Mark Keown

I was reading the first part of Luke 12 the other day and I realized what a great passage it is and how it revolves around the idea of fear. A great crowd had gathered. Luke describes it as a myriad , which technically means 10,000, and so suggests an enormous crowd. So great was it, that the people were trampling over each other. It is striking how people were drawn to Jesus. He must have been amazing to watch in action. In this setting, Jesus addresses his disciples, warning them first of the Pharisees’ teaching. It is the things he says in vv. 4–12 that really spoke to me. The theme of “fear” dominates. Jesus addresses the listeners as “my friends” demonstrating real affection in a world of enmity. In the Greco-Roman world, “friendship” was a very important motif. Unlike the Pharisees who had rejected Jesus, we are his friends. What a beautiful thought that Jesus sees me as a “friend.” It is not the language of someone to fear, but someone to trust and love. Jesus tell...

I have just red Sir Graham Henry’s book, Final Word. It is a biography of his life to the end of the RWC in 2011. It means a lot to me this book, as I gave it to my dad a year or so ago, and have inherited it now that he has died. It is a good read too. I especially liked the analysis of the 2007 quarter-final loss to France—something sure stinks about that result. We will never know the true story I suspect. What really interested me as a theologian, were the religious notes through the book. They give insight into the respect that Sir Graham has for people of Christian faith and a little insight into his own view. I found them intriguing and would love to have opportunity to ask him why he included them. The first is found on p. 96 where Henry tells of the conversion of Jason Robinson, a member of his 2001 Lions. He speaks of how Inga Tuigamala approached Robinson about a dream he had had about him, and this led to Robinson becoming a born again Christian and tra...

With Pentecost approaching, I have been asked to speak on it. Here are some thoughts that have come to me. Pentecost. The day of Pentecost is, as we have read, the day in which God poured out his Spirit on humankind in a totally fresh and complete way. We know that the third person of the Trinity, the Spirit, has been involved in life from the creation of the cosmos. The Spirit of course hovered at creation when God formed his world out of the chaos (Gen 1:2). In some sense God’s Spirit is present in all that lives in the creation, that empowering force we call “life.” It is that non-substantive undefinable force that fades or is abruptly removed from a person, a creature, or plant when it dies, as my father did just a few months ago. It is the breath of God that animated Adam and all living things (Gen 2:7). This is that thing that is pouring out of children, so full of energy, and that fades as we enter middle age and onto old age. When it is gone, all that is left is dust--...