Imagine a wife saying to her husband, “There’s something about me that’s very dear to my heart and yet you don’t know, something that I’ve tried to tell you in the past but you just haven’t got it. It really matters to me and to our relationship that you understand this. But it isn’t the
Read moreSeveral times a year, the Bishop of Birmingham organizes a study morning for the clergy of the diocese. This week we heard two talks from Professor Nigel Biggar of Oxford University, one of them ‘A Christian View of Current Economic Issues.’ He spoke of ‘speaking truth to power’, for example when church leaders remind the
Read moreI have just finished Dear Friends, an inspiring collection of pastoral letters from Jonathan Fletcher to his congregation at Emmanuel Church Wimbledon (Jonathan spoke at our church weekend away in 2008). They are full of warm, pithy, biblically-rooted and pastorally-applied wisdom. In the letter for November 2011, he pays tribute to...
Read moreWhen we suffer, it’s a natural reaction to think that it’s not fair. We ask, Why me? Why didn’t I get the job? Why did I get this illness? Why have I been treated so badly? Why am I lumbered with this? Why do I have to suffer this? It’s not fair! We don’t know
Read moreIt must be one of the best-known verses in the Bible. You only have to make a negative judgment of something spiritual or moral for the quotation to be fired back, perhaps in the King James version: “Judge not, that ye be not judged.” That is indeed what Jesus says in Matthew 7:1. However, a
Read moreI am writing this at a safe distance from any serious risk of flooding, yet few of us can be unaware of the terrible time that so many in our country are going through, with homes flooded, businesses threatened and the fear that there may be worse yet to come. These last few weeks have
Read moreI’m very much enjoying a selection of Jonathan Fletcher’s pastoral letters to the congregation at Emmanuel Church Wimbledon. I shared with the Prayer Gathering this week a slightly adapted version of one called ‘How to come to God in prayer’, as he reflects on the Lord’s Prayer. It’s so good, it’s worth a wider audience:
Read moreHave you ever wondered what language Jesus spoke? It wasn’t English! It was a language called Aramaic. In fact, even in the original New Testament written in Greek, Jesus’ actual words in Aramaic are occasionally preserved for us. For example, in Mark 5:41, Jesus brings Jairus’ daughter back to life with the words “Talitha koum”.
Read moreI imagine that few of us have come close to dying of hunger or thirst. If anything, most of us have far too much available to eat and drink. It can, then, be difficult to identify with what Jesus means when he says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will
Read moreEvery year Time magazine, as part of its review of the year just ending, selects its Person of the Year. For 2013, their choice was Pope Francis. As their writer Nancy Gibbs explains, “In his nine months in office, he has placed himself at the very center of the central conversations of our time: about
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