Index of posts
Everything that's not a book review
If you’ve ever thought, “oh, where was that post on X”, well fret no more. This post is a list of every non book-review post on the stack, updated every month or so. I also give a quick thematic description. Book reviews can be found in a similar index here.
Tags
(Each of the following key words will bring up a page of posts that deal with that topic): 1 John, Anxiety, Australian Aboriginal History, Community, Enemy-Love, Ethics, Evangelism, Film, Forgiveness, Friendship, Gender, Generosity, Grief, Habit, Hope, Lament, Liturgy, Love, Mental Health, Music, New Creation, Peace, Prayer, Preaching, Psalms, Racial-Justice, Reading, Sermon On The Mount, Sin, Sorrow, Technology, Virtue, Worship.
2022
Scars in the New Creation - will we have scars in the resurrection and what might that mean?
On Reading - reflections from Alan Jacob’s book, and on reading as a practice.
Habitus monachum non facit - some reflections on character formation and virtue.
Shaped shapers - reflections on attention, technology, and character formation.
Loving your enemies - reflections on how to do that.
Old Ivan and St Benedict - how stability and community, forced or intentional, relate to dealing with conflicts.
On Psalm 13 - a reading of this psalm through three lenses.
The cracks in community (Part 1) - reflections on when communities fail at being community.
Everything sad will come untrue, but not yet - on eschatological hope and not turning it into a cliché.
On Lament (Part 1) - reflections on the practice of lament, especially in community.
On listening to books - reflections on picking up the practice of listening to audio books.
In the long run - barefoot running, habit building, and the Christian life.
Parables B-Side edition - considering the minor points and characters of some of Jesus’ parables.
Hopeful lament - reflecting on how lament actually exhibits both trust in God and hope that things will be put right.
Reading through different eyes, praying in strange tongues - reflections on reading the First Nations Version, and on language, culture, and bible translation.
Why Evangelicals are terrible at social justice - just what it sounds like.
The Liturgy of Death - on professionalised lament, funerals, and liturgy.
Numbers 12 as a story of Restorative Justice - just what it sounds like.
Mile wide, inch deep - what the global north can learn from global south Christians - a deeper spiritual life.
Just Friends - reflections launching from Aimee Byrd’s book, Why can’t we be friends, on cross-gender friendship.
Waiting in Faith (Advent 1) - reflection on Genesis 12 and Abram’s waiting.
Wakanda Forever (Film Review) - as it says.
Waiting in Chains (Advent 2) - reflection on Gen 15 and Exodus.
Waiting in Psalms (Advent 3) - reflections on waiting in the Psalms.
Waiting in the Night (Advent 4) - Reflection on Simeon’s song from Luke 2:29-31
2022 in review (1): Three things I learnt - reflections on life lessons 2022.
2022 in review (2): Books read and unread - book round-up from 2022.
2022 in review (3): Over to you - an invitation for feedback.
2023
2022: a year of musical change - reflections on my music in 2022.
Sevenfold - the connection between Cain and Lamech, and forgiveness in Matt 18.
Between Lament and Bonhoeffer - how Bonhoeffer became the kind of person who could resist Hitler.
All your heroes are trash - How we deal with the great failings and sins of great figures.
Typology in Jonah 1 - what it says on the box.
Only the most broken people can be great leaders - Namor and Christian service/leadership.
Loving one’s enemies and one’s friends in prayer - reflections on prayer for those nearest to us, and those that hurt us most.
Presence - reflections on revival.
Job, Camus, Ashes - reflections on Albert Camus, Job, suffering, and Lent.
The Way of Jesus - Reading the Sermon on the Mount in conversation with Jonathan Pennington. Part 1. Matt 5:1-16
Whole-Heartedness - SotM with JP. Part 2. Matt 5:17-48.
Night Psalms - learning to pray through the night.
Holy Saturday - reflections on the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday.
Practices of Personal Piety - SotM with JP. Part 3. Matt 6:1-20.
Hopeful Helplessness - reflections on how prayer requires both hope and helplessness.
Anxiety and the Kingdom - SotM with JP. Part 4. Matt 6:19-34.
Liturgical Animals - an attempt to draw together some threads on habit formation, virtue, character, liturgy, and the like.
The Golden Rule - SotM with JP. Part 5. Matt 7:1-12.
On novelty in worship - an argument for non-spontaneity, or that spontaneity doesn’t equal authenticity.
Vale, Tim Keller - my immediate reflections from when Tim Keller died.
Resisting evil by non-resistance - thinking hard through how to relate to those doing harm and evil.
(Counter-)Culture(s) and Christian Praxis - reflections on church life as counter-formation of who we are and how we be.
The Way of Life and the Way of Death - SotM with JP. Part 6. Matt 7:11-27.
a greater wisdom - a reflection on how in the midst of suffering we can and should trust God’s providence and wisdom.
Hesed - a short primer on this important Hebrew word, [God’s] forever-loyal-love.
Talents - a reflection on Jesus’ parable in Matthew 24:14-30
Psalm 88 - a reflection on the darkest of psalms.
Gardenborn - speculation on sex & reproduction in the new creation.
The fig tree and the mountain - Part 1 on a series on prayer in the New Testament. Mark 11
The myth of sovereignty - A summary of Henry Reynolds on sovereignty in Australia, in relation to Aboriginal people and colonisation.
This kind can only come out by prayer - Part 2 of Prayer and the NT. Mark 9.
Early NSW and Aboriginal missions - Part 1 of a book summary of John Harris’ One Blood.
The shape of gospel obedience - a long-form essay on how I think the gospel changes us to produce obedience.
A continent of nations dispossessed - another summary from Henry Reynolds’ work on colonisation and early Australian colonial history.
You open up this door right this minute, you hear me - Part 3 of Prayer and the NT. Luke 11 and the persistent friend.
Club or cult - sharing the gospel as an act of love, rather than loving people instrumentally.
The widow that never gave up - Part 4 of Prayer and the NT. Luke 18 and the relentless widow.
Let's eat together - why eating together is so important and meaningful.
Dying to self - a reflection on the three synoptic gospel sayings about “deny oneself”.
Our Father - Part 5 of Prayer and the NT. The Lord’s Prayer.
nothing can be needful that He withholds - a commentary on John Newton’s letter on God’s providence.
The aetiological fallacy, contamination theory, and deficit readings of culture - a reflection on how we deal with cultural and religious practices.
Voting yes to the Voice: reconciliation, restitution, theft, and repair - a long-form essay arguing in favour of a Yes vote to the Australian Referendum on Oct 14th, 2023.
Rage and Grief - On reading the Iliad.
On marriage, friendship, and divorce - some reflections on the need for friendships to speak into marriages.
Rites of Loss - some reflections on rituals surrounding grief and how we might do them better.
When Jesus is the instrument of our idolatry - how a vision of heaven without God leads us astray.
Psalm 16 - applied exegesis.
What we have heard and seen - reflections on 1 John 1:1-5.
If…then… - reflections on 1 John 1:6-10.
Light and darkness, love and hate - reflections on 1 John 2:1-14.
Pursue Hospitality - some thoughts on hospitality as a concept and practice
Eyes on the Prize - reflections on 1 John 2:15-27
Inclusion and Exclusion, Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and excommunication - reflections on all those topics in conversation with each other.
T-Shirts, redux. - The Let’s Eat Together t-shirts
Those born of God, act like their Father - reflections on 1 John 2:28-3:10
2023: A Year in Review - what it sounds like.
2024
Unhomeness - travelling home, in conversation with James K.A. Smith and Augustine
Am I my brother’s keeper? - reflections on 1 John 3:9-24
The best version of yourself - the concept of arete
The ones that didn’t make it - the problem of unanswered prayer and long-term suffering.
Absurd, absurd! - Ecclesiastes and Camus
A taxonomy of forgiveness - continuing to parse out the parts and operations of forgiveness.
Books I abandoned - a few books I started reading and never finished.
Examine the spirits - notes on 1 John 4:1-6
The insatiable craving - reflections on fame and sex as idolatry and disordered desire
In Jesus’ name - prayer vs magic
All care is palliative - because we're all dying all the time
John: the apostle of divine love - reflections on 1 John 4:7-14
Holy Saturday and Psalm 88 - what it sounds like.
On Righteousness - thinking about the word(s) and concept
James, Wisdom, Torah - thinking about how to read James.
Believe, Love, Obey - reflections on 1 John 4:15-5:4a.
On Justice - a companion piece to ‘On Righteousness’
Victory over the world - reflections on 1 John 5:4b-12
Slow reading - on slowing down and reading less in 2024.
On fathers and sons - reflections on the death of my father.
Even better than the real thing - reflections on 1 John 5:13-21
Remembering Keller 1 year on - as it sounds
Does God promise us friends? - written for a friend. Yes, kind of.
Right answer, wrong working - why method matters in theology
Scattered thoughts on Maximus and detachment - passion and dispassion
The binding of Isaac - Genesis 22 considered
The end of lament - or is it?
The why of Christian practices - reflections on how/why spiritual disciplines
Nor with the shanks of man he is pleased - Psalm 147, translation, and soaking in the psalms
A long defeat between two victories - Christian faith in the midst of death, between the first and second resurrections
A sort of homecoming - visiting my hometown church
God’s strange and paradoxical gifts - is suffering a gift?
Let’s talk about hell - thinking about the reality thereof
Ravished by God’s love - thoughts on loving God and being loved by him.
Freudenfreude - rejoicing in friends and their joys
Why we idolize romantic relationships - the collapse of our other loves
We need a theology of church decline before church growth - an exploration of why churches might decline even when we are faithful and effective.
The glory of their children - Proverbs 17.6b considered
Terrifying confidence in prayer - reflections on 1 John 5:14-15,
About sin-unto-death - reflections on 1 John 5:16-17.
The power and the weakness - providence, power, pain.
Between God and Fate - Boethius and providence
On noticing - a few snippets from Matthew’s gospel
Castellio’s lost genius - reflections on teaching Sebastian Castellio.
Moses’ other 40 days - all those times when Moses fasted 40 days and nights to intercede for Israel
The year of - how do you sum up a year?
Do you have this affliction? - the desire for books
Song of Songs (1) - an intro to how to approach this book
So, you elected a fascist - my immediate thoughts after the election of Trump, who has fulfilled everything here and far, far, worse.
Song of Songs (2): on figures - reading the book figuratively
What translations can do - the First Nations Version and Hebrews 12
Song of Songs (3): a poem with a narrative - reading the book as a story/drama
Contingency, plasticity, mortality - the human condition
Song of Songs (4): the gambit - the finale of the song involves a risky, risqué move.
Dear Petrarch, should I get married? - amusing but insightful reflections from one of Petrarch’s letters to a friend
2024: A year in review - personal reflections.
2025
Instrumentalising Christianity - pointing to some very fine articles about Christianity as an instrument, for other purposes.
Ladders of luck, snakes of misfortune - providence and life’s turns
Song of Songs (5): What’s God got to do with it - reading the Song as about God
Things I’ve been reading - a snapshot of January reading, books and articles
Hope - reflecting on the what of hope, and the objects of hope.
Psalm 37 - reflections on (the fate of the wicked
Love your enemies, pray for your persecutors - what does it look like to pray for enemies? Especially in 2025.
The simple act of reaching out - contact your friends, already!
Three years - of the Russo-Ukrainian war.
101 ways to dodge Jesus’ commands - against worming our way out of the force of Jesus’ ethical teachings
The good life - Matthew 5, the beatitudes, and the beatific life
Not to abolish the Law - What’s the relationship between Jesus, the Sermon on the Mount, and the Torah?
Burning coals - reflections on Romans 12:19-20
Paul, Matthew, and the Law - further reflections on how Paul fits into the Jesus/Torah and New Testament relationships.
Poisoned fruit - dealing with the works of (very) sinful creators.
Love and anger - thoughts on anger, its role and right orientation.
Where are the Galens of our time - short reflection on Bishop Galen and his stand in the Third Reich.
The Light Eclipsed - a Holy Saturday reflection in a dark year.
That time when Augustine and John Piper agreed - praying the Lord’s prayer for your enemies.
What if we lack the capacity to really understand Proverbs - reflections on oral and literate cultures, and how this relates to reading parts of Scripture
They make a desert and call it peace - on the genocide in Gaza.
