Now and again I’m posting links to things I’ve read recently that I think you might find interesting too. But I just checked and recently and I haven’t posted one since April. That is mostly because they actually take a good bit of time and don’t tend to get lots of feedback, but still it allows me to scratch my strengthfinders input strength;

“You are inquisitive. You collect things. You might collect information — words, facts, books, and quotations…Why are they worth storing? At the time of storing it is often hard to say exactly [Who,] when or why you might need them, but who knows when they might become useful?” read more

What I posted recently

• Why the inability to be wrong is destroying us, our relationships and our world

• If everything is Holy can anything be Holy?

• 2 Ways Jesus’ childhood can teach us about effective discipleship

• How to be the Church in an unjust economy | Part 1

• Atonement for Dummies (Of which I am one)

• How to be the Church in an unjust economy | Part 2

• Putting Jesus back together again

• The Neuroscience of Generosity

Images; still and moving

• Ornitographies – “Xavi Bou focuses on birds, his great passion, in order to capture in a single time frame, the shapes they generate when flying, making visible the invisible.”

• Annual Drone Photography Winners – Some pretty incredible photos to look through here since taking photos and videos from these small flying objects is en vogue.

• Been watching Chef’s table on netflix recently. It’s a six-part food documentary series that follows one world-renowned chef and their lives outside the kitchen. The series is directed by David Gelb, who also made Jiro Dreams of Sushi – an amazing sushi documentary. Incredible to see the type of focus and artistry that is involved in creating this food, but simultaneously heart breaking at times to see the cost that exacts on their surrounding relationships. We become what we worship.

Coffee

• The Style Wars: Italian vs. Third wave – If you haven’t noticed there is a lot of renewed enthusiasm around coffee these days, in what has been called the ‘third wave’ rather than the ‘second wave’ – which is italian / starbucks variety – this is a good article that explains some of the differences.

• Wondering what difference it makes where you coffee beans are grown? Here are some flavour profiles by country from one of my favourite Cape Town Roasters.

Technology

• The Jaybird Freedom Wireless Earbuds Review from Tools and Toys – I’ve been trying to become a runner recently..and podcasts and music are my secret ingredient that help distract me from the sense that my chest is about to explode – I picked up these incredibly cheap but do-the-job headphones from amazon via a friend flying into south africa. If they are the 5k headphone, these bluetooth headphones might be the marathon headphones!

Poetry

• As South Africa is emerging into spring, I was grateful for this poem by Kim Fabricus – God Save us from a silent spring

Society and Cultural Comment

• One of the greatest gifts of living outside of a predominantly western context is to be able to begin to see the strengths and weaknesses of my own worldview with a little distance. With globalisation and and immigration pushing different cultures together, gaining humility and understanding in the way we view the world is something for everyone, not just those who choose to live in another culture. Our friend Brandon Jones posted a superb introduction on honour and shame cultures that lays out the differences superbly.

• The Outsourcing of Morality from Think Theology

  “..we find it increasingly hard to understand why there might be things we want to do, can afford to do, and have a legal right to do, that nonetheless we should not do because they are unjust or dishonourable or disloyal or demeaning: in a word, unethical. Ethics was reduced to economics.”

• Anxiety as the New Normal from Vinoth Ramachandra

• Obsessed with Sex? from FirstThings.com RSS Feed | Peter J. Leithart – Leithart draws the connections between while sexual ethics within Christianity are key identity markers for the sake of the wider society rather than simply prudish benign moral makers.

Theology and Christianity

• Is Priesthood Abrogated (abolished) in the New Testament? from Think Theology is a helpful short summary of ways that Priesthood is radically redefined in the new convenant rather than abolished.

  “The reason is simple: priesthood isn’t abrogated in the NT (Rom 15; 1 Pet 2; Rev 5; etc). What is abrogated is the Levitical priesthood as a means of mediating between God and man within the tabernacle/temple setup, which clearly is abrogated in Christ (Heb 7-10 etc).”

• Rethinking: Kingdom from Jesus Creed – I’ve been in a number of conversations about the use of the word Kingdom – Scot McKnight offers an NT scholar’s perspective on the ‘faithful’ use of the word.

• Skye Jethani doesn’t hold any punches when he exposes of the false comfort of simple absolutes. This was the type of simplification I was trying to push back against on this post on homosexuality.

“We’ve been conditioned to think God’s view on every matter should require no more than 140 characters to communicate, or even better—a single emoji. Those of us who refuse the false comforts of simple absolutes, like Paul, are branded as sellouts, wishy-washy, or the most insulting label today—elites. We now celebrate unthoughtful and unnuanced opinions as the hallmarks of a strong faith when they are, in truth, clear signs of immaturity and spiritual retardation.”

• Pokemon Go and Kingdom Eyes – A great reflection on how our kingdom vision of the world should haunt us in similar ways to how our world is currently haunted by pokemon go!

• No Salvation outside of the Church – But don’t worry, I didn’t say building or institution. Here is some theological musings related to my conviction that Christianity is a team sport.

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