Mere Apologetics - 6d Clue 6: Beauty—The Splendor of the Natural World
Mere Apologetics - 6d Clue 6: Beauty—The Splendor of the Natural World
by SPCK - Alister McGrath
Clue 6: Beauty—The Splendor of the Natural World Many find themselves deeply moved by a scene of natural beauty— for example, a great mountain range, a glorious sunset, or wooded valleys. So how can we help someone move from a love of what God has created to a love of God the cre…
Mere Apologetics - 6c Clue 5: Desire— Homing Instinct for God
Mere Apologetics - 6c Clue 5: Desire— Homing Instinct for God
by SPCK - Alister McGrath
Clue 5: Desire— Homing Instinct for God Many arguments for the existence of God involve an appeal primarily to reason. Others involve an appeal to experience, finding their plausibility within the human heart as much as in human reason…
Mere Apologetics - 7b Opening the Door to Faith
Mere Apologetics - 7b Opening the Door to Faith
by SPCK - Alister McGrath
Opening the Door to Faith First, this approach is not well-grounded in the Bible. Truth, especially for the Old Testament, primarily designates reliability and trustworthiness. The apologetic issue is that God is a secure base, a place of safety on which to build the life of fait…
Mere Apologetics - 7c Gateway 4: Images
Mere Apologetics - 7c Gateway 4: Images
by SPCK - Alister McGrath
Gateway 4: Images For postmodern writers, pictures, rather than words, are the supreme form of communication. Advertising corporations spend fortunes determining the best image for a company. They develop television commercials presenting images that make us want to buy certain p…
Mere Apologetics - 8b Case Study 1: Why Does God Allow Suffering?
Mere Apologetics - 8b Case Study 1: Why Does God Allow Suffering?
by SPCK - Alister McGrath
Case Study 1: Why Does God Allow Suffering? Our first case study is an issue that is regularly raised both in public debates and private conversations. If God is good, why is there suffering in the world? Why do bad things happen in a universe created by a supposedly loving God? …
Mere Apologetics - 8c Case Study 2: God as a Crutch
Mere Apologetics - 8c Case Study 2: God as a Crutch
by SPCK - Alister McGrath
Case Study 2: God as a Crutch One of the most familiar criticisms of Christianity is that it offers consolation to life’s losers. The only way such sad people can cope with life, it is argued, is by inventing a God who comforts them. Real people don’t need such spurious reassuran…
Mere Apologetics - 8 Questions about Faith
Mere Apologetics - 8 Questions about Faith
by SPCK - Alister McGrath
Questions about Faith Apologetics is about communicating the joy, coherence, and relevance of the Christian faith on the one hand, and dealing with anxieties, difficulties, and concerns about that faith on the other. This has always been the case, from the time of the New Testame…
The Womens' Bible Commentary - Jerusalem’s Fall and Future
The Womens' Bible Commentary - Jerusalem’s Fall and Future
by SPCK - Newsom, Ringe and Lapsley
Jerusalem’s Fall and Future The second round of judgment/promise begins with a specific and detailed oracle against Jerusalem. The imagery here is graphic; it describes the rulers’ oppressive behaviour as tearing off the skin and flesh, consuming the people (3:1–3)…
Isaiah for everyone - Good News for People Who Are Broken and Flickering
Isaiah for everyone - Good News for People Who Are Broken and Flickering
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Good News for People Who Are Broken and Flickering In a movie we recently watched called Stuck between Stations, the protagonists, a man and a woman, tell each other stories that explicate something of who they are. The man is a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan who has watched one of …
Isaiah for everyone - The People Who Know What’s Best
Isaiah for everyone - The People Who Know What’s Best
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The People Who Know What’s Best I have been a student or a professor in four seminaries. One thing that students and faculty have in common is that they often think they know more about how to run the seminary than its head or the board of governors. For most of this time I was e…
Isaiah for everyone - God the Creator of Evil
Isaiah for everyone - God the Creator of Evil
by SPCK - John Goldingay
God the Creator of Evil My wife used to lead a women’s Bible Study where some women who came for a while would commonly give the existence of evil as their reason or excuse for not believing in God and not staying. Her comment is that the existence of evil surely makes it more im…
The Second Intercessions Handbook - And also...
The Second Intercessions Handbook - And also...
by SPCK - John Pritchard
AND ALSO… These are just seed ideas which can be developed in different ways. (61) . . . JIGSAWS It’s possible to cut a large piece of card into jigsaw-type shapes (maybe six or eight pieces) with a clear middle piece that holds the others together. You then ask the group what th…
The Womens' Bible Commentary - The Messenger, Justice, and the Father’s Special Possession
The Womens' Bible Commentary - The Messenger, Justice, and the Father’s Special Possession
by SPCK - Newsom, Ringe and Lapsley
The Messenger, Justice, and the Father’s Special Possession The three dialogues of 2:17–4:3 begin with an accusation: “You have wearied YHWH with your words.” The image of a weary Deity captures the emotional escalation that occurs in these passages…
The Second Intercessions Handbook - Prayer Bubbles
The Second Intercessions Handbook - Prayer Bubbles
by SPCK - John Pritchard
(58) PRAYER BUBBLES There’s something lastingly attractive about the delicate bubbles produced by blowing through the circular instrument in the little tubes of liquid you can easily buy from toy shops. The bubbles come out with a rush; some burst immediately; others drift slowly…
The Womens' Bible Commentary - Hope
The Womens' Bible Commentary - Hope
by SPCK - Newsom, Ringe and Lapsley
Hope Only shreds of hope appear in this book to counterpoise the deep river of devastation, grief, and despair that pervades most of it (3:14–18; 12:14–17; 16:14–15; 17:24–26; 22:2–4; 23:5–8; 24:4–7; 29:10–14; 42:7–12). In a collection of prose and poetry called “the little book …
The Womens' Bible Commentary - God as "Father"