SIMON PHIPPS

Welcome to part 5 of my blog series on Dallas Willard's book "The Divine Conspiracy". Please look at the chapter list to move between the other parts of this series. What I learnt From This Chapter The main thing that I learnt from this chapter is that there is an order to the sermon on the mount. It is not just a random collection of saying by Jesus but should be seen as a full sermon where the points lead into one another and build upon what has gone before. This has been an extremely profound and life changing insight. Chapter List Introduction Chapter 1 - Entering the Eternal Kind of Life Now Chapter 2 - Gospels of Sin Management Chapter 3 - What Jesus Knew: Our God-Bathed World Chapter 4 - Who is Really Well Off? - The Beatitudes Chapter 5 - The Righteousness of the Kingdom Heart: Beyond the Goodness of Scribes and Pharisees Chapter 6 - Investing in the Heavens: Escaping the Deceptions of Reputations and Wealth Chapter 7 - The Community of Prayerful Love Chapter 8 - ...

We live in a society where the predominant worldview is materialism - the belief that the only things that are real are physical. Even as Christians we are not immune from the effects of this upon our perception of reality. It is very hard for us to escape from this when the physical world - perceptible by our five senses - seems all-encompassing. But as Christians, we take a different view of reality than our materialist neighbours: It is the view that love, not particles, is at the centre and foundation of all reality . We know that physical reality - the known universe - is finite . It had a beginning and it will have an end. Equally, we know that God is infinite - He has no beginning or end. Therefore God existed when the universe (or any physical reality) did not . The Bible reveals that God IS love   (1 John 4:8). God does not change, therefore God has always been love (Hebrews 13:8). Love does not exist in a vacuum. Love cannot exist as a sin...

In modern society, we think that we have a good handle on love. We have moved beyond the oppression of the past and are free to love and to be loved. Countless programs, films, adverts and Instagram stories seek to show us what real love is; and how we can achieve it. Yet we are surrounded by broken relationships and failed marriages. Promises of a life that we dreamed of that were shattered by reality. We have been fed a lie. Love is not a feeling. What we call love is in fact infatuation. This intensity of feeling fades. All relationships have that phase. The honeymoon phase. That feeling of intense desire. And then it ends. And we settle into " something else ". The problem is that the version of love that has been sold to us tells us that the " something else " is bad. We then must seek for that love (infatuation) again. If we can't get it back with that same person then we seek it with someone else. But love is not...

Philosopher Alvin Plantinga called the problem of suffering “the only good objection to God”. The often quoted argument goes:  “if God is all good (all benevolent) then God has the desire to end suffering, and if God is all-powerful (omnipotent) then God has the ability to end suffering. Therefore if God does not end suffering, then God is either not all good, or is not all-powerful, and is therefore not God”. As Christians, we need to be able to answer this objection to God, to enable us to “give a reason for the faith that we have in Christ Jesus” (1 Peter 3:15). To this end, I want to try and answer this question to help anybody who finds the problem of suffering to be a sticking point or an obstacle in their faith (an argument to explain the problem of suffering is called a “theodicy”). To begin with, I want to go back to the beginning of it all and look at God. Who is God and what is God like? It is worth noting here that this argument takes as given the f...

My Story I struggle greatly with personal confidence, especially around my intelligence. When I was 14 I was told that I was not clever enough to learn German, and was put into the bottom curriculum for French. When I was 15 I was told that I was not clever enough to study Geography, and was put into the bottom curriculum for a combination of History and Geography. When I was 16 I was told that I was not clever enough to study Physics (I have always been fascinated by cosmology) and was told to pursue other subjects. Combinations of remarks and feedback from teachers and others left me feeling that the intellectual pursuits were out of my reach. It wasn’t until after I finished full time education that several people began to encourage me about the way that I thought. I am slowly starting to build my confidence up, and have realised that I love using my mind. I love tackling challenging subjects and expanding my knowledge. If these few people hadn’t started to...

Last week I wrote about thin places and their importance inour busy lives . So often we associate thin places with physical space , so I want to write a post about people as thin places , specifically us. It starts with Christ. If thin places are about bridges between heaven and earth , where the divine feels more tangible, then Christ is the ultimate thin place , the ultimate conduit for the glory and presence of God.  In ancient Israel, the priesthood acted as the go-between for God and His people .  It was the priests who performed the ritual sacrifices, and the priests who entered the holy of holies in the temple where God’s presence dwelt. The writer of the book of Hebrews calls Jesus our  High Priest . When Christ died Matthew records that the curtain in the temple, separating the holy of holies from all else, was torn in two. Jesus is now the new mediator, the new thin place. The writer and apostle Peter makes bolder claims, that we are the ...

Consumerism and Us We are saturated in a consumer culture . Our identity is wrapped in what we do and don’t have.  I remember when I was in high-school I was one of the few who didn't care about what brands I wore. My parents used to get my trainers cheaply from a brand called "Hi-tech". When my friends used to draw pictures of us all together I would always be drawn wearing plastic bags on my feet that read "Hi-tech" - such was the perceived value of my shoes, and of my fashion. In the west we are subjected to around 4,000 advertisements in various forms in a single day. The psychological implications of the barrage of advertisements that we are subjected to every day are both varied and complex. Most of us in western society have far more than we need - but we constantly crave more. As Gandhi said: ‘there is enough for everyone's need , but not enough for everyone’s greed ’. The Fruit of the Spirit  The fruit of the spirit is found in Pau...

Perfect love casts out all fear - 1 John 4:18 One day an expert in religious law stood up to test Jesus by asking him this question: “Teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus replied, “What does the law of Moses say? How do you read it?”   The man answered, “‘ you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind .’ And, ‘ Love your neighbour as yourself .’” “Right!” Jesus told him. “Do this and you will live!”   The man wanted to justify his actions, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbour?” Jesus replied with a story - Luke 10 We are currently in the midst of the greatest refugee crisis since World War 2. 60 million refugees are looking for asylum, and the debate for whether we should accept them, and how many we should accept is far from over. For many people the conversation is dominated by dystopian futures of ISIS terrorists and overpopulated countries; driven ...

The Great Comission The word evangelist comes from the Greek word evangelion – meaning ‘ good news ’ In my tradition, whenever we think of the good news, we view it as synonymous with the great commission found in Matthew 28:16-20 –basically, tell people about Jesus. When we view the good news from this perspective then everything else becomes a means to an end, rather than an end in itself. I remember one of my lecturers saying that social action, like feeding the poor, should only ever be used as a reason to tell people about Jesus. The Kingdom of God When Jesus spoke of the good news, he used it in conjunction with the concept of ‘ The Kingdom Of God ’. In the words of Tom Wright, 'what would it look like if God was running the show'; And the answer is, there would be no poor, no hungry, no-one in need. When we consider our proclamation of the good news, then these things are part and parcel of it, not just precursors to it. When I think of the Good News, ...

There has been much talk lately on social media about how we should behave on the internet . What is the line between debate and hate speak. What divides critique from trolling. The Hebrew scriptures are full of critique of the nations around, but the most cutting critiques are reserved for Israel itself. This is an idea called ‘ critique from within ’ and was a major part of hebraic spirituality, even the religious and political leaders were not beyond reproach. Micah 3:1-3 states: "Then I said, “Listen, you leaders of Jacob , you rulers of Israel . Should you not embrace justice, you who hate good and love evil ; who tear the skin from my people and the flesh from their bones; who eat my people’s flesh, strip off their skin and break their bones in pieces; who chop them up like meat for the pan, like flesh for the pot?” As Christians we stand in this prophetic tradition, to critique the bride of Christ, in all its various contexts, this is a health...