Which of the following are your main ‘time robbers’?
…
(Alexander Smellie, “The Secret Place” 1907):-
I have many agitations and misgivings. But when heart and flesh faint and fail, my Lord has three whispers for me that banish fear and alarm.
“Fear not, for I have redeemed you!” Isaiah 43:1
My PAST brings me trouble . . .
the sins I have committed,
the duties I have neglected,
the guilt I am chargeable with,
the penalty I merit —
these make the retrospect of my days and years sad in the extreme.…
I was delighted by Jim Gordon’s New Year reflections, reproduced here in slightly abridged form.
New Creation
2 Corinthians 5.17 ‘If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; what is old has passed away—look, what is new has come!’
‘To be in Christ and know Christ in us, is the core experience of Christian faith. Paul calls it new creation; Jesus calls it being born again. It’s what God does.’
New Teaching
Acts 17:19 ‘They took Paul and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are proclaiming?”‘…
During the night of Saturday, 17th December 2022, my dear wife Sarah became seriously ill with what turned out to be ‘flu, pneumonia, and then general sepsis. She was taken by ambulance to the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, where she was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit. Gravely ill, she was sedated and put on a ventilator.
A few days later, I began sending out regular updates to her, and our, many friends.
What follows is a lightly edited compilation of these short bulletins. …
Brian Croft commends the value of periods of silence to pastors. However, what he writes is helpful for the rest of us too:
First, silence exposes the soul. A common defense mechanism is to use busyness and noise to avoid pain in our lives. It could be unresolved pain and abuse from the past, or it could be a current suffering. Regardless, noise and distraction can give the illusion it isn’t there, or that it has no power.…
1. Garrulous
‘The mouth of the fool gushes folly’ (Proverbs 15:2)
2. Reckless
‘A fool is hotheaded and reckless’ (Proverbs 14:16)
3. Gullible
‘A simple man believes anything’ (Proverbs 14:15)
4. Trouble-maker
He ‘deceives his neighbour and says, “I was only joking!”‘ (Proverbs 26:19)
5. Always right (in his own eyes)
‘A fool…delights in airing his own opinions.’ (Proverbs 18:2)
6. Unteachable
‘The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline’ (Proverbs 1:7)
7.…
The book of Proverbs has much to say about ‘the fool’ and his ways. The title does not belong to those of limited intelligence, but rather to those who choose and cultivate folly. Kidner: ‘the book has in mind a man’s chosen outlook, rather than his mental equipment.’ The fool returns to his folly as a dog returns to his own vomit (Prov 26:11).
In Proverbs, both wisdom (Prov 9:1-6) and folly (Prov 9:13-18) are personified as women inviting the young and impressionable to her banquet. …
Much has been written about the power of story, of narrative, to change attitudes and behaviours.
But I would like to put it to you, ladies and gentlemen, that humour can be just as powerful an agent for change. This is so with regard to topical satirical shows such as Have I Got News For You (BBC). And it is doubly so, of course, when humour is employed at part of (maybe the main part) of story-telling.…
Trevin Wax reports:-
In 1911, Holbrook Jackson, a disciple of Nietzsche, wrote a book called Platitudes in the Making. He sent a copy to G.K. Chesterton, who write, in a green pencil, a response to nearly all of Jackson’s pithy platitudes.
Here are some examples: with Jackson’s proposals in bold type, and Chesterton’s responses in italics:-
Questions – and the discussions they can stimulate – are the life-blood of small-group Bible study.
However, not all questions are equal, and some can actually bring a discussion to a full stop.
Melissa Kruger cautions against the following types of question:-
1. Captain obvious. While it can be helpful to prompt people to notice what’s actually there in the Bible text, some observation questions are simply inviting people to state the blindingly obvious. So, suggests Kruger:-
