Articles, thoughts, essays, and content from Brian as well as students – our budding theologians.
A Christmas Letter…
After not having written a Christmas letter for a few years, Rosemary and I thought we’d make amends this year. Some of you will have already received it via email, but over the years we have lost the addresses of so many good friends that we thought we’d post it on the blog as well, in the hope that we will be able to make contact again through this forum. True, the blog usually deals with weightier matters than our family news, but Christmas is a different time of the year. I realise that many who follow this blog do it for its...
read moreQuotable and Alpha and Omega
Those who have been following this blog will know that in the lead up to Christmas, we have been looking at some questions that Jesus asked – having noted that he asked an awful lot of questions – often in reply to questions he had been asked. So here are the two questions for the 24th and 25th December. And because that will seem a little brief, I have also attached another of the Christmas meditations that have been appearing on the Vose Seminary site in the “Theologians at Lunch” section and which you might have...
read moreKing of Kings and Lord of Lords…
In my last post I mentioned a series on the titles of Jesus which we are featuring on the Vose Seminary website blog “Theologians at Lunch” . We’ve focused on a different title each day in the lead up to Christmas. These are also being broadcast on Sonshine fm – Perth’s leading Christian radio station. Here is one that I wrote, reflecting on the description of Jesus in Revelation 19:16 as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Hope it helps you in your journey towards Christmas… As Christmas approaches...
read moreThe Way, the Truth and the Life: with Jon Bergmann
One of the many things I love about my post as principal of Vose Seminary, is that I get to work with some amazing and creative thinkers. No matter whose office I walk into at the seminary, my entry causes the average IQ in the room to drop about 10 points! More recently we’ve been trying to share that giftedness more widely, and have created a section on the seminary’s website called, “theologians at lunch” – it’s meant to capture some of the feel of many of our lunchtime conversations. In the lead up to...
read moreQuotable: Questions Jesus Asked – Take 2
A piece of unverified Bible trivia I came across is that Jesus asks 307 questions in the Bible. True, some of the questions appear several times, being repeated in the different gospels, so the number of distinctly different questions is less – but you still can’t get away from the fact that Jesus asked lots of questions. While each had its own immediate purpose and context, they remain powerfully penetrating, and I have found it a worthwhile spiritual exercise to sit with some of the questions and to allow them to challenge me at...
read moreReframing Competition…
In a 2017 address to Baptist Care Australia, Competing with Purpose, Traverse director David Benson encouraged listeners to consider what it might mean to reframe our understanding of competition, so that instead of seeing it as a means to beat and defeat our competitors, it is transformed into a mechanism to ensure that we are both stronger and better as a result of the encounter. His work has set me thinking about the role of competition in the Christian faith, and as part of our journey of discipleship. There are many portraits in...
read moreQuotable: Questions Jesus Asked
A piece of unverified Bible trivia I came across is that Jesus asks 307 questions in the Bible. True, some of the questions appear several times, being repeated in the different gospels, so the number of distinctly different questions is less – but you still can’t get away from the fact that Jesus asked lots of questions. While each had its own immediate purpose and context, they remain powerfully penetrating, and I have found it a worthwhile spiritual exercise to sit with some of the questions and to allow them to challenge me at...
read moreQuotable – For Christmas
With the Christmas season upon us, I thought I’d look at some Christmas quotes from notable figures. A thousand times in history a baby has become a king, but only once in history did a King become a baby. Anon Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before! What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. What if Christmas…perhaps…means a little bit more! Dr Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas How many observe Christ’s birthday! How few, His precepts. Benjamin Franklin Gifts of time and...
read moreQuotable: Rachel Held Evans, Searching for Sunday – Take 2
Last week we looked at some of the notable quotes with which Rachel Held Evans starts different chapters of her 2015 book Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving and Finding the Church. This week we look at some of her own insights from the book, which as the title suggests, explores her journey of loving, leaving and finding the church. The book is well worth the read – at times it is funny, at other times sad, sometimes poignant, and often profound. It is no coincidence that when Satan tempted Jesus after his baptism, he began his...
read moreQuotable: Rachel Held Evans – Searching for Sunday
Rachel Held Evans 2015 book Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving and Finding the Church is well worth the read. As the sub title suggests, it is a book about loving, leaving and finding the church – and tells of a journey well worth pondering. Each chapter starts with a quote from a noteworthy figure, or a verse from the Bible. Here are a few of these quotes… I prefer a church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out in the streets, rather than a church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging...
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