Crumbs from the Table

The coming of Christ changes everything. The Old Testament is not to be discarded; it remains God's word for us. But we read the Old Testament, and obey the Old Testament laws, through the prism of Christ and the New Testament.  As Christians, we are not "under" the law , that is to say we are *not* bound to keep ("do") the Old Testament laws in the Old Testament way (Gal. 5:3). Rather, we "fulfil" the law in a New Testament way (Romans 8:4; 13:8,10; Galatians 5:14; James 2:8). Not only are we "not under law" in respect of the detailed laws (e.g. Exodus 21-23); we are also "not under law" in relation to the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-17). The Ten Commandments do not constitute a timeless universal moral code, but rather represent specific commandments given to the people of Israel in the context of the Exodus from Egypt (20:2), and future life in the promised land of Canaan (20:12).   Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 9, "To thos...

Something which comes up again and again in Christian circles is the question of free will and predestination.  In this blog post, I would like to address one dimension of this.  First of all, I should clarify that I am writing from the perspective of the "Five Points of Calvinism". While the theology of John Calvin, and Reformed Christianity as a whole, is far broader than this one issue, a central belief is that God has sovereignly chosen individuals to be saved in Christ, and has appointed the means by which that will be realised. A very common objection raised against "Calvinism" is the false assumption that it must eliminate human free will. The whole situation can be, wrongly, understood in rather mechanical, deterministic terms, whereby God makes all the decisions and then implements them with humans cast in the role of "robots" who are coerced into believing in Christ and loving God.  While, at times, "Calvinism" has been expressed and/or...

When I moved to Greater Manchester in 2021, I was surprised to discover that the major evangelical churches, in particular City Church Manchester and Grace Church Manchester, were only recently planted. I wanted to find out about the history of Manchester churches.  Church of England  The first Church of England church in Manchester was the Collegiate church, now Manchester Cathedral . The original church at Manchester traces its origins back to 923 or earlier, and more recently to 1421; its history is written up in the volume, "Manchester Cathedral..." .  From 1657 onwards (during the Commonwealth period), the Puritan preacher, Henry Newcombe, was appointed as an official preacher at the Collegiate church. Shortly after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, he was forced to step down, unable to accept the Act of Uniformity, and from 1664 had to reside five miles from his former place of ministry.  Besides the Collegiate church, the parish of Manchester included n...