Published Academic Articles
I co-authored this article with my M.Th student Malcolm Black and we published it in the SATS Conspectus in March 2008. This article briefly examines the current return to apostolic Christianity in various parts of the world and references three earlier Christian movements that came into existence at approximately 100-year intervals, beginning with the Methodist movement in the 1700s, culminating with observations of a current apostolic movement that began in the early 1980s, known as New Covenant Ministries International, in an attempt to ascertain how they embraced early apostolic principles. The article highlights the strengths of several movements but
I co-authored this article with my M.Th student Hugh Goosen and we published it in the SATS Conspectus in May 2015. Vagueness exists amongst Christians with regards to what it is like to experience divine guidance practically. This problem is aggravated by conflicting perspectives on the will of God, whether or not His will is discoverable, and how Christians are to go about seeking it. This article seeks to reveal what we can reasonably expect to experience when God speaks by considering (1) perspectives on the will of God and its discoverability, and (2) the levels of
I wrote this as the introductory chapter in the book Priorities for Evangelical Theological Education published by SATS Press in 2020 The Lord led me to establish the South African Theological Seminary after I had been pastoring the Lonehill Village Church in Sandton for nine years. For the first four years of its existence, my small team and I set in place the legal, institutional, and biblical foundations for the seminary. In August of 2,000 Reuben van Rensburg joined us and six years later took over from me as the Principal. I continued for another nine
1 & 2 Corinthians
I wrote this as a chapter in the book ‘A Student’s Guide to New Testament’ published by SATS Press in 2019. While 1 and 2 Corinthians are presented as two separate letters in the New Testament it is convenient to deal with them together in an overview of this nature; the two letters were written to the same local church within a fairly short period of time, and in addition to this it is possible that they are both compilations of several letters. Almost all scholars agree that Paul is the author of these letters. Both the
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This article was published in Conspectus, the peer-reviewed journal of the South African Theological Seminary. The paper deals with same-sex marriage from a Biblical Christian perspective. It is not a treatise on homosexuality from either a Biblical or sociological point of view. The article deals with homosexuality, per se, only in as much as is necessary to examine the question of the Biblical Christian stance concerning same-sex marriage. . The article starts with a brief overview of the South African civil legal history of same-sex ‘marriage’ partnerships leading up to the current ruling by the Constitutional Court. The debate
An introduction to Systematic Theology, Published in ‘A Student’s A-Z of Theology’ Ed. B. Domeris and K.Smith by South African Theological Seminary Press. Theology is, in essence, ‘faith seeking understanding’, and SystematicTheology is the discipline that seeks to bring together scriptural and church Faith in an organised and life-relevant way. God did not design the Bible as a comprehensive theological dictionary and so Systematic Theology plays an important role in making biblical truth accessible in a holistic and comprehensive fashion. As a discipline, it links with Biblical and Practical Theology to form a theological educational trinity. However, Systematic Theologies
An introduction to Homiletics, the study and practice of preaching, Published in ‘A Student’s A-Z of Theology’ Ed. B. Domeris and K.Smith by South African Theological Seminary Press. Homiletics, like many other Christian disciplines, is hard to define adequately, but in essence, it is the study and practice of the preaching of the Word of God. There is a strong biblical basis for preaching, both in precedent and in injunction, and it has been a central feature of the church throughout all ages. The history of homiletics reveals a general shift of focus from the text, to the preacher,
This article was published in Conspectus, the peer-reviewed journal of the South African Theological Seminary. There are many different understandings of the word ‘Christocentric’ both among past and current scholars. In this article the author aligns with those who regard the life, teaching and person of the Lord Jesus Christ as the locus of doctrinal formulation and proclamation but applies this approach specifically to the hermeneutic enterprise. The key contention is that scripture should be interpreted primarily from the perspective of Jesus’ character, values, principles, and priorities as revealed either directly or indirectly by the biblical revelation of what
A review of ‘A new kind of Christianity’ (HarperCollins 2010) by Brian McLaren Brian McLaren is an influential Post Modern thinker in Christian circles. For that reason alone, his latest book A New Kind of Christianity, deserves probing and analysis for its impact on biblical truth and the centrality of Jesus to his arguments. Brian McLaren has recently published his most definitive work to date in which he comes closer than ever before to clearly stating what he believes. The book is subtitled, ‘Ten questions that are transforming the faith’ and the book is structured around two sets of
My qualifications for reviewing this commentary are over two decades in full time pastoral church leadership and a decade of academic research and teaching. Right up front, however, let me describe the limitations of this review. Firstly, I have not read all 1,585 pages of this one-volume commentary on the whole Bible. Instead, I have focused on the first three chapters of Genesis, the first 15 chapters of Exodus, Malachi, John, Acts, First Corinthians, and Revelation. I have not read all of the 78 articles but I have attempted to follow key threads through them. The second limitation is
Other publications
Over the last few years Hell has become quite a hot topic (please excuse the pun but I just couldn’t resist it). Rob Bell stirred up the flames of controversy with his book ‘Love wins’ and more recently Francis Chan has responded with his ‘Erasing Hell’. Bell and others claim that Hell can’t possibly exist as a ‘place’ of endless punishment because God is all loving. Chan, and most other evangelicals, claim that although the idea of eternal Hell is disquieting to say the least, it is unequivocally taught in scripture. I am not going to add to the
In Ephesians Paul uses the word ‘mystery’ four times. He writes of ‘the mystery made known to me by revelation’, his ‘insight into the mystery of Christ’, and how God has appointed him to ‘make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery’. In verse six he states the mystery in plain terms; ‘This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus’. The Jews were the chosen few and the Gentiles were the lost many, and now Paul was saying
In many evangelical circles, and certainly amongst most fundamentalists, the world ‘liberal’ carries with it a definite emotional and theological charge. Liberals are seen as threatening the Faith and undermining true Christian theology. Liberals have a nefarious agenda; they are wolves in sheep’s clothing, and so on. Liberal theologians, on the other hand, are concerned at what they observe as a lack of love and compassion for the human condition among fundamentalists. They also take exception to what they perceive as the naïve and uncritical spiritualisation of evangelicals. Some, like bishop Spong for instance, even contend that unless they
When I was ten my parents decided to give my older sister piano lessons. I asked them why I too could not be taught to play the piano, but they dismissed the idea out of hand. This really upset me! My parents were often out in the evenings for business or church functions and so every time they went out I executed a cunning plan. One of their favourite LP’s was Tchaikovsky’s piano concerto number one, and so each time I was alone I put this record onto the turntable, sat at the piano, and laboriously learned to play
Over the last several years there has been quite a lot of Christian media coverage given to the evolution versus divine creation debate. The subject is not a new one, but of late the Young Earth Creationist camp has been making its views known fairly clearly and dogmatically and this has sparked responses from Christians who hold other views on creation. I am not a trained scientist and so I am not competent to comment significantly on the scientific aspects of the debate. I also do not claim to be a theological ‘expert’ on the subject. Despite both of
