Blog - Theology

Our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers and against the authorities of this dark world. Therefore I put on the full armour of God…

The belt truth, in faith in what is unseen and not what is seen. In the epic story of which you are the hero, and the great battle in the heavenly realms

The breastplate of righteousness won for me on the cross. The faithful act of your love, given as a free gift of utter grace to me.

I put on the shoes of the gospel of peace, the hope of the coming Kingdom, and pray for the full portion in my marriage, my family, my work, my kingdom and the remainder of my life in this age.

I put on the helmet of salvation, that you who begun a good work in me are faithful to bring it to completion. That you work all things together for good for those who love you, saving us to life, even through death.

I take up the shield of faith, with which I can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Faith in your goodness, that you are for me and not against me, that you know the plans you have for me, plans to prosper me and not to harm me, to give me a hope and a future, and that if we delight ourselves in you, you will give us the desires of our heart.

And I take the sword of the spirit which is the word of God. And I choose to be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of your might, to pray at all times in the Spirit.

In November 2011, N. T. Wright gave a deep and impassioned talk at Fuller Theological Seminary, on why we need to put the Gospels back together, and have the whole gospel of the Kingom, Cross, Resurrection and Life of Jesus.

N. T. Wright brings his excellent big picture perspective to the book of acts. These are all split into short videos, but we have put them all in playlists for your viewing pleasure!

Great to see Archbishop Justin Welby using Facebook to connect more people with the Word of God!

N. T. Wright is known for his excellent writing and speaker. Lesser known is his guitar playing and singing, but here are a few highlights:

Another must watch talk from N. T. Wright.

N.T. Wright Speaking at Newbigin House of Studies Inaugural Conference: Leadership for the Church-In-Mission
November 2011.

"In the one case, freedom is pursued at the cost of equality, in the other equality is pursued at the cost of freedom. Both derive from the enlightenment vision of human beings as autonomous individuals within innate and equal rights to pursue self chosen ends to the limit of their powers. Each ideology can accuse the other of violating a faith they both hold, by the denial of freedom on one side, and the denial of equality on the other.

I believe that the Christian view of God's purpose for the human family is different from both of these, and arises from a distinct belief about what human nature is. From its first page to its last, the Bible is informed by a vision of human nature where neither freedom nor equality is fundamental.

What is fundamental is relatedness. Man, male and female, is made for God in such a way that being in the image of God involves being bound together in this most profound of all mutual relations. God binds himself in a covenant relationship which men and women, to which he remains faithful at whatever cost and however unfaithful his covenant partner is. And people and nations are called to live in binding covenant relationships of brotherhood. Human beings reach their true end in such relatedness, in bonds of mutual love and obedience, that reflect the mutual relatedness in love, that is the being of the triune God himself.

Neither freedom nor equality are ideas that can take us to the heart of the matter. The breakdown of relationships will destroy freedom and will destroy equality, but neither of these will be achieved by being sort for itself. True freedom is not found by seeking to develop the powers of self without limit, for the human person is not made for autonomy, but for true relatedness in love and obedience, and this also entails the acceptance of limits as a necessary part of what it means to be human.”

- Lesslie Newbigin: Foolishness to the Greeks, The Gospel and Western Culture

Some interesting evidence for an early canon; The Muratorian Fragment and the Diatessaron.

Part of the hope that Christianity can offer the late modern world is an alternative to the extremes of modern certainty and postmodern relativism, what N.T. Wright calls going through postmodernism and out the other side to "Post post modernism". Part this involves presenting modernism with some of the challenges that come from academics themselves. One of the most important is Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems, that helps show that even mathematics itself has to be taken by faith as self evident in order to be used as a tool for knowledge.

Mark Colyvan (University of Sydney) does a good job at explaining the theorem and starts to apply to human thinking and belief systems.
"Your (belief) system is consistent. How plausible is that? Not at all!"
Towards the end he offers some implications that extend beyond mathematics to all human thinking and belief in general, and while he doesn't quite say it, shows that all human thinking, including mathematics and science requires "faith" or "trust". Not blind faith, but reasoned and evidence based faith.