You might have heard the phrase "the now and the not yet" or something along those lines, perhaps during a Bible study or sermon. It's often a helpful way to categorise the difference between our status and our experience as Christians. Which is, in some ways, one of the most frustrating aspects of the Christian life - that though we are justified, we are not yet glorified (although we are being sanctified). What justification means is that God sees the Christian as he sees Christ - perfect, sinless, spotless, righteous. And of course, in that legal sense, we do have a new status before God. In his eyes justified people have shifted categories from "sinner under condemnation" to "saint, no longer under condemnation". As complete and perfect as he intended us to be. That truth can be frustrating, however, in the sense that it doesn't fully match up to our current Christian experience (yet). Our status and our experience are often at od...

Does God care about the way we look? Does he care about our bodies, our hairstyles or our clothing? Does he care about tattoos or a wonky nose - or perhaps a scar or physical defect? In my church, we generally don't care about what people look like. Black, white, fat, thin, fashionable, unfashionable. How someone looks might be a very occasional point of interest, but generally speaking, what someone looks like will not have a significant influence on our judgement or value of a person. Heck, even I managed to get away with leading a Sunday service in shorts without getting so much as a raised eyebrow. Whilst the modern day, western, evangelical church scene will be keen to point out that there are more important things to worry about than what people look like - taking a sort of "man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart" approach - the rest of the world is obsessed with personal appearance. Beauty is big business and hot topic All you ha...

It's been rather a long while since I last made time for a blog post. Lots to do in life and lots to do that fulfils the same desire as blog writing. So blogging has slipped down the pecking order somewhat. Today has been a day of tidying and clearing and re-organisation. And whilst clearing the tit from the tat in that lazily repurposed cupboard I call an office, I came across my Bible reading notes from last year. And, since I've wanted to write about this for a little while, I suppose that now's as good a time as any. And I can tell you that these notes are probably some of the most valuable things that I could possibly hope to own. Not because they are brilliant, but because they are - in conjunction with the Bible reading itself - what God has used to effect a lot of change in my life. Now, at the risk of sounding like I'm bragging, my discipline for reading the Bible is pretty good (in many ways). And actually, the more I do it, the easier it gets and the...

The thing I find most frustrating as a graphic designer is when a client or colleague chooses the worst option presented to them or requests an amendment to a design that will make it worse, or just plain bad. Sometimes I just have to concede. Sometimes I just have to make do and follow through with the bad choice. But sometimes good design is really worth fighting for. What makes a really good piece of design worth fighting for is the benefit it provides that would not be achieved otherwise. Design that's worth fighting for is design that adds value, a lot of value, quantifiable value, compared to the alternative. And so, I see it as part of my job to, as far as is appropriate, help the client or colleague understand why one design is better than another - to help them have their perceptions changed. Often, I want to educate those I work with why I believe a certain design is better than another. I want them to end up on my side. I want them to change their mind - their per...

We say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Which means we define beauty by our preferences. Therefore, if we do not experience beauty in any given situation, we judge that there is no beauty there. We do this by saying things like, I don’t like this particular piece of music, therefore it is not good music. We tend to ignore the objective reality of beauty and promote the subjective reality of our own personal tastes, making it the overruling determiner of what is beautiful or not. But beauty is not subjective, beauty is objective. It exists whether we perceive it or not. It is our tastes that are subjective. Beauty is not in the eye of the beholder, it is in the intentions of the author. And so, very often, in order to truly apprehend beauty, we need to reorient our perceptions and look beyond merely what we instinctively prefer, and in many instances, learn to appreciate something we might not be so naturally inclined towards. That's where the moral and the aesth...

I've seen every Simpsons episode there is. I've seen most of them more than twice! I just think it's wonderful. It's full of dry wit, droll humour, memorable characters, hilarious catchphrases, ridiculous storylines, and some of the best social commentary you're ever going to come across; including some rather poignant theological insights - some surprisingly agreeable. So, why not start a Simpsons theology theme on the blog? Well, here we go then! The Simpsons Season 24, 2013 Episode 18: Pulpit Friction This idea might seem odd at first. The Simpsons isn't known for its fondness of religion and regularly pokes fun at American Christianity as a confused body of illiberal, moralistic hypocrisy that only uses the Bible for the purposes of opposing things like evolution and planned parenthood. That doesn't mean that the writers don't get it right every so often and in one of my particular favourite episodes, I believe there is a really rathe...

At Easter, in church, we usually focus specifically on the Gospel accounts of Jesus death and resurrection. Makes sense. This is the time of year we have dedicated to special reflection on these particular events. But, partly to be a bit different, and partly because it's fresh in my mind, I thought I'd just share a recent reminder I've had, that the Gospel is everywhere in the Bible and that the significance of the cross of Jesus rings throughout even the Old Testament. And so I'd like to share an Easter message with part of the story of Ahab, King of Israel because I think it is hugely helpful for us today in responding to the cross of Christ. Ahab was a lousy king. Son of Omri, we learn in 1 Kings 16 that he did more evil than all the kings who had come before him and did more to provoke God than all the other kings who had gone before him. He married a devious foreign wife who tried to kill the prophet Elijah, he worshipped foreign gods and he was a miserabl...