thinking honestly about life and faith
Love: What does it mean to say that the Spirit produces love? That’s what I am thinking about. What is the nature of this love, and to whom is it directed? One of the most challenging thoughts is that the … Read More »
I’m doing some deliberate reflection on the classic idea of the ‘fruits of the Spirit’: love joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.I want to engage with each of them in turn, but just now I am thinking about … Read More »
I’ve just finished reading A J Jacob’s The Year of Living Biblically, (Heinemann, 2008). It’s a great read: Jacobs is a secular, agnostic Jew from New York, a writer, who decides that he would personally like to engage with the … Read More »
The newspapers are today reporting that the Roman Catholic Church has revised the classic list of ‘Seven Deadly Sins’, to include a few more. It’s worth thinking about: what are these deadly sins, and what makes them deadly? And what … Read More »
I wrote this reflection on St Valentine’s Day, thinking about the difficulty many Evangelical Christians have with the basic idea that we can enjoy life—even romantic love! I have a resistance to the kind of commercialization we see on St … Read More »
This week I have been at several retreats, one with the staff and another with students. A good time.I’ve also been working hard, especially internally, on a strong sense of new directions which has come to me, and which now … Read More »
All those ‘blessings’ at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5. 1 – 12 is the reading for today …) have always been a puzzle to me.I preached on this passage for the induction of a pastor, … Read More »
It’s a new year, and I’ve started back at work after an excellent break. Now, I have some positive and hopeful things to share on my blog. The new Australian government has announced that in just 13 days time, the … Read More »
It’s Christmas, and that for me is the celebration of a presence: the presence of God in the midst of ordinary life.This is the astonishing thought at the heart of the Christian faith.Life is not meaningless, valueless, or inconsequential.The world, … Read More »
Right now, in the Advent and Christmas seasons, there is a lot of talk about Christ being born: about God becoming a human person, appearing in human form and so on.Making some sense of the reality of this claim is … Read More »