What a privileged person I am, living in the beautiful Highlands of Scotland, attending a great church and now being back at Highland Theological College for my 4th year. There is a joy to being at HTC which comes from the deep sense of belonging to a worshipping community as well as the rigour of academic theology. There is an even greater blessing this time of year because we are just a couple of doors down from Castle Street Church of Scotland which hosts the Northern Convention http://www.northernconvention.co.uk/. A Christian preaching convention on our doorstep.
Today I intended to hear Dr Bruce Milne at 11.00 but at our chapel service we were blessed with the preaching of Noel Agnew from Northern Ireland. Noel preached passionately from Ephesians chapter 1, I wish I had taken notes because it was fantastic. He emphasised that Paul had been converted when he experienced his Jesus road block on the way to Damascus. This same Paul is often seen as dour and hard hearted, yet Paul is passionate about God and his glory. 3 times within the text Paul expresses his joy in God's glory, and delights in the grace of God. I left out of my sermon on Ephesians,Paul's failure to use punctuation but Noel spoke about it and used it to great effect to remind us of Paul's excitement about God's transforming power. I am thankful that I got to hear one of my favourite passages preached well, hopefully I will learn to preach such passages with the same gentle power and passion.
Dr Bruce Milne spoke from Hebrews and the sacrificial system which has been done away with since the coming of Christ. He spoke about the need to experience the Shalom of God. Bruce also preached at CBC on Sunday and having heard him twice I have noticed that his fire starts low but then glows as he flows (sorry about the poetry). He spoke about the Shalom of God which we have experienced through Christ and reminded us that we have been forgiven there is no place for guilt in Christ. Our sins have been forgiven we have the Shalom of God. He also reminded me of Edward Malcolm whose preaching first made me realise that Christ is a man forever on the throne of God. Bruce spoke with awe of manhood at the centre of Godhood, that at the resurrection manhood ascended to the throne of God and that a man's heart beats within the triune God.
After this I had the benefit of listening to Dr Jamie Grant speak about wisdom literature, I'll hopefully blog on that in the next couple of days.
Shalom
Stephen <><
Today I intended to hear Dr Bruce Milne at 11.00 but at our chapel service we were blessed with the preaching of Noel Agnew from Northern Ireland. Noel preached passionately from Ephesians chapter 1, I wish I had taken notes because it was fantastic. He emphasised that Paul had been converted when he experienced his Jesus road block on the way to Damascus. This same Paul is often seen as dour and hard hearted, yet Paul is passionate about God and his glory. 3 times within the text Paul expresses his joy in God's glory, and delights in the grace of God. I left out of my sermon on Ephesians,Paul's failure to use punctuation but Noel spoke about it and used it to great effect to remind us of Paul's excitement about God's transforming power. I am thankful that I got to hear one of my favourite passages preached well, hopefully I will learn to preach such passages with the same gentle power and passion.
Dr Bruce Milne spoke from Hebrews and the sacrificial system which has been done away with since the coming of Christ. He spoke about the need to experience the Shalom of God. Bruce also preached at CBC on Sunday and having heard him twice I have noticed that his fire starts low but then glows as he flows (sorry about the poetry). He spoke about the Shalom of God which we have experienced through Christ and reminded us that we have been forgiven there is no place for guilt in Christ. Our sins have been forgiven we have the Shalom of God. He also reminded me of Edward Malcolm whose preaching first made me realise that Christ is a man forever on the throne of God. Bruce spoke with awe of manhood at the centre of Godhood, that at the resurrection manhood ascended to the throne of God and that a man's heart beats within the triune God.After this I had the benefit of listening to Dr Jamie Grant speak about wisdom literature, I'll hopefully blog on that in the next couple of days.
Shalom
Stephen <><
1 comment:
Just added you to my favorite links on my blog. Hope all is well!
Post a Comment