Hello, I’m Marty. Welcome to my corner of the internet.

Martin Robinson Martin Robinson

Interrogating the Trinity: How is God God?

So far in this series of articles, we’ve been asking various interrogative questions about God: What is God? Who is God? Now, we’re up to the how question. I suppose there are a few ways I could spin the how question. But in this post, I want to consider how God is God concerning his being One and Three. How is God One and Three? How is the One Three? How are the Three One? The answer is extraordinarily complex. But it’s also kind of simple.

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Martin Robinson Martin Robinson

Interrogating the Trinity: Who is God?

In the previous article, we explored the question, “What is God?” Our answer was, “God is the One self-existing Being.” Now we come to our second question: “Who is God?” It might be tempting to think this question is pretty much the same as yesterday’s. Admittedly, there is a fair bit of conceptual overlap. And when we considered what God is, we came into contact with the “who” question at several points. And that’s to be expected. After all, we’re talking about the same God!

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Martin Robinson Martin Robinson

Interrogating the Trinity: What is God?

In the previous post, we talked about the importance of coming before God humbly but hungrily. Now it’s time to dig into our six “interrogative” questions. In this one, we ask: what is God?

In short, my answer is:

God is the One, self-existing Being. 

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Martin Robinson Martin Robinson

Interrogating the Trinity: An Introduction

I’ve titled my next little series of posts “Interrogating God.” The idea is that I will ask questions of God based on what grammar nerds call the “interrogatives,” words like what, who, how, when, where and why. The first two of these might even be called interrogative pronouns, while the latter four are interrogative adverbs, just in case you were wondering.

But before I launch in, it’s worth asking a question: can we interrogate God?

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Martin Robinson Martin Robinson

Loving the God Who is Love

Christians love love. Everyone knows that Christians love love. God loves love, and Christians love that God loves love. The Bible even says that God is love. He loves us. And he calls us to love him and others. But what does that even mean?

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Martin Robinson Martin Robinson

New Year’s Resolution

Over the past few days, I’ve been getting plenty of ads for New Year’s resolutions. I have to say, I really enjoy the prospect of a new year to kick off a new habit. I have a bunch of plans I’m really excited to kick into action, and hopefully, some of them will stick.

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Martin Robinson Martin Robinson

A Brief Guide to Symbols and Imagery in Zechariah

As the Old Testament stream of my Bible-in-a-year plan reaches its end, I've been enjoying reading Zechariah. I’ve always found the book tricky, so I’ve written these notes on the symbols and imagery to help me understand the big picture. Hopefully, you’ll find this helpful, too.

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Martin Robinson Martin Robinson

Reading Scripture with Augustine: Some Key Principles

Every now and then, I enjoy bustin’ some Augustine at Marticles.net. Augustine of Hippo (354–430 AD) ranks second on my list of “Most Influential People of the Past Two Millennia”, with Muhammad in first place. When it comes to the Western world, I put Augustine in first place.

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Martin Robinson Martin Robinson

John 1:19-34. What Are You Looking For?

I’m the kind of person who loses things a lot. I simply cannot remember where I put my things, whether it’s my wallet, my phone, my keys, my AirPods, my garage remote, you name it. (Things got so bad that I ended up attaching them all.) Therefore, I often find myself looking for things. Truth is, we’re all looking for something. A job. A girlfriend. A boyfriend. Recognition. A crew. A mark. Happiness. Success. Peace. Health. We’re all looking for something. What are you looking for?

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Martin Robinson Martin Robinson

Vines and Fig Trees

This morning, I was reading through Micah. It spoke of a day that is coming when

Everyone will sit under their own vine and under their own fig tree.
Micah 4:4 NIV

The vine and fig tree symbolise a world free from fear and conflict under God's reign. It envisions a time of peace, provision, security and flourishing.

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Martin Robinson Martin Robinson

John 1:1-18. Why Doesn’t God Have a Word for Me?

If God exists, why won’t he make himself more clear? Why won’t he show his face so I can see him with my eyes? Why won’t he speak to me with audible words that I can hear with my ears, like when we spoke to Samuel in 1 Samuel 3? Or why won’t he write up some words on a wall, like he did for King Belshazzar in Daniel 5? Why doesn’t he have a word for these guys but not for me?

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Martin Robinson Martin Robinson

The Other Gods in the Bible

Yesterday morning, I was reading through Psalm 138 in my trusty NIV Bible. One verse stood out to me in particular. Verse 1 reads: “I will praise you, Lord, with all my heart; before the “gods” I will sing your praise.” One word in particular stood out to me: the word “gods”. And not just the word “gods” but also the inverted commas. This stood out to me because, in most other places in the Psalms where “gods” are mentioned in the NIV, there are no inverted commas.

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Martin Robinson Martin Robinson

House Blessing

Recently, I had the privilege of doing my first-ever house blessing. A family from church was moving into their house later that day, and they asked me to come and share a Word from the Bible and pray for their new home.

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Martin Robinson Martin Robinson

🛟 Believe

In the previous post, we began to consider how we should respond to the good news of the gospel. In Mark 1:15, Jesus calls people to “repent and believe” in response to the gospel. In the previous post, we thought about what it means to repent. It means to stop living our way and start living God’s way. This post considers what it means to “believe” or “have faith”.

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Martin Robinson Martin Robinson

↪️ Repent

News worth hearing demands some kind of response. In the last several posts, we’ve been reminded of the core truths of the gospel. But how should we respond to this good news of the gospel?

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➡️ To the Glory of God

In previous posts, we’ve seen that Jesus came, he lived, he died, he rose, he rules, and he’s returning. We’ve looked at how he came: fully God, fully human, living a sinless life in full obedience to God. And we’ve even seen why he came: to die in our place for our sins, to defeat death and bring everlasting life, to rule all things at God’s right hand, to judge and bring us home. However, the reasons given so far as to why he came have been penultimate. In other words, they are second to something else, a greater reason for which he came. What is that greater, ultimate purpose for which he came?

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Martin Robinson Martin Robinson

🏠 He’s Returning: To Judge and Bring us Home

In the previous post, we saw that Jesus rules everything and will continue to rule forever. But if Jesus already rules everything, why is the world still such a mess? Why is there still so much evil? Why doesn’t Jesus return immediately and take us home? And when he does, what will home look like? What else will happen?

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Martin Robinson Martin Robinson

👑 He Rules: All Things at God’s Right Hand

In the previous post, we saw that Jesus rose, defeating death and bringing new, everlasting life. We noticed that there was a now-but-not-yet aspect to Jesus’ resurrection. He has given us new life in the present, but there’s also a sense that we don’t yet have this new life. He has already defeated death when he rose from the dead, and yet the defeat of death is still to come. We live in an overlap of ages. We experience many good things that arise from what Jesus has accomplished, and yet there are still many things that we don’t yet experience.

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Who is Marticles?

I'm Martin, an ordained Anglican Minister of the Reformed/Evangelical persuasion, with a passion for Christian theology, ministry, and—somewhat randomly—life hacks. 

What can you expect from this blog? A smorgasbord of topics that I felt like writing about.

Stick around, explore, and feel free to reach out with any questions or topics you'd like to see covered. I'm glad you're here, and I hope you find some of this content helpful.