Mark Keown

I see a group of Christians is going to the NZ parliament to protest the removal of the phrase “Jesus Christ” from the parliamentary prayer. Back in 2017, mentions of Jesus and the Queen were removed from the prayer by Trevor Mallard, the incoming speaker of the house when the Labour/NZ First coalition took the reins of the NZ government. He did so without any real consultation, which is strange considering the long-held traditions of Parliament (https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/98742522/parliament-prayer-changes--no-more-queen-or-jesus). In a Stuff online poll at the time, 50% said they didn’t like the removal. 17% liked the removal of the references to Jesus and the Queen, while 33% wanted the prayer removed altogether. So, it is fair to say, NZ is split down the middle. A majority of around two-thirds want a prayer, and half want Jesus and the Queen referenced. The previous prayer went like this: Almighty God, Humbly acknowledging our need for Thy guidance in all th...

I had a second discussion today as well. I preached on Gen 22 last week, and an observant person noted that while the text says Isaac is Abraham’s “only son,” he actually had another son at the time, Ishmael. This is a classic example of where we need to read a term in context to understand it. The term “only” is יָחִיד ( yā·ḥîḏ ). If we take it literally, there is a clash with Gen 16, where Ishmael is born. However, when we come to a term like “only” or “all” in Scripture, we shouldn’t just immediately think that every time it has a pure “same as everywhere” meaning. So, for example, in 1 Tim 4:10, Jesus is “the Savior of all people.” If we literalise this, we end up with universalism; Jesus saved everyone, period. However, when we consider all of Paul’s theology, clearly he did not believe this. What he means is that Jesus is the savior of all people who believe. Potentially, he is savior of all, if they will yield. So, we have to take care to interpret “all” here in context ...

I had an interesting conversation after church today. I preached on Jonah 2 and referenced the “sign of Jonah” from Matt 12:38–42. A wonderfully passionate Christian in my church was keen to discuss whether Jesus was dead three days and nights, which would align with Matt 12:40: “for just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” He went as far as suggesting that I was not taking Jesus at his word by not believing that Jesus rose three days and nights after his death. I suggested that the sign wasn’t so much related to the exact three days and three nights, but that Jesus died and rose again, which parallels Jonah in the belly of the fish and being “resurrected” onto a beach. The exact timing is not the point. What I said, clearly did not satisfy my friend, and so I said I would do a bit more research. The first thing to note is that in later references in Matthew’s Gos...

The other day I was at the graduation of another college. Overall it was a great experience, it being wonderful to see another group of students graduate. I was especially pleased to see a relative and some friends gaining postgraduate awards. Hats off to the hard work done by the staff and students who serve Christ in that context. This institution is doing great things for our Lord Jesus, and for that, I give thanks and praise. The leader of the institution gave a great crisp message in which he stated how the college loves the things of God, I was stirred by this. He articulated his hope that the students would embody humble servanthood in their ministries. I wanted to shout a loud amen. I wanted to come to this college! A student then spoke, quite brilliantly to be honest. He was a great advertisement for the work this college is doing. Later came the keynote speaker. He gave a good presentation but lost me with one of his lines, a statement to the effect that this instit...

Conversations with students and on Facebook suggest to me that there is a rise in concern over women in ministry; particularly, their exercising leadership and authority in a church and preaching/teaching groups including men. As such, I thought I would write a blog explaining why I passionately defend women in all forms of ministry in an uncluttered way. If people want to, it is not difficult to track down resources that go into such things in more detail. The positions I espouse are widely held among egalitarians where gender is concerned. Before outlining the reasons, a few caveats are in order. What I will say does not deny that men and women are different, and that gender is a glorious gift. Some aspects of our genderness are set, e.g. where women are concerned, giving birth and breast-feeding. Gender is a creational gift. This blog accepts this premise but presents a list of reasons why I believe the Bible endorses that woman can lead churches and preach. This issue is ...

Further to my blog yesterday, today when asked about his tweet, US President Elect Donald Trump had this response: “Let it be an arms race. We will outmatch them at every pass and outlast them all.” Glorious! Sounds like a game of Survivor: “outwit, outplay, outlast.” Have you noticed that the word Twit is found in the first of these terms? Just saying. I won’t go over the ground I covered in my previous blog in which I suggested that while Donald is right to say that the world needs to come to its senses concerning nuclear weapons, as leader of the “free-world” and “the greatest country on earth,” and as a citizen of this world, he should lead the conversation toward global disarmament. I can hear Hillary’s words in July resounding in my head: "A man you can bait with a tweet is not a man we can trust with nuclear weapons.” She had her flaws, but one of them wasn’t this kind of macho bravado crap. Incidentally, Vladimir’s response is wonderfully reassuring: “Indeed, they...

So today, December 23, 2016, Donald J. Trump, US president elect, tweeted this: “ The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes.” President Elect Trump is of course absolutely right in the final part of the Tweet—the world must come to its senses regarding nukes. Nukes are an abomination. This has been seen by the action of his beloved U.S.A., when they nuked Nagasaki and Hiroshima , Aug 6 and 9, 1945. In those bombings, supposedly justified to end WWII—the jury is out on that one—between 150,000 and 226,000 people were killed. It is sobering to thing that today’s nukes are around 3,000 times more powerful than WWII bombs. According to one news report , if the Russians let off one of their ten nukes aimed at New York there would be no survivors within seven to ten km of its epicentre, not to mention the radioactive fallout. If they launched all ten, New York and its peopl...