These pages have often wrestled with the issue of gospel enculturation—the question of how much we adapt the message we preach to the culture in which we dwell. It's such a complex question that the wisdom and righteousness (or lack thereof) of our attempts at preaching the gospel in a culturally sensitive way will be displayed finally on that last great day. But my last post on character and hope has lead me to a test that we might apply to our gospel preaching.

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Last week, we heard from Andrew Heard about the power of God's word in growing a congregation of God's people. This week, we turn to consider the conflict that church planting naturally creates. (This is an edited extract from an article first published in 1999.)

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How do you know you have forgiven someone? How can you be certain that you've forgiven someone who has wronged you?

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I was in church on Sunday morning, listening to a sermon on Romans 5. In spite of having read it hundreds of times in my life, I was struck by my lack of understanding. Suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character and character produces hope (Rom 5:3-4). Why have I never thought about how those things fit into the context of Paul's argument in this chapter?

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Leviticus, one of the Old Testament books of God's law, seems, for some reason, to be the target for particular mockery both by non-Christians (who will invariably allude to the silliness of the food laws as they attempt to satirize its opposition to homosexual practice) and even some Christians (who will use it to empathize with some who feel that Bible reading is boring).

But Dave Bish over at the Blue Fish project reminded me of the wonderful story of how Charles Simeon, uber-preacher of Cambridge University during the late 18th and early 19th century, became a Christian:

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Last December I read an article over at Reformation 21 that was (as they say in current affairs TV) “a story no parent can afford to miss”. It was a brilliant and frightening piece that Stephen Nichols had written about a genre of literature that he had christened (or de-christened!) ‘Apostasy Lit’—“a genre, usually taking the form of a memoir, in which the protagonist reflects on and recants her Christian, usually of the fundamentalist variety, upbringing”.

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This post is the third in a series designed to help you to get to know and love some of the important words used in the Bible. Today we'll learn the basic meaning of the word ‘justification’.

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In 1997, Andrew and Cathie Heard moved from Sydney to the Central Coast of New South Wales, Australia, to plant a church. This week's blast from the past is from an article he wrote in 1999, reflecting on the first two years of their church life. In it, he reminds us that God's word is powerful to change people.

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I concluded part 2 of this little series with a challenge:

What we need is a change in our affections. We need to change not what we feel nor even what we know but what we love. The question is: How does one do that?

Our guide (in part 2 in particular) has been Jonathan Edwards and his classic Treatise Concerning Religious Affections. What does Edwards say about how to stimulate the affections?

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Is this a modern scandal for Christians—a truth that some find hard to swallow? I don’t mean that that Jesus was a Jew, but that he is one now.

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