Last Monday evening saw me 1800m above sea level in a hotel on top of an Alpine mountain speaking at the final of sixteen sessions on Oak Hall’s Alpine Bible School. Truth be told I was feeling somewhat emotional as before the talk I said this- “To teach the Word of God to those hungry […]
A few weeks ago I posted the handout that accompanied my recent talk on John Bunyan. In that talk I focused principally on three of Bunyan’s works- Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, Pilgrim’s Progress and his Advice to Sufferers. I didn’t have much time to reflect on his Holy War that I read […]
In the last two posts I have argued that, despite the difficulties of handling the text, we need to read and preach Song of Songs more. We live in a culture where there is much talk about love and the song gives us an opportunity to speak about a love which is as strong as […]
So what do you discover if you do read or preach Song of Songs? You learn about a love that is as strong as death and burns like a blazing fire (8:6). Instinctively when we read that I think we know that is true- love is the force that moves us and motivates us most […]
Once a year I attempt to do a biography of a leading Christian character on a Sunday evening. You can hear the talk on John Bunyan here. I tried to tell Bunyan’s story using his own words. That meant there were lots of quotes! So, if you want to follow the talk, it is probably […]
One of my favourite books over the last few years has been Jack Miller’s “The Heart of a Servant Leader”. It is a compendium of letters from an older pastor to younger missionaries and church workers and was actually recommended to me at a Pastoral Refreshment Conference a few years back. Amongst other things, Miller […]
At our Carol Service this year I reflected on those end of year montages that you often see on TV programmes at this time of year. I am a bit of a sucker for them and I particularly enjoyed those on the Sports Personality of the Year programme that I caught up with subsequent to […]
I am afraid that Christmas is likely to pass the blog by- any spare thoughts I have on the subject tend to appear in the various special sermons at this time of year! But I did want to pull some threads together from our recent series on busyness. It is our tradition here to examine […]
Earlier this year I was asked to speak on the subject of homosexuality on a pastoral care course down at WEST. I decided that I probably ought to increase my range of reading on the subject so worked my way through Matthew Vines’ book God and the Gay Christian. Vines speaks movingly about discovering his […]
I noted last week some of the developments on the issue of same sex marriage and associated issues in the last year. For those wanting help to hold to an orthodox position the publication of Ed Shaw’s book The Plausibility Problem earlier this year was a particular encouragement. It is excellent- a combination of theological […]