Knowing God or hearing God

Posted on 16/02/2026 by Jon Garvey

The current Charismatic claim (but only since the particular flavour of that theology that came in with John Wimber in the 1980s) is that God speaks to us during prayer if we listen hard enough. My response, so far unrefuted, is that nothing in Scripture teaches this (and what is not in Scripture is, of course, unscriptural teaching). But the justification for it is that Scripture may have been jolly good for “then,” but we need to hear God’s word for now.

Continue reading →
Posted in Music, Theology | Leave a comment

Omnicorruption week

Posted on 09/02/2026 by Jon Garvey

Last week was, in my view, rather remarkable for the release of at least five massive tales of corruption and deception simultaneously. Most have attracted less attention than they deserve. All are profoundly depressing.

Continue reading →
Posted in Politics and sociology, Theology | Leave a comment

Righteousness exalts a nation

Posted on 07/02/2026 by Jon Garvey

Soon after the Epstein files were released, the MSM tried, apparently unsuccessfully, to launch a story that Epstein was actually employed by Russian Intelligence to create a honey-trap to uncover Western secrets.

Continue reading →
Posted in Politics and sociology, Theology | 2 Comments

On miracles and miracle-workers

Posted on 05/02/2026 by Jon Garvey

“Jesus worked miracles through the Holy Spirit. Christians have the same Spirit. Therefore they can do the same miracles.” This is the syllogism often put out by Bill Johnson of the Bethel Redding cult. It depends on an erroneous kenotic view of the incarnation and is proven useless by the trail of failed wonders and the fraudulent leg-lengthening, angel-feathers etc widely used by their acolytes as a substitute.

Continue reading →
Posted in Theology | 4 Comments

How did Evangelicals get so phrygian heretical?

Posted on 02/02/2026 by Jon Garvey

Last week dealt another blow to the hypercharismatic movement, through a long (6 hour!) video by Mike Winger, exposing both the fakery and sexual and psychological abuse by yet another leg-lengthening false prophet, whose name I can’t be bothered to remember, and his relentless promotion as a prophet of God by the leadership of Bethel, Redding.

Continue reading →
Posted in History, Theology | Leave a comment

Forever blowing bubbles

Posted on 29/01/2026 by Jon Garvey

This morning the price of gold broke the £4,000/oz level. Even the Beeb news has had charts this week showing the exponential rise in bullion prices. I don’t think they were so upfront in drawing the main lesson that the accelerating rise in price over the last few years teaches: that it indicates the abandonment of confidence in the world financial system, which is built on escalating debt and rapidly depleting trust.

Continue reading →
Posted in Politics and sociology, Theology | 8 Comments

Equipping tomorrow’s spiritual warriors?

Posted on 27/01/2026 by Jon Garvey

A Christian apologist on YouTube suggests that (American) public schools no longer teach children how to think, but instead what to feel. Which is a recipe for disaster. I think the same is true of churches over here in Britain, which is a recipe for spiritual shipwreck.

Continue reading →
Posted in Politics and sociology, Theology | 3 Comments

Theophanies and biblical theology

Posted on 24/01/2026 by Jon Garvey

David C. Mitchell, in Jesus – The Incarnation of the Word, makes a case for the mysterious Melchizedek, priest of El-Elyon and King of Salem in Genesis 18, being a “pre-incarnation theophany” of Jesus.

Continue reading →
Posted in Theology | Leave a comment

The Torah of Mati

Posted on 19/01/2026 by Jon Garvey

I’m re-reading Köstenberger and Kruger’s 2010 book The Heresy of Orthodoxy, which disposes of the unaccountably popular views of Bart Ehrman et al. that orthodox Christianity was always just one of many diverse versions of Christianity that evolved by oral traditions until (very postmodernly) the brute power of the orthodox suppressed the rest.

Continue reading →
Posted in History, Theology | 1 Comment

Follow the anomalies

Posted on 16/01/2026 by Jon Garvey

One key to understanding Scripture is to develop the habit of noticing apparent anomalies and seeking a biblical explanation for them. An example I found today illustrates the point: the commentary Jesus gives on his model prayer in Luke 11.

Continue reading →
Posted in Theology | Leave a comment