New West Community Church

James Bejon of Tyndale House in Cambridge, is a first-rate Hebrew scholar, and one of the best of today’s biblical theologians, in my opinion. He regularly brings fresh insight to the narrative connections and symbolism of the Old Testament in ways that make me wonder at the beauty and breadth of God’s word. In a set of two articles for Theopolis, he looks at Genesis 38, which is the story of the near-loss of Judah’s line. As noted in Sunday’s sermon, the relationship between Judah and Joseph is very significant and Bejon notes many of the threads of this relationship; aspects of deception, identity, and rule, although his main purpose is to consider Judah in particular. What follows is a selection from the first of his articles. ———————— Now consider ch. 38’s relationship with ch. 39. In chs. 38-39, Judah and Joseph are removed from their respective environments and forms of accountability: Joseph is brought down (Y-R-D) to Egypt, while Judah travels down (Y-R-D) to Canaan. Soon afterwards, temptation comes on both men in the form of a no-strings-attached sexual encounter. Judah succumbs to temptation, at which point he discovers strings were attached to his actions after all (symbolised by...Continue reading→

“For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Ro 8:38–39) How are we do define love? John Frame has a very helpful triad for love which I have incorporated wholesale in my life and teaching. As I have sometimes noted, triadic thinking helps to balance thinking on a certain subject and prevent either/or dichotomies that are unhelpful. One of the questions surrounding the definition of love is how the feeling or affections may be define it. On one hand, it has sometimes been noted that love must not be primarily defined by feelings. A feeling of love may come and go, but love, is to remain. While this observation is not wrong, neither should affection be divorced from the idea of love. An affection-less marriage, for instance, may be better than divorce, but it is surely not good, nor what God envisions. A triadic approach to defining love helpfully retains affection as an instrinsic but subordinate part of love. Frame’s...Continue reading→

Michael Haykin is one of my favorite Christian teachers and one of the most preeminent church historians in the world. Every once in while, however, we disagree with some of our favorite teachers, and a little while ago Haykin posted an article that had a useful observation, followed by what I believe are (somewhat) erroneous conclusions. His observation was that there are very few major political figures mentioned in the New Testament, and especially compared to the Old. His conclusions (in a very brief article) are that 1) there is significant discontinuity between OT and NT as to how God’s people relate to politics and 2) the NT is not really that concerned with politics but about preaching and personal transformation. In this article, I won’t be interacting in any depth with Haykin’s writing, nor do I intend to refute it’s conclusions with in-depth research or exegesis. I simply want to suggest several strands of political themes which tend to be overlooked by those who focus on the Christian’s inner life almost exclusively (sometimes called pietism, at term which Haykin himself uses). Jesus tangled with political leaders constantly. The scribes and the Pharisees were not just religious leaders. They exercised...Continue reading→