Skip to main content

"This one was born there"

 —  James Oakley

Rich Lusk points out in his fine book Paedofaith how the testimony of the Psalmists is of God being their trust since birth and even conception.

Psalm 87 gives another slant on this wonderful truth that the blessing of being one of the people of God can be traced back to the earliest days. (Thomas, and others who have studied the Psalms much more than I, please correct me if needs be!)

Blog Category:

The 12

 —  James Oakley

Does anyone know where I can get hold of a copy of Simon Wakeling's dissertation on the unity of the book of the 12?

Blog Category:

McCheyne's Bible Reading Plan

 —  James Oakley

It’s nearly New Year’s day, so time for a post or several on reading through the whole Bible. Since I was introduced to it, back in 1995, I have been a big fan of Robert Murray McCheyne’s Bible reading plan.

He devised it to help his flock spend less time deciding which portions of Scripture to read, and more time reading Scripture. (Sounds like he would be better at revising for exams than most of us!) He saw the value of a whole church reading through the whole Bible each year, and reading it through in the same pattern. Yes, there are dangers of such a scheme, but for those able to avoid the dangers, it offers an excellent discipline.

Blog Category:

Who do you pray for?

 —  James Oakley

I’m a bit hopeless when it comes to lists.

But I do have a vague idea of the people I would like to pray for regularly.

Somehow, I tend to pray most for those people who are most in need of God’s help, those who are weakest, those with unrealised potential, etc.

Then I read Psalm 72.

Blog Category:

Boulders in Rivers

 —  James Oakley

Thanks to Graham Wintle for this one: friend, my vicar 10 years ago, now at St Stephen’s Willoughby in Sydney

A stone can affect a river in one of two ways. It can cause the waters to ripple – in slight, but intriguing ways. Or it can be a large boulder that diverts the entire course of the river.

Blog Category:

The real presence

 —  James Oakley

Thanks to Marc Lloyd for this one.

Doug Wilson is very helpful in articulating with clarity a Calvinist view of the Lord's Supper.

In a nutshell: Are the bread and wine that we share just bread and wine? His answer is: Yes... In the same sense in which the words on the page of the Bible are just words on a page.

The comments beneath his post are as worth reading as the post itself, because they clarify precisely what he is and is not saying.

Blog Category:

The magicians and the plagues

 —  James Oakley

I love the fact that the Egyptian magicians think it is clever to copy the first few plagues. (They run out of steam when it gets to the gnats).

The Egyptians "grow weary of drinking water from the Nile" (7:18 - !), because it is turned to blood. So the Egyptians produce... more blood.

Pharaoh is pleading (not very dignified for a king of Egypt, 8:8) with Moses and Aaron to take away the frogs. But that's alright - his magicians can produce... more frogs.

I mean: What use is more blood and more frogs?! The one thing they cannot copy is Yahweh's ability to take away the plagues. Thus it's clear, even from plague 1, that Yahweh is without rival in Egypt.

There are many temporal expressions of God's anger in today's world. The false gods we all serve to varying degree can replicate many of these expressions of anger. But there is no god in the world, except the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, who can take away the anger of God.

Blog Category: