A post for Good Friday…
Not the day for lengthy ponderous thoughts… just a day to wonder at the depth of God’s love – demonstrated and proved so dramatically at Calvary. Why not read the biblical accounts of the crucifixion, and then perhaps add to them the words of this once greatly loved but now not so often sung hymn, When I survey the Wonderous Cross (Isaac Watts, 1707) When I survey the wondrous cross On which the Prince of glory died, My richest gain I count but loss, And pour contempt on all my pride. Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast, Save in the death of Christ my God! All the vain...
Read MoreGrand Bassam: On a Terrorist Attack…
I wonder what you felt when (and if) you read of the terrorist attack in the coastal town of Grand Bassam, Republic of the Ivory Coast, last week. Perhaps you shrugged your shoulders and asked in despair ‘What is the world coming to? So much violence.’ Or in your impatience to get to the sports page, perhaps you paid this bad news item no attention. For Audrey Francis, a student at Vose Seminary who served with her husband as a missionary in the Ivory Coast for 10 years, this was not a news item she could simply shrug off. She has walked on the beach where the attack took place...
Read MoreManaging Monday with Bonhoeffer – take two…
Last week I posted three quotes from notable German theologian, and victim of the Nazi regime, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Here are a few more… five actually. One a day until Good Friday… Silence in the face of evil is itself evil – Bonhoeffer If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the opposite direction – Bonhoeffer The blessedness of waiting is lost on those who cannot wait, and the fulfilment of promise is never theirs. They want quick answers to the deepest questions of life and miss the value of those times of anxious waiting, seeking...
Read MoreEvangelicals and the Bible
Rosemary and I set off for Auckland tonight, where I will be teaching a graduate course in Evangelical Theology at Laidlaw College. It will be good to be back on our old home territory. I have often said to people that we feel enormously privileged to consider 3 countries as home, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, and whenever we have not been able to get to one for a while, it feels as though something is wrong. It has been a couple of years since we were last in New Zealand, so a visit is overdue. While we will do our best to catch up with friends whilst there, the chief purpose of...
Read MoreGraduation Reflections…
You probably know that I serve as the principal of Vose Seminary. Last night was our graduation ceremony. I always find it a bitter sweet event. On the one hand, students start their studies with the hope of graduation in mind. The evening is about ‘mission accomplished’. Of course it is something to celebrate. And celebrate we do. Ours are not dry and dusty graduations. We delight in God’s presence and we raucously and cheerfully acknowledge each student’s success. But it is also about saying goodbye. We’ve had the honour of helping to shape and direct each...
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