Tag Archives: Gospels

Frank Field’s Politics, Poverty and Belief

On 16 June 1986 Frank Field, then MP for Birkenhead, kindly came and spoke to the youth group at St Andrew’s, Bebington after being interviewed about his faith and politics in our 6.30 pm evening service. I was the curate who invited him to come and gave you a lift home to Birkenhead afterwards. He spoke very well in the service about Jesus’ teaching on the kingdom of God and its implications for national and political life, and the youth group found him inspiring as a Continue reading →

Reflecting on SBL Denver 2022

I greatly enjoyed being in Denver a couple of weeks ago for the annual SBL meeting. It was a lovely opportunity to reconnect with people, many of whom I’d not seen in person for three years because of covid—I cannot recall a day when I have hugged so many people as the Friday! In particular, it was great to see current and former doctoral students in person again. I went to a bunch of papers, although I found myself generally selecting individual papers in a Continue reading →

Slides on Matthew 8–9

I had the delight of addressing the Leicester Diocesan Evangelical Fellowship today on Matthew 8–9, a section which focuses on Jesus’ authority. Here are the slides from that talk for those interested (they’re an adapted version of slides I shared as part of my larger Matthew teaching for Blackburn diocese a couple of weeks ago here). Comments and thoughts most welcome!

A cracking read: Luke Timothy Johnson’s autobiography as a scholar

Luke Timothy Johnson, The Mind in Another Place: My Life as a ScholarGrand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2022. ISBN 978-0-8028-8011-6. I read Luke Timothy Johnson’s book with great appreciation over the weekend. It’s clear, lucid, engaging, and very encouraging and stimulating. I’ve long been an admirer of his work: his published PhD dissertation, The Literary Function of Possessions in Luke-Acts (SBLDS 39; Missoula, MT: Scholars, 1977) was a pioneering ‘narrative’ reading of Luke-Acts which I found very helpful in my own PhD work a few years later, Continue reading →