Dear Friends, “I don’t understand how you can think you have a monopoly on the truth. How dare you claim that? It’s sheer arrogance!” Have you heard something like that? Maybe you’ve been accused in similar terms? The thought is that it is arrogant to be sure of what we believe, and even more arrogant
Read moreEvil in the corridors of power is nothing new. Wherever people exercise power over others you will find corruption, violence, greed. This week Donald Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, was convicted on a number of charges in a US court. Who knows what the enquiry into Russian meddling in the campaign will reveal! Men and
Read moreDear Friends, “We worship at your feet, where wrath and mercy meet”. Have you ever puzzled over these words from Graham Kendrick’s song Come and See? How is that possible, for wrath and mercy to meet? Aren’t they opposed to each other? Won’t one overcome the other, so that we are left with only wrath
Read moreDear Friends, I’ve never before been likened to Paul Scholes, the former Manchester United and England footballer who retired in 2011 only to come back a year later and play one more season because he missed it so much. Needless to say, any likeness has nothing to do with my footballing prowess, but simply that
Read moreDear Friends, “There is nothing that God hath established in a constant course of nature, and which therefore is done every day, but would seem a miracle, and exercise our imagination, if it were done but once” (John Donne). Imagine how excited you would be if you had never before seen a sunrise, or the
Read moreDear Friends, The question above isn’t a typo, as if I meant to write “Who am I?” One is a question of identity: Who am I? The other is a question of ownership: Whose am I? To whom do I belong? The question of identity is a hot one at the moment. To what extent
Read moreDear Friends, I loved the World Cup, admittedly watching more football than I should, and I’m sure I’m not the only one. I write from the viewpoint of an England fan, so I hope those from other countries will forgive me for a moment. How good it was to see England at last playing the
Read moreYou may feel that “dear friends” is a somewhat lame greeting. After all, we are used to addressing letters to “Dear So-and-so”, when that person may not be particularly dear to us, or may be hostile towards us, or may not even be known to us personally at all. “Dear Friends” is, however, a thoroughly
Read morePart of living in a fallen world, where we are all sinful, is that we suffer from the sins of other people (and they suffer from ours). What should we do when that happens? What should we do with other people’s sins? Here are three common responses: This is where we confess their sins to
Read moreLiving the Christian life can be summed up in the words of an old chorus: ‘trust and obey’. That becomes clearer when we hear what Paul Tripp says about Responsibility and Concern. Responsibility refers to those things that God has called me to do that I cannot pass on to anyone else (for example, my
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