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As shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves

/ timmacbride

Last week, I looked at Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and how it encouraged us to view opposition from and rejection by the wider world honourable in God’s eyes. This week, I thought I’d take a look at what else Jesus has to say about responding to hostility.

Expect opposition to happen

Multiple times throughout Matthew’s Gospel—which was written to a maligned and rejected minority group of Jesus-followers—we see Jesus stressing the inevitability of persecution[1] and hatred. Nowhere do we find this more strongly than in chapter 10:

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Blessed are you when people insult you

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Adapted from Tim MacBride, To Aliens and Exiles: Preaching the New Testament as Minority-Group Rhetoric in a Post-Christendom World (Cascade, 2020), 163-67. Used with publisher’s permission.

Matthew 5:11 “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.”

While Christians in the West can’t presently claim “persecution” in its narrow sense, there are plenty of times we’re insulted, misrepresented, and ostracised because of our faith. More so now than perhaps in recent generations. Yet as long as it is because of our faith—rather than because we’re being insensitive jerks—then Jesus says we’re “blessed.” More than that: he says our response should be to rejoice:

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Christian giving is a three-way street

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Patronage and Philippians 4:10-20

This video (and transcript below) illustrates the importance of cultural background in understanding the New Testament. For more, enrol in the Bible Overview subjects at Morling College, as part of an undergraduate or graduate certificate.

We’re looking at a short passage near the end of Philippians (4:10-20). It’s a passage that’s all about gift-giving and receiving – and the cultural expectations and obligations associated with it. All about who owes what.

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In (partial) defence of the monologue sermon

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This article originally appeared on the Morling College blog in July 2020.

The monologue sermon gets plenty of negative press in Christian circles these days; some of it deserved. Preachers routinely go longer than their congregation’s attention span, perhaps overestimating their ability to hold interest, or being too busy to invest the extra time it takes to be sharp and to the point. Further, our culture now expects more opportunity for comment and interaction, and rightly values a plurality of voices in any communication. And since COVID-19, several months of online sermons have, for some, highlighted dissatisfaction with the traditional model.

But before we consign the monologue sermon to the dustbin of history, I want to look at some of its strengths.

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Why am I so tired?

/ timmacbride

This is an article I wrote for the students at Morling, at the start of semester 2, 2022. I’ve posted it here as I think it applies to far more than just study…

If at some point last semester you asked yourself, “why am I so tired?”, you’re not alone. Emerging from pandemic lockdowns, many people have found reengaging with the routines of in-person life to be more exhausting than before. Some of it may simply be that we became used to fewer interactions with others, and just need some time to build up our “social fitness” to its pre-pandemic levels. Or it may be due to unhelpful habits we developed during lockdown in areas like eating, drinking, and sleeping.

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Interpreting Revelation

/ timmacbride

Few books of the Bible have been as controversial in their interpretation as Revelation. This article is a transcript of various sermons and lectures I’ve given over the years about how I approach the book. I’ve included it here essentially so I can link to it whenever Coffee with the King deals with a text from Revelation – to avoid having to justify the way I’m interpreting it each time. Enjoy!

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“I am of Albo” / “I am of Scomo” – Political Tribalism and the Church

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Some election-season advice from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians.

1 Cor 1:10 I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought.

Although Paul wrote these words nearly two millennia ago to the house churches he’d founded in Corinth, they remain a word-on-target for our churches in the West today, as we fight and fracture along political lines. Particularly around election time. And the similarities between our situations are stronger than we might first realise. Because this is how Paul describes the divisions in the Corinthian churches:

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Beyond Israel Folau: the importance of rhetorical setting

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Over the past couple of months there’s been a steady stream of articles by Christian leaders weighing in on the Israel Folau controversy. A common theme has been an affirmation of Folau’s commitment to his faith, while expressing concern about his rhetorical strategy; that is, the way in which he’s spoken about it. We see this in such diverse writers as Brian Houston from Hillsong Church and Simon Smart from the Centre for Public Christianity.

However, if you then dive into the comments section on these articles (and on the plethora of social media posts expressing similar sentiments), you’ll find significant pockets of support not only for Folau’s courage, but also defending his approach. The common theme there seems to be: all he’s doing is quoting the Bible. How can we fault him for using the same rhetorical strategy used by the Old Testament prophets, John the Baptist, the Apostle Paul, and even Jesus himself?

But is it the same?

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When your sermon needs Greg

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I’ve been guilty of it. Probably more times than I’ve realised. And so have you, I’m guessing, if you’re a preacher who has ever tried to be creative; who has tried to do something different in order to captivate the congregation with the truth of Scripture. At some point, we’ve all fallen into the error of allowing our sermon to serve a creative idea, rather than the other way around.

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Why bother with preaching?

/ timmacbride

Most people don’t remember anything that happened to them before the age of two. Which, as a parent, makes you wonder why you bother. Feeding, changing, bathing, going to the park, pretending you can’t see them when they put their hands over their eyes, and reading the same story over and over again – none of it gets remembered. So why do it? Why not take it easy for a couple of years, then start to be nice just when you think they’re ready to remember? You know, like politicians do in an election year.

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