It so happens that I am drafting this second part en route to speaking about sexuality issues in London. I am looking forward to it, for as I argued in the first part, it is not really possible to speak biblically about sexuality without speaking of the message of Jesus. Here are some remaining thoughts […]
Last week I was asked to speak to a group of church leaders on the above title. I suspect I was asked to do this on the basis that I seem to speak (or blog?!) about nothing else these days! However I understood the dilemma. We are conscious that Christian sexual ethics are regarded with […]
Those who have had to listen to my preaching a bit will know that I have a couple of hobby horses. Partly because I think they are under-taught I will tend to major on the themes of union with Christ and strength in weakness. What I have not been good at is bringing those two […]
It was a Saturday night in the summer term of 1996. I was attending the University Christian Union Bible Reading where David MacInnes, then rector of St.Aldate’s Church, was speaking on Ephesians 1. He referred to Paul’s great description of the Christian’s identity- we are those who are “in Christ”. David then made an application […]
To be honest I ended up preaching Jude by accident. We had a couple of spare weeks before our main autumn series started and Jude seemed to fit. Given that it is not the easiest letter I thought I probably ought to tackle it myself rather than give it to one of our younger preachers. […]
Let me tell you a secret. Most preachers find certain types of biblical material easier to preach than others. I suspect most of us in this country find New Testament letters the simplest. Personally, I have never found Old Testament narrative easy and, perhaps curiously, have always found it difficult to open up miracles for […]
I mentioned last week that my tendency in the opening week of a sabbatical is to focus on my own relationship with the Lord. This week I wanted to reflect a little bit more on the life of the church whilst reading and walking in various beautiful places. On previous occasions, these have been times […]
It doesn’t have to be this way- but I am aware that it is very easy for your Christianity to get out of shape even as you spend your life talking about being a Christian. It is largely that the pressure of responding to concerns, needing to produce a sermon, working through a TO DO […]
How do you pray when your soul is overwhelmed with sorrow? Or in the furnace of temptation? We need to know because all of us will experience those things. Recently we concluded a series on prayer in our homegroups. We started with the Lord’s Prayer as Jesus answers his disciples’ request to teach them to […]
A couple of years ago I wrote a few posts around the theme of personality. It is perfectly clear that we all have different temperaments- look at people’s approach to a crowded room of strangers and you’ll quickly notice a difference between introverts and extroverts. We probably sense within ourselves (especially if we are reflective […]