Crumbs from the Table

One of the crucial countries for the history of Protestant Christianity is the Netherlands.   The area now known as the Netherlands was originally evangelised in the 600s and 700s by missionaries such as Willibrord , an Angle (as in, Anglo-Saxon) from northern England, bringing the gospel to his historic ancestors on the continent of Europe, in this case, the Frisians living north of the Meuse and Rhine rivers. The base for his mission was Utrecht, which became the seat of a Christian bishop ("see").   Later, the Netherlands were significant in the pre-Reformation period as the base for lay monastic movements such as the " Brothers of the Common Life " which later fed into the Reformation. One of the most famous "products" of these movements was Erasmus of Rotterdam , a significant humanist scholar, who did significant work on publishing the Greek text of the New Testament. The saying goes that "Erasmus laid the egg that Luther hatched."   Protes

At church on Sunday afternoons we have what used to be called a "catechism class". We call it "Newcomers and others". It is an opportunity to teach the basics of the Christian faith to those considering baptism or church membership.  But what are "the basics" when it comes to Christian living?  One of the basics particularly emphasised in my Christian tradition, i.e. Reformed and Evangelical Protestant Christianity, is the conviction that the Christian life is to be lived "out there in the world" and not withdrawing into a cloistered religious bubble. A similar emphasis may be found in Roman Catholic thinking, and in the Eastern Orthodox concept of the "liturgy after the liturgy".  But where does that conviction come from in Scripture and in church history?  In terms of the Biblical basis, there are several threads of Biblical revelation that undergird this conviction:  The Old Testament prophetic teaching that God desires contrition an

I was recently preaching on Mark 8:27-9:13, including a crucial verse:  "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." (Mark 8:34 ESVUK)  It seems to me that this translation could be improved upon in several respects. The issue is not so much to do with the Greek, as to do with English language and usage in 2023 Britain.  Firstly, the phrase "if anyone would" should read, "if anyone wants to". As the meaning of the word "will/would" has changed from "want/ed" to a future tense, a more explicit translation ("if anyone wants to...") makes it clear that this is about those who might desire to become disciples of Jesus, and what is required from them to do so.   A second issue is that "come after me" means "be my disciple following me"; this could be flagged up using inverted commas or some other device to highlight the fact that this phrase contains more than might