The Wycliffe Blog - Vestigia Dei
Vestigia Dei – is a Latin term meaning “traces of God.” As a theological term it is associated with natural theology – that is, the view that there are vestiges of God within creation. We’ve chosen this term as the title of the Wycliffe College blog because our hope is that through these writings, readers might glimpse evidences for God as our writers interact with the wider world.
Subscribe by RSS
 |
Did Paul Really Intend to Silence Women Everywhere and Always? Sixteenth-Century Female Reformer Said “No.”By Marion Taylor I was raised in a church and family that encouraged women to be all that they were meant to be. It was only when I started going to a church where women’s roles were restricted that I encountered pushback from the so-called silencing texts in 1 Timothy 2:11–12 and 1 Corinthians 14:34ff. Restrictions on what I could do and whom I could teach forced me to wrestle deeply with questions related... |
Thu, March 09, 2023 |
 |
Journeying as PilgrimsBy Lissa M. Wray Beal “Guide me, O thou great Jehovah, pilgrim through this barren land.” So begins William Williams’ hymn in which Christian life is a pilgrimage along which the believer’s weakness is exposed, and God’s provision abounds. Pilgrimage is a deeply embedded description of the Christian life. It reflects Israel’s own wilderness trek, one which too often included complaint and the fear that God might not provide (Exod. 17:1–7). During Lent, we imagine... |
Tue, March 07, 2023 |
 |
Dead to Sin? Romans 6 and New Life in ChristBy Stephen Chester We live in a time of repeated scandals in which prominent church leaders turn out to be hiding egregious sinful behaviour. We all know what it is to be tempted and to fail, but so often what is revealed are not such lapses but instead ingrained, habitual sinful behaviors repeated across many years without any apparent desire for repentance and forgiveness until caught out and exposed. Such episodes demonstrate the... |
Thu, March 02, 2023 |
 |
The Word of God Abides: Reflections on the First of the Six Principles of Wycliffe CollegeBy Joseph Mangina In a conversation with some students recently I made reference to Wycliffe College’s Six Principles, and was met with blank stares. I do not fault the students. The fact is that we don’t talk about the Principles nearly as much as we did when I began teaching here in the late 1990s. I therefore decided it might be time to say a word or two about them. As our ... |
Fri, February 24, 2023 |
 |
Learning From Successful ChurchesBy Peter Robinson In Churchland there is a natural tendency to look to churches that appear successful, hoping to learn from or emulate what they are doing in our own communities. Perhaps especially when things aren’t going well, or when we are facing challenging transitions such as slowly moving out of the Covid pandemic. While many practices are not easily transferable to a different context, there are also other important questions we might... |
Wed, February 15, 2023 |
 |
Valentine’s DayBy Catherine Sider-Hamilton When my children were young, Valentine’s Day was hugely exciting. We made cookies with pink icing in heart shapes. We got those boxes of Valentine’s ‘cards’ -- actually tiny strips of paper that did not deserve to be dignified by the name ‘card’, but the kids loved them, and they painstakingly tore them apart on the dotted lines and wrote a name on every one, for every child in their... |
Fri, February 10, 2023 |
 |
The Temptation of the Godless SermonBy Judy Paulsen Some time ago I visited a church in which the sermon, delivered by a guest preacher, concluded with the sentence “If you do this you’ll be happy, and your neighbour will be happy.” The Gospel reading that morning recounted the calling of the first disciples. The sermon asked the listener to consider if they would have responded as quickly to the call of Jesus as the first disciples did. It... |
Wed, January 25, 2023 |
 |
Jesus, the Napalm Girl, and UsBy Alan L. Hayes If you’re near my age, or older, you likely remember seeing this photo in a newspaper in June 1972, probably on page one. It shows nine-year-old Phan Thi Kim Phuc, her clothes and most of her skin burned off by a napalm bomb that had just been dropped on her village from a South Vietnamese Skyraider military aircraft. Her face distorted by pain, she’s running down Route... |
Mon, January 23, 2023 |
 |
The Divine Key to Long Life and Prosperity in 2023By Annette Brownlee 11 Come, children, and listen to me; * I will teach you the fear of the Lord. 12 Who among you loves life * and desires long life to enjoy prosperity? 13 Keep your tongue from evil-speaking * and your lips from lying words. 14 Turn from evil and do good* seek peace and pursue it. (Psalm 34:11-14)
A member of your congregation comes to you and says everyone... |
Wed, January 11, 2023 |
 |
Routines with a Bigger PurposeBy Stephen Andrews Like many of you, I spend the first week of the New Year going through my diary, trying to anticipate some of the challenges and opportunities the next twelve months will bring. There’s the weekly rhythm of chapel services at the College, the regularly scheduled meetings with staff and faculty, the monthly gatherings of the Board and college committees, and the odd business trip. It’s a review I generally look... |
Tue, January 10, 2023 |
