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Last week I had a fascinating conversation with Tariq Fernandes about Artificial Intelligence: what it is, how it works, what the opportunities and benefits are, what the dangers and challenges are, and what we can do about it. If it's something you've wondered about, you might find it helpful:

Blogs were originally "web logs": places online where you could tell other people about what you were doing. Social media has largely rendered that function obsolete, but there are occasions - the start of a new year, for one - when it can be interesting to bring it back, so as to talk about what you plan to do, say, read and write in the year to come. (All these plans are of course subject to the James 4:13-17 caveat, as anyone who wrote such a list at the start of 2020 will be well aware.) Writing is the easiest thing to summarise, because I hope this summer will see me complete the draft for a new book on happiness, provisionally entitled Enjoy and published by Crossway. I have always loved teaching on joy, and in this book I am looking at the subject using six questions: why we can be joyful, what happiness is, who we are, when happiness comes, where it lives, and how we can pursue it. After finishing that, my next project might well be a popular commentary on Deuteronomy (in the same series as my 1 Corinthians For You), but we shall have to see. I’ve also got a book proposal on 1968 percolating, but that really is gazing into the crystal ball. As for reading, I expect I will spend at least half the year in Christopher Ash’s Psalms: A Christ-Centred Commentary, which I have just begun, taking a Psalm a day in my devotional times. Other devotional reads I can see coming are Brevard Childs on Isaiah, the second half of Michael Morales’s new Numbers commentary, and Simon Gathercole’s The Pre-existent Son. (Gathercole is a brilliant scholar whose books have wonderfully devotional application, so I’m really looking forward to this one.) I don’t plan my history or fiction reads that far ahead, but three books I have bought and can’t wait to get into are Iain Pears’s An Instance of the Fingerpost, Frederic Morton’s A Nervous Splendour: Vienna 1888-1889 and Tania Brannigan’s Red Memory: The Afterlives of China’s Cultural Revolution. My schedule for preaching and teaching is clearer. As a local church we will be doing a series called Technology: What We Make of the World, then a series on the cross from Romans, and then an expository series from Daniel after Easter. The THINK conference will be on Isaiah in July (I can’t wait), so the major prophets will be quite a theme this year. I’m also really looking forward to speaking at The Gospel Coalition’s conference in Indianapolis in April - I’ve been given Ephesians 4:1-16, which is pretty great! - and visiting my friend Simon Murphy and Redemption Hill Church in Singapore for a week in February, to speak on all sorts of different things. The second half of the year will be quieter on the travel front, but the Newfrontiers Global conference in October is always a highlight, and I’m also hoping to be at Christ Central’s Devoted event at the end of August. Of course, many of the most exciting and uplifting things that happen in a year are unplanned (as indeed are the challenges and tragedies). So this is certainly not a summary of the year to come, or a prediction of what the most important things in 2025 will be. But for those who are interested it will give you an idea of what I’m hoping to get up to. Happy New Year.

What is the most beautiful place on earth? It’s one of those unanswerable dinner table questions. So much depends on personal perspectives and preferences: one person’s palm-fringed beach is another’s snow-covered mountain.If pushed for an answer I would probably settle on South Africa, specifically the Cape. The combination of beautiful beaches, soaring mountains, rolling vineyards, extraordinary flora and sun, sun, sun, make the Cape hard to beat. That South Africa is ‘a world in one country’ is a cliched advertising line, but it is true that it is a place into which so many of the world’s beauties have been squeezed in concentrated form. I have been travelling to South Africa more or less regularly for the past 36 years and I love it. The beauty astonishes me. Yet part of what makes this beauty stand out in such sharp resolution is the profound brokenness that runs alongside and through it. This is made stark when flying into Cape Town: there is Table Mountain in all its majesty, the incredible Cape Peninsula stretching out to form the meeting point of Indian and Atlantic oceans, and the promise of so much that is glorious. But there too, right by the road that leads from the airport into the city, are mile upon mile of shacks, constructed from pieces of corrugated iron and bits of plastic. The poverty, levels of unemployment, and harshness of conditions are staggering. In this beauty and brokenness South Africa offers a microcosm of the world, and of the human condition. There is so much that is beautiful. And there is so much that is broken. This is the case in the particularity of our own lives as well as at a global scale. Just today I have been a recipient of beauty: good food on my plate, the wind stirring up the waves at the beach, my wife. There has been brokenness too: the trail of litter along the street from the takeaway stores, neglected gardens, ugly things I can detect in my own heart. Different lives have different measures of beauty and brokenness poured into them: some people live in Constantia while others live in Khayelitsha. But beauty and brokenness are the warp and weft of every life. No situation is so broken that a glimpse of beauty, like a blade of grass pushing through tarmac, can’t be seen. And even the most beautiful life will be shadowed by what is broken. This is the human condition. It is into this condition that the message of Christmas speaks. The coming of the Messiah carries with it the promise of beauty even in the midst of brokenness. The nativity story shows us this contrast. We see the brokenness in a pregnant young woman being unable to find a place to rest and the horror of Herod’s slaughter of the innocents. We see the beauty in the gifts of the magi, in the angels, and in the face of the baby. For so many that is as far as the Christmas story goes. We must go further. We need to see how our desire for beauty and lament for the broken can only be answered by that baby. Erik Varden writes that, ‘Our most intimate desires carry messages from afar. They make us homesick for a land we have not yet discovered.’ Even the most beautiful things this world can offer don’t answer the longing of our hearts. We remain homesick still. The only sure answer to that homesickness is found in the manger. ‘The gospel does not obliterate our longing. It validates it, assuring us that what we long for is real and substantial…. ‘the One the nations wait for’.’ He is the One who brings a promise of all brokenness healed and unimaginable beauty experienced. He is the One who promises to fulfil our longings. It is only in Him that we can find our way home. Merry Christmas!

One title which I did not put on my "books of the year" list, for obvious reasons, is my latest book, It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas. It is a short, light and hopefully accessible attempt to connect the ways we mark Christmas with the gospel realities behind them: lights, family meals, visitors, even the King's speech. Pitched at people who do not normally go to church, and designed to be given away to neighbours, family members and visitors to Carol services, the book is only £1 per copy if you buy 100 of them (and only £3 per copy if you don't).Knock yourself out.

This year I was particularly struck by how far we read books for different reasons, and at different times. There are books I find delightful at night, or on holiday, which I would never read in the early morning before the children wake up, or as part of my devotional times, or in preparation for a conference or a message (and vice versa). Personally, I reflected, I read books for four main reasons: to learn and be stimulated to think (mainly history and philosophy), to be absorbed or entertained (just before going to sleep, or perhaps on holiday), to live well (usually books of Christian wisdom and cultural engagement), and to fuel joy (primarily in my devotional times). So I decided to sort my books of the year into these four "occasional" categories, based on what I read when and for what purpose, rather than by genre. Whatever you like reading, I hope it sparks some ideas. My book of the year for 2024 - which is actually four books - was Robert Caro's astonishing biography of Lyndon Johnson. It is one of the books I have most enjoyed reading in my entire life, and I wish I could read it again without knowing what happens. It is not just Caro's portrait of an enormously complicated, often villainous and sometimes heroic man that makes it so compelling; it is also his depiction of mid-century America as a whole, with all its ingenuity and corruption, and his deep dives into the lives of Johnson's rivals and associates in each volume (Sam Rayburn, Coke Stevenson, Richard Russell, John Kennedy, and so forth). Most of all, it is the way Caro uses dramatic irony to his advantage. We know this difficult, brilliant, coarse and often odious man became a Congressman, then a Senator, then a Vice President, and finally a President, but on countless occasions we simply cannot fathom how he managed it, given the internal and external reasons he shouldn't have. Caro uses that puzzle to marvellous effect, and the result is a three thousand page story that truly rips along. I cannot wait for volume five.History and Philosophy Books (To Make You Think) Niall Ferguson, Kissinger: The Idealist. Another man whose life spans and parallels the twentieth century, and provides striking insights into it. Frank Dikötter, The Cultural Revolution. The moral and cultural implosion of Mao’s China, narrated with remarkable clarity and power. Iain McGilchrist, The Matter With Things II. Every bit as good as volume one, which was my book of the year in 2023. Robert Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson. Book of the Year Mark Kurlansky, 1968: The Year that Rocked the World. Any guesses as to the book project I’m thinking about? Exciting and Absorbing Books (To Read at Night or on Holiday) Katherine Rundell, Rooftoppers. I think this book might have been meant for children, but it’s wonderful. What a writer. Rory Carroll, Killing Thatcher. A taut and gripping account of the IRA plot to kill Margaret Thatcher and the manhunt that followed. Tracy Sierra, Night Watching. “There was someone in the house”: the tension starts in the opening sentence and does not relent until the final page. Maggie O’Farrell, I Am, I Am, I Am. Ten short stories based on the ten times Maggie O’Farrell nearly died. Thoroughly absorbing. Francis Spufford, Cahokia Jazz. A clever detective story set in a fascinating alternative history of midcentury America. Christian Books (To Help You Live Well) Kevin DeYoung, Impossible Christianity. Why the Christian life can be lived faithfully and wisely despite all appearances, actually. Christopher Wright, Hearing the Message of Ecclesiastes. A penetrating study of one of Scripture’s most thought-provoking and challenging books. Rachel Gilson, Parenting Without Panic. How to raise loving and brave children in a world where LGBTQ+ questions press upon us from all sides. Gavin Ortlund, What It Means To Be Protestant. A wonderful defence of Protestant thought and practice in dialogue with Orthodox and Catholic positions. Kevin Vanhoozer, Mere Christian Hermeneutics. KJV brings his A-game to an often convoluted subject and brings his customary clarity with him. Christian Books (To Fuel Your Joy) Jeremy Writebol, Pastor: Jesus is Enough. A warm and uplifting exposition of the seven letters in Revelation, aimed at pastors but relevant for everyone. John Oswalt, Isaiah 40-66. Magnificent insights on one of Scripture’s greatest books (and the topic for next year’s THINK conference!) Julian Hardyman, Jesus, Lover Of My Soul. A beautiful exposition of the Song of Songs that is nearly as passionate and unashamed as the original. Sam Allberry, One With My Lord. Probably the best (and simplest) book I have ever read on union with Christ. Rachel and I fought over it on holiday. Michael Morales, Numbers 1-19. A marvellous and substantial commentary on a book that lots of us struggle to understand, let alone revel in. Happy Advent!

This is a guest post by Bryan Hart of One Harbor Church, North Carolina Imagine: You are the leader of a small Iranian house church. The police have just arrested, tortured, and interrogated someone from a sister house church, and there are rumors that you have been named, along with your spouse and children. Though you are accustomed to fear and anxiety, the paranoia is now full-blown. You experience severe mood swings, from profound grief to seething anger. And you’re not the only one, you’ve got a church to pastor. Here is the question: what resources has God given you to help you through your suffering?A big part of that answer includes the Psalter, the prayers of God’s people. In the case of poems like Ps. 23, Christian appropriation is fairly straightforward. But what of the so-called imprecatory Psalms, where the Psalmists invoke curses and judgment on their enemies? For example, consider the final six verses of Ps. 139:[19] Oh that you would slay the wicked, O God! O men of blood, depart from me! [20] They speak against you with malicious intent; your enemies take your name in vain. [21] Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? [22] I hate them with complete hatred; I count them my enemies. [23] Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! [24] And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting! (ESV) May Christians pray such passages today? Could you, in the scenario above, use such a Psalm to vent your rage at the injustice of evil? We commonly read or hear that Christians should not. For example, Bruce Waltke argues that the imprecatory Psalms are “inappropriate for the church” because “ultimate justice occurs in the eschaton” and we should be more focused on forgiving than condemning.1 This approach has become attractive to modern evangelicals, finding endorsements in popular-level works such as Ian Vaillancourt’s recent Treasuring the Psalms—overall, an excellent resource. The problem is that Waltke’s view has hermeneutical, historical, and theological problems. And the stakes are not small: while in the West, the Christian response to persecution is often a theoretical exercise, in other parts of the world it is viscerally practical. In what follows, I would like to give some historical and theological context to imprecations and malediction as a form of speech, address some hermeneutical inconsistencies applied to these texts, and then make the case for Christian appropriation of these Psalms. The persecuted church needs all the help she can get in the face of violent evil, and the imprecatory Psalms are a gift to her from our Heavenly Father. Putting Imprecations in Context The imprecatory Psalms (those that invoke curses, calamity, or judgment) are often directly or indirectly tied to what may be called the “retribution principle”: those who are righteous should flourish, and those who are wicked should suffer, both in proportion to their virtue or vice.2 Thus, the imprecations are, in one sense, prayers for the enforcement of the retribution principle: may the wicked get their just desserts. This was, however, not a distinctively Israelite impulse—the principle can be found throughout the literature of the Ancient Near East (ANE) and within the Mesopotamian religions, in particular. However, non-Israelite religious systems did not depend on the justice of the gods (for the gods could be wicked) but on mutual incentives: gods and people needed one another.3 Life outcomes were determined by one’s pleasing or offending of the gods, knowingly or not.4 In contrast, the Israelites believed God to be utterly just and without wants. It is his holiness, rather than his neediness, that informs the Biblical idea of retribution. In another sense, imprecations are curses. Curses of many kinds can be found throughout ANE literature, nearly always invoking deities: “execration texts” that name specific enemies to be destroyed, treaty texts that specify punishments of disobedient vassals, and so on.5 However, where ANE curses (and blessings) were often understood to be magical formulas, Israelite versions of both were better understood as prayers to God in which the power resides in him and not the words themselves.6 We moderns are quite unaccustomed to imprecations and curses, though in that sense we are certainly a minority across human history. It has been observed that “malediction [the use of curses] was a speech-form in the ancient world . . . and a widespread phenomenon.”7 We can go further and suggest that malediction has likely been a part of social discourse universally until the modern world. As it existed throughout the ANE, so it also exists within the Hebrew OT and the Greek NT, which will be seen below. From councils of the early church, which addressed heretics with the biblical term anathema, to the fiery polemics of the Reformation, church history has been no stranger to curses. Modern aversion to this form of speech may have more to do with what C.S. Lewis called “chronological snobbery” than with Christian piety. A Biblical Theology of Imprecations Of the sixty laments in the Psalter, nearly all mention an enemy.8 Not only that, but a rich vocabulary—94 different words!—is used to describe them. “In fact, hatred, enmity, violence, retaliation, and even revenge are not sub-motifs in the psalter: they are substantive parts of it.”9 Though the Psalter is generally considered a book of praises, the enemies in the life of God’s people take an outsized role. The Psalmists do not merely lament over bad things; they cry out against bad people. Justice must be served. An attentive Bible reader will readily note that justice is hardly a peripheral idea within the OT writings; justice and righteousness were central to the Israelite religion.10 Furthermore, they serve as the basis for scriptural judgment and imprecations: justice must be served because God is just. He is also coherent and unchanging—his attributes are not at odds with one another or expressions of various moods. In Jer. 9:24, God says, “I am Yahweh, showing steadfast love, justice and righteousness on the earth.” This view of God is at the heart of Ps. 139 and all other prayers like it: for the wicked to receive less than they deserve would compound the injustice and call into question the goodness, righteousness, and even love of God. Outside of the Psalms and wisdom literature, imprecations are found in three OT contexts: sanctions for covenantal disobedience, prophetic judgments, and oath-taking.11 The Mosaic law used curses as a warning against disobedience, which are detailed in Lev. 26 and Deut. 28-32. Doug Stuart identifies twenty-seven types of curses found in those passages that will come upon the Israelites if they violate the covenant but consolidates them with six terms: “defeat, disease, desolation, deprivation, deportation, and death.”12 Throughout the Torah, those things and people that are meant to be “devoted to destruction” (e.g., the Canaanites in Deut. 20:16ff.) are often translated by the Septuagint as anathema, “cursed things.” This informs the context of Paul’s NT use of the word, to which we will return. In the prophets, imprecations may be made against the nations, the wicked, and the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, but it is always on account of disobedience before God, not because of personal injury experienced by the prophet. In the case of Israel and Judah, the breaking of the covenant is generally the basis for the curse. For example, Jeremiah 11:3 says, “You shall say to them, Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: Cursed be the man who does not hear the words of this covenant.” But even Gentile nations are guilty of disobeying God. Jeremiah 10:25 contains an imprecation on nations that do not know God because they have oppressed God’s people. Isaiah 13-23 includes a series of oracles against the nations, which is justified in 24:5: “The earth lies defiled under its inhabitants; for they have transgressed the laws, violated the statutes, broken the everlasting covenant.” Therefore, Israel may enjoy a special status within its covenant with God, but all of creation bears the responsibility of obedience to God, even if some are unaware of their obligation. But what about the NT? It is not as different a picture as some might assume. Jesus himself issues a curse on a fig tree in Mk. 11:12-14 and Mt. 21:18-22. I share the view of many others that the fig tree represents Jerusalem and the religious establishment, which suggests that the curse is not merely for the tree. Fruitlessness and spiritual barrenness are the result of covenantal disobedience and thus become the subject of Christ’s malediction: “And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness’” (Matt. 7:23). Twice, the apostle Paul issues curses. In 1 Cor. 16:22, he writes, “If anyone has no love for the Lord, let him be accursed.” And in Gal. 1:8-9 he states twice that anyone who preaches a different gospel, even an angel (!), is accursed. Both passages use the word anathema. As the Septuagint used this word to discourage disobedience, so Paul uses it in the same way. In 1 Cor. 16, he discourages the ultimate disobedience within the Christian community, that is, a failure to love the Lord.13 In Gal. 1, he is discouraging false teaching, which is a failure to love the brethren. Thus, malediction, in the form of imprecations and curses, is used to serve the NT church. Perhaps OT imprecations find their greatest NT parallel in Rev. 6:10, where the martyrs in heaven pray to God, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” Two things are to be noted here. First, vengeance is assumed to be good. (This accords with Rom. 12:19 and Heb. 10:30, both of which present a positive view of God’s vengeance.) Second is that the martyrs do not merely desire vengeance but are actively interceding with God about it. Thus, Scripture demonstrates that God’s people make imprecatory prayers on earth and in heaven. This is not to say there is only continuity between the Testaments regarding imprecations, curses, and vengeance. For example, hatred (of which we read in Ps. 139) is more nuanced in the NT perspective than the OT. But here, again, the discontinuity is not as great as some would assume. The prohibition of hatred seems to stem from Matt. 5:43-44, where Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Interpretive challenges abound here (to say nothing of those presented by the entire Sermon on the Mount). Namely, the referent of this antithesis is only partially found in the OT scripture—there is no text commanding the hatred of enemies. More to the point is the semantic challenge: what is meant by love and hate (Greek: miseō)? Some lexicons unhelpfully suggest that miseō always refers to the interior, emotional posture of the believer.14 It is more likely, however, that Jesus is speaking here of actions (which accords with the themes throughout the rest of the Sermon). Luke 6:27 bears this out, where Jesus says, “But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you.” In this context, the opposite of hate is a love that does good rather than a love that feels good. A further demonstration of Jesus’ figurative use of hate is in Luke 14:26, where Jesus says anyone who follows him must first hate his family and even his own life. Clearly, the hyperbolic use of hatred in this case is meant to establish the priorities of allegiances within the life of the believer. The use of miseō in Rev. 2:6 is also relevant, where the church is commended for sharing God’s hatred of the works of the Nicolaitans.15 Thus, when reading passages like Ps. 139, Christians should not be too quick to assume that the NT prohibits hatred in every sense. Though Christians are given a new vernacular and a new way of relating to enemies in the teaching and example of Christ, they may surely join the martyrs in heaven who pray for vengeance against their enemies, and they may feel the disgust of God toward wickedness and sin. Let us return, now, to the hermeneutical problems that have plagued Christian interpretation of these Psalms. Hermeneutical Issues The reticence to use the imprecatory Psalms today stems from at least two problems in modern evangelical interpretation. First, there is an emphasis on the royal or kingly nature of these Psalms that is rightly stated but perhaps over-applied. For example, because most of the imprecatory Psalms were written (or associated with) King David, the enemies in view are not merely personal enemies; they are the nation’s adversaries. In a theocracy, that makes them the de facto enemies of God.16 We must, so we are told, hear them how ancient Israelites would have heard them. In the conclusion of his chapter on the royal orientation of the Psalms, Bruce Waltke states: “It is the king who is in view throughout the Psalter. It is abundantly evident that the subject of the Psalms is not the common man.”17 Fair enough, but how would the common man have heard them? What would he have done with them? Would a family in the temple, singing the songs of their king, not be shaped by these Psalms? Indeed, would King David have been unaware that, in teaching the people to sing about his own enemies, he was also instructing them in how to sing of theirs? Furthermore, how far do we extend this kind of reasoning? Should Christians apply a different hermeneutic to the application of first 18 verses of Psalm 139 (some of the most beautiful poetry in the Psalter) than the final six? Is Psalm 23 a reflection of how God cares for the king alone? Surely not! Overapplying the royal aspect of the Psalms, even Christologically, ultimately leads to a neutering of the Psalter for the believer: everything they express is reserved for the king (or Christ), and nothing is available for the church. This touches on the second problem with the modern interpretation of the imprecatory Psalms: an inconsistent application of the NT to the OT interpretation. Waltke believes the imprecatory Psalms are inappropriate for the church (see above), and notes that “the saint’s struggle is against spiritual powers of darkness. He conquers by turning the other cheek and praying for the forgiveness of enemies.”18 But what keeps us from applying this kind of logic to other types of Psalms, such as the laments? For we are also told in the NT that our afflictions are “light and momentary” (2 Cor 4:17); Jesus told us when persecuted that we should “rejoice and be glad” (Matt. 5:12); Peter tells us that suffering is not something to be concerned about, but to “rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings” (1 Peter 4:12-14); Paul and James both command the church to rejoice in suffering (Rom. 5:3, Jam. 1:2). We could go on. It seems that the NT is applied inconsistently to the expression of emotion in the OT and in the Psalms in particular. For example, Vaillancourt endorses Waltke’s view of the imprecatory Psalms but critiques the lack of lament in the church, arguing that “to sing and pray our tears is an essential part of Christian life.”19 Why should we so heavily “re-format” our anger while baptizing our grief? Can we not sing and pray the full range of our emotions in the New Covenant? The Case for Christian Imprecations It is my view that Christians not only can but should pray and/or sing the imprecatory Psalms, especially since there is no clear NT teaching they shouldn’t (I will address Rom. 12:14 below). However, the teaching of the NT regarding anger and vengeance (and grief as well) is nuanced. Therefore, three things are necessary for the church to use these Psalms. First, Christians need a more honest vocabulary for anger and hatred. If Jesus can stretch the semantic range of miseō (hate) to describe the distance between allegiance to God and allegiance to family (even hyperbolically), certainly we can stretch our English equivalents to describe our feelings about those who harm us or are opposed to Christ. The reality is that Christians will feel the full range of human emotion and must be able to express it. If they are only told that it is wrong to hate, then they will carry on having intense, negative feelings but will likely minimize or deny them out of a misplaced sense of piety. As noted above, the commands in the Sermon on the Mount do not address the emotions but the acts of the will. If we cannot distinguish them, it will be impossible to pray the imprecatory Psalms without feeling like we are guilty of sin. (It is for this reason that perhaps the Hebrew word śānē, translated above as “hate” in Ps. 139:21, would be better rendered as “resent” so that Christians can more easily connect with the emotion being described and acknowledge it.) Second, the imprecatory Psalms demand an appropriate context. A clear distinction is necessary for those inside and outside the church, particularly as it relates to enemies. 1 John, in particular, warns of hating brothers and sisters in Christ. This does not mean that we cannot express emotions when betrayed by fellow Christians, but we must be careful not to treat (or speak of) wayward family members as we do enemies of Christ. Not all suffering is of the same kind, and it is more pastorally appropriate to encourage resilience in the face of most day-to-day troubles. Such woes must not be grouped with the existential and profound agony of Christians who suffer distress at the hands of their enemies because of faith in Christ. So, to restate, it is not my view that the imprecatory Psalms cannot be sung by Christians today, but I also do not think they must be sung by every Christian on their own behalf. If Calvin was right that the Psalms are “An Anatomy of all Parts of the Soul,” then let us, as wise physicians, prescribe and use them as the soul requires. Third, we are in need of a fuller, more biblical, and more comprehensive theology of forgiveness. To argue that Christians should want forgiveness for their enemies rather than judgment overlooks the role of judgment in the act of forgiveness. In forgiving, God does not ignore or minimize sin but pours out his wrath in judgment on the crucifixion of Jesus. This tendency to pit judgment and vengeance against forgiveness fails to account for the fact that salvation is accomplished through judgment, not in lieu of it. All sin will be judged—either at the cross of Christ or the second coming of Christ. Paul is clear about this. He says, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2:20a). In Rom. 6:4, he says that to be a Christian is to be “buried with [Jesus] by baptism into death.” If forgiveness of sin is not thoroughly expressed in the language of judgment and the language of the cross, then the imprecatory Psalms will seem strange indeed. How, then, can Christians pray these Psalms today? After all, aren’t we told to bless and not curse? Yes, but the context of Rom. 12:14-21 is the relationship between the believer and his enemy. Pagans cursed their enemies directly, but in the Bible, imprecations are always addressed in prayer to God.20 There is a big difference! (And an often-overlooked fact is that the motive Paul gives for doing good deeds to our enemies is that it will “pour burning coals” on their heads—something Paul assumes his readers would like to do.) All of that said, I agree that some “New Covenant” re-formatting is appropriate when praying the imprecatory Psalms—though I think that this is necessary for the entire Psalter, not just those Psalms that offend modern sensibilities. (For example, the laments should not be sung without some consideration of the NT perspective on hope and suffering. I agree with Vaillancourt that the church should learn to pray its tears, but I also agree with Paul that we do “not grieve as others do who have no hope” (1 Thess 4:13).) With that in mind, I believe that Christians can sing a re-formatted version Psalm 139:19 by using the NT expression of justice, judgment, and vengeance in this way: “Lord, destroy the enemies of your church, either in your wrath or in the waters of baptism.” Like the saints of Revelation 6, Christians today are free to desire and invite the vengeance of God. Contrary to popular opinion, Rom. 12:19 does not prohibit Christians from desiring vengeance—it commands them to leave it to the wrath of God. The imprecatory prayer I have suggested, then, asks the Lord to do what he has promised to do, and no Christian should feel embarrassed to ask for that! Thus, a persecuted Christian can know that if his enemy is forgiven in Christ, that means his enemy has first had to repent, that he has had to die to himself, and that on the cross of Christ, God poured out the full measure of his wrath. This is why baptism is better than condemnation. In the latter, the enemy is merely vanquished, but in baptism, our enemy is not only destroyed—a friend and brother (or sister) is born. The gospel is not contrary to malediction, judgment, or any of the imprecatory Psalms. Rather, it gives them their best possible expression, as it does for the rest of the Old Testament. Let us use them, then, as we use the rest of the Psalms: for the glory of Christ and the good of the church. ———— Bryan Hart lives in Morehead City, North Carolina with his wife Kimberlee and five children. He serves as a pastor at One Harbor Church.  

“What is the crux of secularism? It is that belief in an underlying or moral equality of humans implies that there is a sphere in which each should be free to make his or her own decisions, a sphere of conscience and free action. That belief is summarized in the central value of classical liberalism: the commitment to 'equal liberty'. Is this indifference or non-belief? Not at all. It rests on the firm belief that to be human means being a rational and moral agent, a free chooser with responsibility for one's actions. It puts a premium on conscience rather than the 'blind' following of rules. It joins rights with duties to others.”Larry Siedentop’s definition of secularism gets to the heart of current tensions surrounding issues of conscience and personal liberty. Secularism can be criticised as ‘mere consumerism, materialism and amorality’, but Siedentop (anticipating similar arguments made by Holland, Trueman, Wilson, et al) argues that secularism properly defined owes its origins to Christian expectations of personal liberty – that our understanding of the ‘individual’ is inseparable from the Christian message: Paul’s conception of the Christ introduces the individual, by giving conscience a universal dimension. Was Paul the greatest revolutionary in human history? But what of when individual liberty and conscience collide with that of another? Whose conscience should be given priority? In my home town our council has established a public spaces protection order (PSPO) around the abortion clinic. This order expressly forbids prayer within the exclusion zone; and from the end of this month a new law will enforce a similar 150 metre buffer zone around all abortion clinics in England and Wales. This week Adam Smith-Connor was handed a two-year conditional discharge and ordered to pay more than £9,000 costs for praying outside our local abortion clinic. According to the Bournemouth Echo Smith-Connor, “emailed the council before each visit, informing he would be silently praying for his son who was aborted 22 years ago and for the end of abortion in the UK and across the world.” Arguably, Smith-Connor was looking to be made a martyr. Before his arrest he was clearly given time and opportunity to walk away. Or he could have simply denied he was praying. But that someone should be arrested, receive a criminal record and have to pay a significant fine (the council had initially asked for costs of £93,441 to be awarded) for silently praying is troubling. As professor of law Andrew Tettenborn observes, This episode should worry all of us, pro-life or pro-choice, if we believe in the idea of liberty. The by-law Smith-Connor was convicted under (not strictly a by-law, but it has a similar effect) effectively bans the expression of moral opinions that are entirely lawful and quite widely-held from within a sizeable chunk of suburban Bournemouth. Smith-Connor was following the secular principle, he was acting as “a rational and moral agent, a free chooser with responsibility for one’s actions.” He was placing “a premium on conscience rather than the ‘blind’ following of rules.” Within British cultural and legal tradition this would be considered entirely unexceptional and Smith-Connor’s arrest and conviction feels more akin to the actions of a totalitarian state than a democratic one. The paradox of secularism though is the way in which it, “joins rights with duties to others.” Did Smith-Connor, in the exercise of his rights, fail in his duties to others? The PSPO was introduced to protect the rights of women attending the clinic – including the right to not feel threatened or harassed as they enter it. Whose rights should triumph here? This is where the PSPO, and the forthcoming buffer zones, feel a blunt instrument. Had Smith-Connor been acting in a way that was clearly intimidatory he could have been moved on but it is hard to see how to stand silently praying constitutes a threat to anyone. Last year our church undertook to prayer walk every street in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole. This meant that at some point one of our church members infringed the PSPO, even as they were praying for the blessing and wellbeing of our town. Personal, private prayer: in a culture of death this is now an illegal act. Not being allowed to pray in a small area around abortion clinics might not feel a vast infringement of individual rights: Smith-Connor could have stood further away and prayed without interruption. Yet his arrest is part of a general slide from policing actions to policing words to policing thought itself. This is a retreat from the secular ideal. As Andrew Tettenborn says, it should worry us all.  

A characteristic of our cultural moment is a lexicon that everyone is meant to know, use, and defer to. On a long car journey I had fun thinking about how some of these terms could be appropriated for gospel use. I’m sure you could add to the list.Enough Something you can never be. No, not ever. But Christ is enough, and in Him each of us can find all we need. Mindfulness The conscious awareness of our sin and lostness outside the grace and forgiveness of the Saviour. This leads to living in step with the Holy Spirit and experiencing peace and joy. Wellbeing The position of being found in Christ. In Him we are brought into the shalom of God and can say, with genuine sincerity, ‘it is well with my soul.’ Safeguarding The eternal security of those found in Christ. He knows who are His and will never let them go – nothing can separate them from His love, not death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present or future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation. Woke Awakened to the reality of personal sin and need of a Saviour. This is why it is said, ‘Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.’ Triggering What happens when a fellow believer is offended because of a weaker conscience. The mature believer is free to adapt their behaviour in order to not offend against conscience in this way. Intersectionality The place where my sin and God’s grace cross, at the Cross. The Cross is the intersection where God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Inclusion What happens when someone puts their faith in God and discovers that Christ is their peace, the dividing wall of hostility has been removed, and they – along with all believers – have access to the Father by one Spirit. Systemic Sin. Diversity The people of God, a numberless multitude, from every nation, tribe, people and language, who will stand before His throne and give Him praise. Safe space The blessing into which the forgiven enter, knowing God is their hiding place, who protects them from trouble and surrounds them with songs of deliverance.

The book of Isaiah has been referred to as the “fifth gospel” since at least the time of Jerome and Augustine. Rightly so. In soaring poetry and often dramatic prose, it radiates evangelical clarity, eschatological hope, experiential joy and evangelistic passion. The goodness of God, the certainty of his judgment and the scope of his salvation shine from its pages. Generations of believers, faced with challenging circumstances or spiritual dryness, have found comfort and delight in Isaiah’s words, and particularly his promises of redemption and restoration in Christ. His significance is also highlighted canonically, as the first and greatest of the major prophets, as well as Christologically. When the Lord Jesus began his public ministry, it was Isaiah’s scroll he quoted.Yet for readers and preachers, it does present challenges. How does the entire book hold together, not just as a series of edited highlights (e.g. chapters 6, 40 and 53), but as a unified whole? What do we do with the numerous oracles of judgment and their very obscure imagery? Why are there so many cryptically-named children in the book, and what is their significance? How can we read chapters 1-39 in such a way as to “behold the King in his beauty” (33:17)? Why do the New Testament writers quote Isaiah in ways that seem so different from his original meaning? (Here’s to you, Ahaz!) What historical backstory makes best sense of each section? How do you preach from a book this long? How do you even read it devotionally without getting lost in the eighth century weeds? These are just some of the questions we will be considering at our upcoming THINK conference, from 1-3 July 2025. We will spend three days together in Isaiah’s magnificent scroll, hosted and taught by Andrew Wilson (King’s Church, London) and including plenary sessions, breakout discussions, meals together, rich times of corporate worship, and time for Q&A. The cost of THINK 2025 is £150 per person, which includes tea, coffee, and meals together at lunchtime and in the evenings but does not include breakfast or overnight accommodation in London. We will begin at 3:30pm on the Tuesday, and finish with lunch on the Thursday, at King’s Church London King’s Church London, 21 Meadowcourt Road, London, SE3 9DU. Come. Take time. Be refreshed. Think. You can book in here.

Twenty years ago last week, a young woman was sitting in a leisure centre near Nottingham, wrapped in tin foil. Her clothing and bedding were drenched. So were the clothing and bedding of all her friends. So were the possessions of over a thousand other young people, each of whom had been evacuated from the Newark Showground into nearby leisure centres to stop them all from catching hypothermia; a third of the delegates would return home without finishing the event. The first Newday had been comprehensively flooded.Last week, that young woman was at the Norfolk Showground with teenage children of her own, speaking in a seminar stream as Newday turned twenty. It was a very different experience. The weather was glorious - warm in the day, cool in the evening - and nobody was evacuated or wrapped in foil. The number of people on site was more than three times as large as in 2004, with just under 10,000 in attendance. At the risk of reducing young people to statistics, there were 553 first time responses to the gospel and 534 healing testimony cards filled out, to say nothing of the thousands who encountered God in fresh ways. The majority of the main stage speakers and worship leaders last week were young teens themselves when Newday started; at least three of them would not even have become Christians yet. Most of the leaders of the 2004 event were still there in 2024, but in supporting roles: co-oordinating prayer meetings, typing out programmes, meeting with trustees, praying for healing, or simply encouraging youth workers. The crowd of people listening to that young woman’s seminar was vastly more diverse than the foil-clad group in Nottinghamshire two decades earlier. Shivering in that leisure centre, she would not have imagined that Newday would still exist twenty years later, let alone be thriving like this. I only know that because two weeks later I married her. The fact that Newday is the same age as my marriage shapes the way I think about it. I track its progress over time. I see it maturing as an institution, like marriages do, as it learns more and more what it is uniquely called to do, and what it must (sadly) lay down in order to do it as well as possible. I notice the obvious changes in size, activity, diversity, accessibility and leadership, but I also notice the way in which they reflect what Newday always hoped to be. A twentieth anniversary is a good time to observe the differences between who you were and who you are, but it is also a time to celebrate the continuities, and the way in which God has changed you in order to keep his purpose for you the same. So the song lists and musicians have changed, but in order to preserve the exuberance and encounter we have always hoped for. The preachers, topics and seminar titles have changed, but so as to maintain the combination of biblical fidelity, prophetic clarity and evangelistic urgency we started with. We no longer bus young people into football stadiums, but more people respond to the gospel now than they ever did. And so on. Two things struck me particularly. One is the model of team leadership that has always been a feature, but seems to have become heightened over time. I saw at least eight different people lead out in corporate worship, three men and five women, even though there were only two bands on the stage all week. The only people who preached more than once were the people who did the morning sessions, and neither of us were involved in leading the event. If you asked a group of teenagers which individual was in charge, you would have got several different answers, and none of them would have been right. As one speaker put it on the Wednesday night, there has never been a Mr or Mrs Newday. The other is something that has never changed, and I hope it never does: the kindness, humility and diligence of the serving teams. It still astonishes me that there are people who take a week off work to come to a campsite in Norfolk to look after my children, and that they are ceaselessly enthusiastic and thoughtful as they go about it. People go out of their way to be helpful as they set up and pack down venues, empty bins, cook meals, fix things, steward venues, oversee safeguarding, care for people with disabilities and run sporting activities, even though they are tired, sweaty and (obviously) unpaid. As ever, it is the cleaning team that amazes me the most. At one point I encountered two individuals - one a hugely talented gospel singer, and the other a pastor with thirty years experience - clothed in luminous jackets and rubber gloves, with huge grins on their faces, telling me about what they had witnessed as they cleaned the toilet blocks that morning. I was as captivated by their joy as I was horrified by their anecdote, and I know similar things could be said of many, many others. I have no idea how many people have served in such ways over the last twenty years. Someone must have set up the venue for my first seminar. Someone must have given my soon-to-be wife a sheet of foil in that leisure centre. Someone was on the doors when my son made his first response to Jesus, and someone else was on the front gate that day when my daughter lay down in the driveway and refused to move, and someone else had to deal with the pastoral fallout of that public mistake I made. I don’t know any of their names. And despite my desire to honour a great many individuals over the last twenty years, I haven’t used any names in this article, except one. His is the only Name that matters.