If I am to preach, I must have an inner compulsion to do so. I must be driven in light of his appearing and his kingdom to ‘Preach the Word’ (2 Tim 4v2). To be overwhelmed by the Lord’s own personal call – to be sent. Despite what the circumstances are, I must be convinced that I am doing his will. ‘A watchman’ (Eze 33).
There must be an urgency but not a fanaticism that would draw others away from Christ. God’s truth must be bigger than I am yet it must be understood, find resonance in my heart and overflow out of my mouth. ‘It burned within me, then I spake.’
Christ must be the most important factor/circumstance/person of my life. I must feel, believe and be prepared to die for what I say – Christ and him crucified. ‘Like sheep without a shepherd,’ (Mark 6v33) I must have such a compassion and such a concern for the hearers so that before God I can say in all honesty: “Woe is me if I do not preach the Gospel.” (1 Cor 9v16)
Posted by David on Dec 08, 2009
load leukaemia_data;
n = size(Xtrain, 1);
% Build H with a linear kernel %
H = zeros(n, n);
for i = 1 : n ...
for j = 1 : n ...
H(i, j) = Ytrain(i) * Ytrain(j) * (Xtrain(i, :) * Xtrain(j, :)');
end
end
% We want to maximise %
f = -ones(n,1);
a = quadprog(H, f, [], [], Ytrain', 0, zeros(n,1), ones(n,1), zeros(n,1), optimset('MaxIter', 10000));
Posted by David on Nov 12, 2009
“For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.” (2 Corinthians 10:4-5)
In The challenge of culture: Bruce Winter talks to Peter Hastie (Republished by The Briefing, 2009) a few useful questions and some useful facts are highlighted for preachers. Let us dwell on one question and one fact.
Continue reading…Posted by David on Nov 02, 2009
New publicity completed!
Royal Holloway Christian Union will be running a short but sweet “evangelism training course” in the month of November. The course is intended to run for six weeks but we’ve shaved off the last two sessions, “the message” and “the hope”, to fit in with our term dates. I’m not too sure what is intended by the words “evangelism training course”—but I’m sure I’ll be enlightened. There are plenty of related resources for this course which is always handy for organisers.
Posted by David on Nov 02, 2009
I few weeks back, I listened to yet another “Reevesian” rhapsody. The Unquenchable Flame is burning brightly in Michael Reeves’ Doctrine of Revelation. I sketched up a few thoughts while listening to Part 1, so I’ve just typed them up quickly, “that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.” (Matthew 18:16)
We require a “robustly Trinitarian doctrine of Revelation.”
Continue reading…Posted by David on Oct 28, 2009