further when we narrow grace down into sub-categories. There’s prevenient grace, justifying grace, sanctifying grace and glorifying grace. Why do we do that? As one of my supervisors succinctly remarked – “grace is grace”.

Running On...

You may be well aware already that I am preparing to run my first Half-marathon in just over 2 weeks time - the Blackmores Sydney Half-Marathon. Since I only started running in January this year this is an exciting venture for me. My preparations have been going well. I can now confidently cover the distance of 21.1km, have a relatively good understanding of how to balance my energy intake and Blood Sugar Levels (BSL) and have in recent weeks begun to grasp what I need to do to pace myself well through the distance.

William Booth... 100 years on

Today marks 100 years since William Booth was "Promoted to Glory" as we say in The Salvation Army. Here is some footage from his funeral in London. It remained the largest attended funeral in that city until that of Princess Diana in 1997. I think that speaks volumes regarding the influence of the man upon that city and indeed the world.