Christian Union at Coleraine University

Last night I spoke at the Christian Union on the Coleraine campus of the University of Ulster.  I used to be part of the CU in Coleraine some 30 years ago.
They asked me to speak on the question of whether the Bible is gospel or garbage.  No doubt it’s a slightly shocking title to some [...]

Switzerland

This week Pauline and I are back in Switzerland.  We are guests of the Evangelical Baptist Church of Geneva who have invited us to be with them for their church weekend.  The weekend takes place in a hotel in the mountain resort of Leysin (the picture is a Photobooth shot from our balcony which looks [...]

Sunday at Portstewart Baptist

This morning we finished our series on the heroes of faith of Hebrews 11.  I actually preached on the first two verses of Hebrews 12, where the spotlight moves from those who have run their race and have taken their seats to us.  The basic command of the verses is that we are to run [...]

Sunday preaching at PBC

With the start of September we are now into the autumn season at PBC.  We were back to one morning service with a surprisingly large crowd (one last weekend on the coast for the city folk?).  I preached on David and Samuel – the last two Old Testament faith ‘heroes’ to get a mention by [...]

Is que sera sera good prayer theology?

Older readers, or music aficionados stumbling on this post may remember Doris Day singing about her mother’s advice to her as a little girl that que sera sera, whatever will be will be.  The song was written in 1956 and featured in an Alfred Hitchcock movie of the same year.  Here’s the chorus:
Que sera, sera.
Whatever will [...]

Sunday preaching

Yesterday was our last summer Sunday at Portstewart Baptist.  Truth to tell, summer weather has been in short supply for a few weeks now, but it’s still August.  So it was our last family service of the season (led by the local SU worker).  My summer Sunday morning series has turned out to be longer [...]

A sermon outline

I preached last weekend on the faith of Rahab (along with other stories from Hebrews).  This week I am moving on to Judges.  Meantime, here is an outline of a sermon on Rahab’s faith.

It was saving faith (delivered from the destruction of Jericho)
It was singular faith (no one else believed along with her)
It was stable [...]

Sunday at Portstewart Baptist

Every picture tells a story.  The one on the left doesn’t quite reflect much of the weather that has been seen on the north coast over the past week.  Summer is winding down and yesterday was the penultimate family service of the season, led by the team that was responsible for our holiday Bible week [...]

Rejoice in the Lord – Don Carson at New Horizon

Don Carson’s message on Wednesday evening was a contrast with that of Tuesday.  Tuesday – the second half of Galatians 2 – had dealt with some detailed issues of interpretation, reflecting the dense theological content of the passage; last night took us to Philippians 4 and Don’s exposition reflected the practical, pastoral issues of that [...]

Tuesday evening at New Horizon

The only meeting I attended at New Horizon yesterday was the evening celebration.  Pauline took in more of the day’s events, including a seminar by Jani Ortlund called “Help, I’m married to the Minister.”  (A Presbyterian friend rejected my attempt to suggest that this meant Presbyterians more than Baptists – who, after all, have pastors.) [...]

Enoch – standing out from everyone else.

Last Sunday I preached on Enoch – one of three characters in the faith sermon.  The main reason he stands out is that, unlike everyone else (bar Elijah) in the Bible, he died.  But a scan of Genesis 5 also highlights his walk with God:

The days of Adam after he fathered Seth were 800 years; [...]

Keswick at Portstewart

As I said this time last year, it is not that the town of Keswick moves from England to the North Coast of Ireland, just that there is a Bible convention in Portstewart that belongs to the same family as the one in England’s Lake District.
The Portstewart version has been running for almost 70 years [...]

Sunday at Portstewart Baptist Church

On Sunday morning I preached on the first half of Philippians 4.  The issues range from resolving disagreement (the story of Euodia and Synthyche), through rejoicing and refusing to be anxious, to thinking about what is good and excellent.  I summed it up by talking about what it means to live positively relationally (seeking agreement), [...]

When to be certain, when to be open minded

I have been speaking recently from Philippians about what it means to be of one mind.  From other parts of the New Testament, from the witness of history, and from our own experience, we can see that it can’t mean agreeing to dot every 1 and tick every box in exactly the same way.  There [...]

Sunday sermon at Portstewart Baptist

This morning – warm sunshine, summer has arrived – we had a good crowd for a varied service at PBC.  Two special parts of the service were, first, a 10 minute talk from a local representative of the Gideons – famous for their evangelistic distribution of the Bible – and, second, a prayer for the [...]

Sunday at Portstewart Baptist

Already half-way through the week, but here and here are the audio links to the two sermons I preached on Sunday.
In the morning we were looking at the second half of Philippians 2.  Technically the first paragraph of that (from verse 12) belongs with the rest of Paul’s appeal that started in 1:27, but we [...]

The Leadership Journey of Moses

This week sees the annual meetings of the Association of Baptist Churches in Ireland, of which our church is a member. On Monday I was invited to speak at an event for Baptist workers – mostly pastors and retired pastors and their wives.  I used Stephen’s 3 part outline of Moses’ life (see Acts 7) [...]

Sunday at Portstewart Baptist Church

This weekend is a holiday weekend here in Northern Ireland and it tends to give us one of our biggest Sundays outside of July and August.  This morning I was preaching the second part of our gospel-centred living series from Philippians.  We were looking at Paul’s personal update in 1:12-26.  Although his circumstances were difficult [...]

ESV Study Bible

This week we took delivery of an order of over 50 ESV Study Bibles.  We ordered them towards of the end of last year when Crossway was launching the new Bible.  Unfortunately we had to wait over 6 months as the success of the ESVSB meant the publisher running out of copies and having to [...]

Philippians at Portstewart Baptist

On Sunday morning I preached the first of what is planned to be an 8 week series on Paul’s letter to the church at Philippi.  I’m putting it under the heading of Living a Gospel-Centred Life.
The first message looked at Paul’s prayer for, and partnership with the Philippians (1:3-11).

He was grateful for their partnership.
He was [...]

An Easter sacrifice?

Giles Fraser has been writing in the Guardian, wishing that Christians would ditch the sacrificial view of the Easter.  It makes you wonder what Bible he reads, or whether, for example, the letter to the Hebrews has been removed.

But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at [...]

ESV Bible Blog » 2009 Christian Book of the Year: The ESV Study Bible

ESV Bible Blog » 2009 Christian Book of the Year: The ESV Study Bible

Sunday morning at PBC – the book of Acts

On Sunday morning we were thinking about the mission of a gospel-centred church.  I took three themes from the book of Acts which need to be true for the church today if we are to play our part in the ongoing story.

We need to believe in the sovereign control of God.
We need to be convinced [...]

ESV Study Bible

After exhausting their initial print runs, the ESVSB was due to be back in stock last week.  Meantime the publishers are allowing free access to the online version of the study Bible during this month – normally access is reserved for people who own a paper copy.
ESV Study Bible Blog
In addition to the features [...]

Sunday at Portstewart Baptist Church – a sermon on forgiveness

One of the most powerful stories to illustrate gospel-centred living has to be the story Jesus told about forgiveness in Matthew 18.  I preached from this on Sunday morning to establish how the gospel needs to shape the community life of the church.  Our small groups will be building on this as they meet this [...]

Delays

In an instant world, many of us find delays hard to cope with.  Whether it is internet speed, the length of time it takes for a parcel to arrive in the post, or waiting for the resolution to a problem, delays test us.
In Matthew 15, a Canaanite woman asks Jesus to help her demon-oppressed daughter. [...]

Marketing the ESV

I think the publishers of the ESV do a very good job of marketing their translation (the popularity of the new study Bible is evidence of this).  The photo below is not an ad: this is John Atta Mills being sworn in as President of Ghana this week.

Sunday at Portstewart Baptist

On Sunday morning we started a ten part series on Becoming a Gospel-Centred Church.  The series is going to try to explore some of what we recently outlined in our new vision document.  Along with the sermons, our small groups will be working through supplementary material on the same themes as the sermons.  The basic [...]

Through the Bible in 2009

It’s not too late to set out to read through the Bible in 2009 (you’d have to do a bit of catch up over the weekend to get on track).  The ESV publishers have listed a number of reading plans in a number of different formats.  You could download the plan directly to your calendar [...]

Sunday morning at Portstewart Baptist

Our last Sunday morning of 2008 took the theme of hope.  The message was based on the story of Simeon in Luke 2.  His life revolved around the specific hope of the consolation of Israel.
We thought about how his hope was based on God’s promise.  Although Luke does not specifically mention any particular Old Testament [...]