Prayer
The experience of prayer is a struggle; and a mystery; and a joy… Prayer is simply (and profoundly) understood as the conversation of friends (but also much more!). What is your understanding (your paradigm) of prayer? These last months have been good for us to consider that question… and Richard Dawkins has kindly helped us […]
Chosen Aliens
As a foreigner in an overseas country I was given an identity card officially called an “Alien Card”! I didn’t get to the country by UFO, and though I love that country, I just didn’t belong. 1 Peter is written to such people, Christians, who don’t ‘belong’ to this world. Our citizenship is ultimately in […]
The Better
To be over simplified (to make a point), there is just two ways to read the Bible: 1) it’s about you; or 2) it’s about Jesus. The former will present you lots of problems–particularly when you are reading the Old Testament! Jesus however saw, from Moses, the Prophets, the Psalms, Scriptures concerning himself. On the […]
Marks Big Hope
As we start a new year, holidays are over, Christmas decorations are over and our thoughts turn to “what’s happening this year?” and then I quickly wonder–how different will the year be to last year? Sure it will be different in the sense that I’m older, technology will be different, the Crows will make the […]
Unwrapping Advent
Christmas… it’s getting close, and the period of advent is a count down of (only) four Sundays till December the 25th. Advent is often associated with four traditional themes–which so often are not associated with our lived experience of the Christmas festival… How can we then have…: Joy, Luke 2:1-20 (Dec 1) Love, John 3:1-21 […]
Gospel Paradox
Does light act as particles or waves? This question has confused those in the physics field for some time: the answer is both! In Christianity there are also issues in which the existence of two biblical truths seem a paradox. The purpose of this series is to look at some of them because these are […]
Re-calibrating Success
What is success? How does our culture define success and how has that then impacted the church Christians as individuals? And what does it mean for pastors? At the end of 2019, I’ll have been at Largs for six years, and in this time the issue of success has been vexing for me. This series […]
Transformation
A new year comes around and January the first is the possibly to unveil the new me. My new year resolutions allow me to be the new, the better and transformed me! It’s so hopeful! But it’s only after a day or so (or less) that the transformation I planned and resolved for, seems lost. […]
More… Wisdom for life
We return to the book of proverbs for “wisdom” on more topics we missed out on last year (see last years series here). After an introductory topic which shows us the right stance towards the book of proverbs, we consider some very practical, every day issues that proverbs seeks to train us in. The fool, […]
At one ment
What is “atonement”? This is an English word that was simply “made up” by William Tyndale when he translated the Christian scriptures into English. It’s beautiful how what Jesus has done has got into our everyday language! But what was Tyndale trying to express with this word? The New Testament is not constrained to only […]
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