The similar phrase 'Worldly Christianity' is one used by Bonhoeffer. It's J Gresham Machen that I want to line up most closely with. See his Christianity and culture here. Having done commentaries on Proverbs (Heavenly Wisdom) and Song of Songs (Heavenly Love), a matching title for Ecclesiastes would be Heavenly Worldliness. For my stance on worldliness, see 3 posts here.

Creation and the Apostle Paul

A bit behind again but I do want to say that we had an excellent time last Saturday with Steve Lloyd, pastor at Gravesend and speaker for the Biblical Creation Ministries. We were between 25 and 30 present altogether, including folk from other churches, which was great. Steve gave us two sessions, the fiorst arguing the case for creation from the New Testament teaching about Adam and death. He then covered more traditional ground talking about Genesis and the flood and evolution, etc.
I also want to say that I was at the TSG at the John Owen Centre last Monday where we were considering the new book by Jeremy Walker and Rob Ventura A Portrait of Paul which is chiefly an exposition of Colossians 1:24-2:5. What made it very special was having Jeremy himself there. That meant to say that where we had niggles he could usually explain why that was the case. Overall we were happy with the book but would like the print slightly bigger, clearer indications of who wrote what and slightly briefer quotations. Some felt that the book didn't quite take off in the first three chapters and they were apparently written in a different way and there was no time to revise. Some didn't like the use of the AV not just because they don't like the AV but because they thought it jarred with the style elsewhere. Anyway, we meet again in 2012 looking at a book called Is God a moral monster? Making sense of the Old Testament God by Paul Copan.

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