"You’ve allowed yourself to be in a very bad position... You don't have the cards... With us, you have the cards, but without us you don’t have any cards... This is going to be great television."

Trump is not Orange Hitler. His book was The Art of the Deal not Mein Kampf. But... The-Art-of-the-Deal-as-diplomacy ignores a rights-based discourse in favour of constant re-negotiation, rewriting decades-long nuclear non-proliferation commitments & allowing every two-bit dictator to steal the cards they want—rights, treaties and security guarantees be damned.

Assisted Dying is cheap.

Love is expensive.

Humans are invaluable—all of them.

1/4

https://twitter.com/historykev/status/1861421100086792586

My friend Paul Hobbs painted a portrait of a man very much like Cyril Tooze. He was dying without family or friends—seemingly of no value societally, relationally, economically… But does he have value? Inherently?

That’s what the halo is for.

2/4

What is goodness and who gets to say?

Socrates was talking to Euthyphro in ~380BC and he posed this famous dilemma:

"Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?"

Whichever way Euthyphro answers there's a problem.

1/7 If Euthyphro says the gods /recognise/ goodness in the world, it sounds like 'goodness' is a thing outside the gods—a thing calling the shots.

But if the gods simply /determine/ what is good, that sounds arbitrary (and pretty scary given the nature of the Greek gods).

2/7

A thread about compassion.

Today, among many other things, I taught the Good Samaritan and its thermo-nuclear revolutionary power. It struck me again how compassion is an almighty and outrageous /intervention/. Who does the Samaritan think he is—meddling with nature?

1/12

https://twitter.com/dansteel77/status/1847264563437150394

An ancient person seeing the beaten loser would think: seems like (the) Gods want him dead? Or the village does? It's his fate, surely? But no.

Compassion is an—often offensive—upending of nature. A transvaluation of ancient values. Apparently the world needs /righting/.

2/12

Lucy, a young nursing student in our church, had fallen into a cycle of anxiety, self-harm and depression. One day she decided to write her feelings down in an email as a complaint to Jesus.

"Dear Jesus..." she wrote. But she put me in the address bar and hit send.

> So this email lands in my inbox addressed to Jesus—it's full of anguish, shame and hurt. What do I do?

Well you're going to think Australians are even more arrogant than you'd imagined, but it seemed obvious what I should do. I wrote back to her *as* Jesus. (She started it!)

>

Two different models of preaching — a short thread.

Here, in yellow, is how a lot of (evangelistic) preaching feels, both to Christians and non-Christians. Call it model 1. There is a thick black line called Decision and it splits the audience.

1/6 The "ticks" are those who have Made Their Decision For Jesus.

The "crosses" are those who still haven't Made Their Decision For Jesus.

Evangelistic preaching, then, has nothing to say to Christians. It's telling other people: "Do What We've Done."

In other words it's law.

2/6

"Kidneys and mountains are real. Human rights are not."

Harari is a child of the enlightenment. If you begin with the fact/value distinction, how do you avoid saying nonsense like this? 👇

And if you want to avoid nonsense like this 👆 it'll be important to unpick the enlightenment myth underpinning it.

Secular? Humanist? Choose one.

10 Lessons from the Post Office Scandal:

1. The problem is not faults—it's insisting you're infallible.

Expect errors (in IT as in everything). But the Post Office was so committed to self-justification, it prosecuted innocent people rather than question faulty machines. 2. Technology can lift people up but it also leaves people behind.

The software, Horizon, promised efficiency and delivered exclusion. It became an impenetrable system. Tech can do that, especially in a complex world, with a competency crisis and even more with the advent of AI.

Who does Jacob wrestle with? Gen. 32 calls him "a man" and "God". Hos 12:4-5 calls him "The Angel" and "The LORD, the God of Hosts". Add it all up (along with John 1:18 & Col 1:15) who else could it be? God the Son, right?

Two objections are often cited to naming him "Jesus"....

https://twitter.com/birdchadlouis/status/1746125183985860872

1) People say "Jesus" is particularly the name of the *incarnate* Christ.

Answer: Particularly, yes. Exclusively, no. See Phil. 2:5ff; 2 Cor. 8:9; Jude 5 (ESV, cf v4).

2) People say it detracts from the incarnation to draw attention to Jesus' pre-incarnate appearances.

...

"Tis Scripture, Tis Scripture," the preacher proclaims,
"Our rule and our guide, Our fount and our frame.
We stand on the Bible, for better, for worse.
But let me give vent to my own bluster first."

1/13 "Tis Scripture, Tis Scripture, so let me digress –
To warn you of others who do not confess,
Our creed guaranteed to produce a revival:
We are the ones who honour the Bible."

2/13

How do people tick?

A little thread based on Ephesians. Our problem:

Our natural selves are corrupted by their deceitful desires. (Eph. 4:22)

IOW: our hearts crave fakes—toxic fakes. We want things that lie to us. And, having been taken in by a mirage, we end up gulping down hot sand. This distorts and damages us at every level.

Thanks be to God for... 8 ways I'm grateful for Tim Keller:

1. Ministries of Mercy.
His 1st book was doing 3rd way before 3rd way was a thing. Here was a /preacher/ calling all-the-body to serve all-the world with the gospel at the centre. A sign of the magnanimity to come. 2. Magnanimity.
"3rd way" is often dismissed as a thin veil masking spineless centrism. Others can give justification for the project (eg diagonalisation, subversive fulfilment). No-one can give a better example of the posture. However you see the project: be magnanimous like Tim

Andrew Peterson on (Song) Writing.

“Searching for inspiration is a great excuse to listen to your life.”

#HMUK23 1. Serve the work:
Allow the thing to grow into what it wants to become. You’re stepping into mystery. It wants to go someplace — serve it.

2. Serve the audience:
Art is not self-indulgence. It becomes generative when it’s an act of love. You must intend good for your audience.

“We experience our weakness as inadequacy. What if we could experience it as invitation?” Doug McKelvey at Hutchmoot UK. @TheRabbitRoom Our weaknesses can wake us from “the anaesthesia of choice.” They remind us we are not in control. They are opportunities for the Lord to say “My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.”

He rose up among us, as told.
He rose up the Promise of old.
My Brother in strife,
Assuming my life.
Exalted, the Father’s Decree
He rose up, He rose up for me. He rose up humanity’s Last
Man’s Answer in life unsurpassed
My Champion living,
God’s life of thanksgiving.
Exalted as I’m meant to be
He rose up, He rose up for me.

Christmas trees and the Winsomeness Discourse™

It was on this day (ie the winter solstice) in 725, that Boniface, the British "apostle to the Germans", cut down "Donar's Oak" at Geismar. It was a pagan site of sacrifice in honour of Thor. Boniface is reported to have said... “Here is the Thunder Oak; and here the cross of Christ shall break the hammer of the false god Thor.”

Bold! This from a missionary who was told by his bishop “to convince [the Saxons] by many documents and arguments.” By and large that's what Boniface and his fellow-monks did...

Been reading a lot about the census this morning (Numbers 1-4).

The fighting men of Israel (aged 20+), excluding Levites, = 603,550. When Levites are counted (from birth not from age 20) they number 22,000. Those who were actually doing priestly work (aged 30-50) = 8,580.

So... The priestly tribe represent less than 4% of Israel. And those who actually do the priestly work are a fraction of that.

The Levites are explicitly said to be standing in for the rest of the nation. They are "in place of all the firstborn of Israel" who represent God's people.

Apartheid means “separateness”: seeking the ‘distinctiveness’ of nations in a South Africa that was multi-ethnic, race-riven and deeply scarred by colonial exploitation. It was not common-or-garden racism, it was *reformed political theology* forwarded by devout Calvinists.

1/4 This lecture by Alec Ryrie is a must watch (essentially a condensation of the Apartheid chapter in “Protestants”).



The /theology/ of Apartheid is foregrounded—vital so that those outside the church can understand and those inside can take heed.

2/4

In "Between Two Worlds" John Stott highlights 6 biblical metaphors for preachers: heralds, farmers, stewards, shepherds, ambassadors, and workers.

He then runs with his own metaphor: bridge-builder.

I genuinely hate to disagree with Uncle John but This Was A Colossal Mistake 🧵 Pretty much every other picture of a preacher—all the biblical ones—de-centre the preacher. The herald might ring a bell in the town square but it's clear they're bringing news of the king. The ambassador might be addressing the court but *in the name of the one they represent*.

Consider 3 social transformations in Christian history: the end of infanticide, gladiatorial games, and the slave trade. They’ve come thru preaching *and* politics—church power (cruciform witness) *and* state power (legislation/enforcement). It’s both—but in a particular way. 🧵 On infanticide, Christians saved babies from exposure and raised them long before Valentinian I made laws that parents must raise their offspring and forbade the killing of an infant. Cruciform witness *and* state power. And in that order.

OTD in 1536 William Tyndale was strangled then burned at the stake for translating the Bible. (The strangling was botched. He was burned alive). Today there are >100 English translations of the Bible. Back then it cost you your life to have one. Why did Tyndale risk it all?

1/11 In the preface to his New Testament, Tyndale reveals why the Scriptures are so precious—because they contain the most glorious joy-giving promises:

"The New Testament is a book [containing] the promises of God and the deeds of them which believe them or believe them not...

2/11