I’ve had a few complaints recently that my blog isn’t being updated regularly enough. Part of the reason has been that my focus has been on preparing material for theology & Bible teaching sessions. Earlier this year, thanks to plenty of help from by good friend Mark Mould, I ran a “Saturday Morning Theology” course, consisting of 10 talks on the doctrine of salvation. It was the second course we had run, the first being on the doctrine of the church.
We didn’t take up the typical headings found in a systematic theology, but rather attempted to go chronologically, starting with God’s electing purpose before time, then to the fall, to the cross and resurrection, then onto the new birth, the Christian life, and finally persevering to the end and our future hope. We didn’t cover anywhere near everything that should be covered in a course on salvation, but it was really good to wrestle with these doctrines from slightly different angles to normal, and also to have some lively debate on controversial topics that can be too easily avoided or skirted around (like predestination and perseverance of the saints).
Anyway, thanks to the efforts of Matt Riley, all the talks are available to watch on video. The sound quality is sadly not that good, but most of the talks have handouts and presentations available to download. A few of them are available as MP3. The videos and additional downloads are available here.
I’m afraid new blog posts are likely to be sparse in the future too, as I’m currently working on a summer series of seminars on the book of Esther. I’ll try to turn my notes into posts if possible.
I had the privilege of being invited to preach at Bishopdown Baptist Church a week ago. They had been working their way through the book of Joshua and I was tasked with speaking on the final chapter.
As part of my preparation, I worked through the book of Joshua with the help of Dale Ralph Davis’ excellent exposition, No Falling Words. The chapter is interesting because it brings up the subject of idolatry, so I also drew on some of Tim Keller’s insights from his Counterfeit Gods book.
Anyway, the sermon is available online to listen to here. There was a slight technical hitch with the recording which meant the level isn’t quite as good as it could be, but it seems to be reasonably good quality.
Actually the whole sermon wasn’t about idolatry. My main points were:
- God’s faithfulness in the past
- A choice to make in the present (turning from idols)
- The need to persevere to the end
In fact Joshua 24 is rich enough to preach several sermons on. I didn’t even get a chance to touch on Joshua’s famous words “as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord”. (Josh 24:15)
While I’m on the subject of idolatry, here’s a link to another sermon on idolatry I preached back in September 2008 as part of a series on the Ten Commandments at KCC.
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I am aware that my blogging this year has been rather sparse, mostly consisting of book reviews. This is because I have been busy preparing various talks, which always takes priority over blogging. However, a number of them are now available to listen to online, so I am planning to post links the here.
The sermon is on the theme of growing up into maturity in Christ, and is based on various verses from Colossians, which I have been studying my way through this year (some commentary reviews to follow in a month or two). I preached it at my church’s “Abide” evening, which is aimed at students and twenties.
You can download and listen to it here.
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My preaching notes can be viewed here.