Well, it is that time of year again. You may just be getting into the Christmas mood. You may be getting ready to wheel out all the old traditions. Bloggers, it seems, are no different. Ian Paul has his annual post on Jesus not being born in a stable. He went early on it year and posted it in the first half of November. Like him, I have my annual blogging tradition: the gentle reminder that Christmas isn't in the Bible so you can celebrate (or not) as you will.

Christian Liberty 'People believe that the only way to combat the ever-increasing tide of secularism is to build high doctrinal sea walls to preserve the church from the flood of falsehood. They believe that if everyone toes the same doctrinal that uniformity of belief and conviction will preserve the church from compromise, decline, and devolution. The problem is that people envision doctrinal uniformity in areas about which the Bible says little to nothing: politics (think tax rates or universal healthcare), courtship (how to meet and marry your mate), or education (home schooling is the only way), for example.'

The old adage 'context is king' is wheeled out a lot when it comes to reading the bible. What we usually mean is that meaning is primarily derived from context. Reading words or sentences in isolation, ripped apart from their context, can make the bible say a lot of weird and wonderful things. We fundamentally determine what this word means in this particular sentence by it's wider context. And we place things in the ever-broader contexts, starting with words in sentences, then sentences in paragraphs, paragraphs in sections, sections in books and, finally, books in the canon.

When it comes to evangelism, everybody wants to know how to reach this or that group of people. How do you engage Catholics? What about Hindus? Muslims? Not just religious groups, but various other demographics, whether it is class based, sub-cultures or whatever. If we're not from the particular group we want to reach, we very often want to know how to reach this group of people who don't necessarily look, speak or reason like I do... But I suspect we would be helped in all these cases by two simple and related things.

As I write this, we are just gearing up for our weekly community group. Ours runs with a fairly standard setup. We meet together to eat a meal, then pray for one another and, after that, to chew over the sermon from Sunday a little more. But the meal is a key bit of what we do. I thought I would share a few reasons why it is significant for us. Fellowship For a start, there is something that happens over food. It doesn't seem to matter what food it is.

One of the repeated noises you hear in 2 Kings is the continual refrain that such and such a king did evil in the sight of the Lord and specifically that they continued in the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat. If you know the story, when Israel split into two kingdoms (Israel in the north and Judah in the South), in a bid to stop his people wandering down to Jerusalem to worship at the temple and spend all their money in the now rival Judean economy, Jeroboam set up two golden bulls at Dan and Bethel.

Yesterday was a hard Sunday for us. We announced to our church that I would be stepping down from the ministry here by September 2026. Below is the text of the statement I read to the church.

Christian Nationalism from a Baptist perspective I don't usually link to social media posts, but I think this thoughtful comment from John Stevens, National Director of FIEC, warrants an exception. Peter, James, and the Question: Who Actually “Ends the Debate”? 'If you listen carefully to a lot of Catholic apologetics on Acts 15, you can almost hear the script. It goes like this: the council argues; Peter stands up as the unique rock and voice of the Church; he defines the doctrine; everyone falls into line; James simply works out the pastoral details.

Yesterday, the Guardian report on a new approach to funding local council areas. They report: Deprived towns and cities in the midlands and the north of England are the big winners in a major shake-up of local authority funding that will redirect cash from affluent rural areas to urban councils hit hardest by austerity. Ministers said the changes put in place a fairer system that recognised the extra needs and weaker council tax raising powers of councils in so-called “left behind’ areas. It guarantees them real-terms funding increases for the next three years.

A little ruling noted in The Times yesterday offered an interesting insight into not just education, but discussions that circulate around religious education. The salient facts are that religious education in Northern Ireland has been found not to be sufficiently objective or critical. It has been deemed to amount to religious instruction and was said to be so because the core syllabus was devised by the Catholic, Presbyterian, Church of Ireland and Methodist churches and 'was not delivered in an “objective, critical and pluralistic manner”. The ruling said the syllabus 'amounted to evangelism and proselytising.' …

It is hard to garner almost any sympathy for politicians these days. The only exceptions are the rare cases in which they are killed by extremists. One thinks of the likes of David Amess or Joe Cox. Both politicians, Conservative and Labour respectively, received much sympathy across the political spectrum, but it isn't much good to them when they're dead. There is the occasional politician, like Stephen Timms, who is attacked and yet lives to tell the tale, but in such cases sympathy is in short supply and doesn't last long in the memory at least.

Yesterday, The Times reported that Russell Brand had been conducting baptisms in a penguin pool at a zoo. The relative merits of conducting a baptism at a zoo or surrounded by penguins can be debated. Given the Didache was pretty clear that running water i.e. a river was preferential, and there is plenty of biblical data to support a position that reckons this to be best, most view the presence of water and the full submersion of the candidate as the essential mode and are less concerned whether it happens in the sea, a river or some other form of pool.

I recently received a copy of Andy Constable & Mez McConnell's latest book Addiction and the Local Church. In fact, I was asked to write an endorsement for it which - having read a pre-publish copy - I was more than happy to do. It is an excellent book. It is easy to read, it is happily quite short, whilst still managing to be substantial. The book engages with modern secular understandings of addiction as well as offering a biblical-theological understanding. Throughout are helpful case studies and examples interwoven with the pastoral insight of the authors in reaching, training, keeping and persevering with the addict.

The Vatican says “Mary is not co-redemptrix”: what does it mean? 'The exaltation of the Virgin Mary in certain Catholic contexts re-opens the internal debate. Evangelical theologian Leonardo De Chirico in Rome analyses the ‘pendulum’ of the last three centuries and rules out a profound reform of Marianism.' Once again: Jesus was not born in a stable! In the runup to Christmas, Ian Paul shares his now annual post. Schism: Painful, Necessary and Timely Steve McAlpine looks at an issue of schism within an Australian baptist association. I think there are some important lessons here for others in similar mixed denominations to learn from what he says here.

Yesterday, The Times reported that Sarah Mullally, Archbishop of Canterbury, encouraged churches to continue to baptise and welcome asylum seekers who have come to faith. She said 'churches ought not to feel anxious about supporting and baptising asylum seekers if, to their best knowledge, the clergy are confident that there is sincere desire for conversion, a commitment to Jesus Christ and to discipleship' stating elsewhere 'Clergy are not naive. We train them to do this: to discern, the best they can, through teaching, discussion, reflection, observation and prayer, whether a person, whoever they are, is ready for a public confession of faith through baptism.'

It is sometimes suggested that the difference between the Old and New Covenants is to do with conditionality. The old, it is assumed, is conditional, centring on 'do this and live'. The new, it is said, it unconditional, focusing on the finished work of Christ. The problem with this conception is that the Old Covenant clearly had unconditional elements built into it. The Abrahamic and Davidic Covenants, for example, are evidently unconditional and clearly point towards Christ. The New Covenant, by contrast, clearly has conditional elements to it. There is a requirement of faith without which one cannot be saved and there is a requirement of works.

Community groups. Home groups. House groups. Pastoral care groups. Fellowship groups. Small groups. The names go on and on. Most churches have them and they aren't biblically prescribed so whatever you call them it is fair to ask, what are they here for? Before I go on to answer that, it is worth just landing on that 'not biblically prescribed' thing a moment. I have written previously on this. Home groups (or your preferred nomenclature) are not in scripture. They are not biblically required and I don't think we have any business mandating things that the bible doesn't.

When it comes to thinking about testimonies and professions of faith, one helpful clarifying question we often use is this: if you were to die today and find yourself stood before the Lord, do you think you will be going to Heaven or not? If so, on what basis? If not, why not? The reason the question can be helpful is it clarifies the grounds upon which a person is basing their faith. We are hoping to hear something along the lines of 'because Jesus has paid for my sin and so there is no reason I shouldn't be allowed in' or simply 'because Jesus promises those who believe in him will enter, and I trust in Jesus'.

Tim Davie, Director General of the BBC, announced his resignation from the organisation yesterday. The resignation comes in the wake of the BBC preparing itself to apologise over its coverage of Donald Trump, particularly editing his speech from 6th January 2021 with two segments spliced together from an hour apart. The Guardian report: The Commons culture, media and sport select committee had set a Monday deadline for the BBC to respond to the claims made by Michael Prescott, a former independent external adviser to its editorial guidelines and standards committee. He left that role in the summer.

Quelle Surprise: Le Quiet Revival! Steve McAlpine continue thinking about the so-called quiet revival. This time, he centres his thinking on France. A Significant Action for a Ministry to Move From Addition to Multiplication 'The early disciples made a significant and deliberate decision between the addition happening in Acts 2:47 and the multiplication happening in Acts 6:7; they empowered others for ministry. They handed over ministry and responsibility to others.' Do We Remember the Poor? 'It’s easy to forget the poor. We can get so focused on our activities of wealth-building, consumption, and self-protection that we lose sight of those in need.

We are coming up to Remembrance Sunday in the UK. This is the Sunday on which it is has been culturally appointed for us to remember the end of WWI, those who fought in WWII and, since then, the service of those who protected our country in wars that came after. For many, it would be anathema to have no act of remembrance. Others - particularly those who choose to wear white poppies - have objections about what they perceived to be the implications of the act of remembrance. As this latter group judge it, it is glorifying war.